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As the bullock-cart that has blocked our way, and at the same time inspired this description, shambles along down the shady road, and out of the reach of the syce’s arms, the driver slips quietly up the pole of the cart until a hand rests on either hump, and commences to talk in a half-aggrieved, half-caressing tone to his team. Our syce translates. “He say bullock very bad to go to sleep before the palanquin of the Heaven-Born. If they no be better soon, their souls will no become men. He say he sorry that they make the great American sahib angry.”

The singular trio passes on, the driver praising and reprimanding by turns in the soft, musical tongue of his people, the historic beasts swinging lazily along, regardless of their illustrious past, all unconscious of the fact that their names are embalmed in sacred writ and Indian legend, and rounding a corner of the broad, red road, are lost to view amid the olive-green shadows of a clump of gently swaying bamboo. To me, for the moment, they seem to disappear, like phantoms, into the mists of the dim centuries, from out of which my imagination has called them forth.

Soon you are at the wide-open gates of the Botanic Garden. A perfect riot of strange tropical foliage bursts upon the view. The clean, red road winds about and among avenues of palms, waringhans, dark green mangosteens, casuarinas, and the sweet-smelling hibiscus, all alike covered with a hundred different parasitic vines and ferns. Artificial lakes and moats are filled with the giant pods of the superb Victoria regia, and the flesh-colored cups of the lotus.

In the translucent green twilight of the flower-houses a hundred varieties of the costly orchids thrive–not costly here. A shipload can be bought of the natives for three cents apiece.

Walks carry you out into the dim aisles of the native jungle. Monkeys, surprised at your footsteps, spring from limb to limb, and swing, chattering, out of sight in a mass of rubber-vines. Splendid macadamized roads, that are kept in perfect repair by a force of naked Hindus and an iron roller drawn by six unwilling, hump-backed bullocks, spread out over the island in every direction. Leave one at any point outside the town, and plunge into the bordering jungle, and you are liable to meet a tiger or a herd of wild boar. The tigers swim across the straits from the mainland, and occasionally strike down a Chinaman. It is said that if a Chinaman, a Malay, and a European are passing side by side through a field, the tiger will pick out the Chinaman to the exclusion of the other two.

Acres upon acres of pineapples stretch away on either hand, while patches of bananas and farms of coffee are interspersed with spice trees and sago swamps.

This road system is the secret of the development of the agriculture, and one of the secrets of the rapid growth of the great English colonies. Were it not for the great black python, that lies sleeping in the road in front of you, or the green iguana that hangs in a timboso tree over your head, or a naked runner pulling a rickshaw, you might think you were travelling the wide asphaltum streets of Washington.

The home of the European in Singapore is peculiar to the country. The parks about their great bungalows are small copies of the Botanic Gardens–filled with all that is beautiful in the flora of the East. From five to twenty servants alone are kept to look after its walks and hedges and lawns.

A bungalow proper may consist of but a half-dozen rooms, and yet look like a vast manor house. It is the generous sweep of the verandas running completely around the house that lends this impression. Behind its bamboo chicks you retire on your return from the office. The Chinese “boy” takes your pipe-clayed shoes and cork helmet, and brings a pair of heelless grass slippers. If a friend drop in, you never think of inviting him into your richly furnished drawing-room, but motion him to a long rattan chair, call “Boy, bring the master a cup of tea,” and pass a box of Manila cigars.