The areca-palm, known as the Penang-tree, is the source of the betel-nut, which is chewed by the natives as a stimulant; and as it abounds on the island, it has given it the name it bears. The town covers about a square mile, through which runs one broad, main street, intersected by lesser thoroughfares at right angles. A drive about the place gives us an idea that it is a thrifty town, but not nearly so populous as Singapore. It is also observable that the Chinese element predominates here. The main street is lined by shops kept by them. The front of the dwellings being open, gives the passer-by a full view of all that may be going on inside the household. Shrines are nearly always seen in some nook or corner, before which incense is burning, this shrine-room evidently being also the sleeping, eating, and living room. The islands of Penang and Singapore are free from malarial fevers, and probably no places on earth are better adapted to the wants of primitive man, for they produce spontaneously sufficient nutritious food to support life independent of personal exertion. The home of the Malay is not so clean as that of the ant or the birds; even the burrowing animals are neater. The native women are graceful and almost pretty, slight in figure, and passionately fond of ornaments, covering their arms and ankles with metallic rings, and thrusting silver and brass rings through their ears, noses, and lips.
The cocoanut-tree is always in bearing on the islands of the Straits, and requires no cultivation. Of the many liberal gifts bestowed upon the tropics, this tree is perhaps the most valuable. The Asiatic poet celebrates in verse the hundred uses to which the trunk, the branches, the leaves, the fruit, and the sap are applied. In Penang a certain number of these trees are not permitted to bear fruit. The embryo bud from which the blossoms and nuts would spring is tied up to prevent its expansion; a small incision then being made at the end, there oozes in gentle drops a pleasant liquor called toddy, which is the palm wine of the poet. This, when it is first drawn, is cooling and wholesome, but when it is fermented it produces a strong, intoxicating spirit. The banana is equally prolific and abundant, and forms a very large portion of the food of the common people. In the immediate neighborhood of the town are some plantations conducted by Europeans who live in neat cottages, with enclosures of cultivated flowers, and orchards of fruit-trees. Still further inland are large gardens of bread-fruit, nutmegs, cinnamon, pepper, and other spices. There are also large fields of sugar-cane, tobacco, and coffee. The delicate little sensitive plant here grows wild, and is equally tremulous and subsiding at the touch of human hands, as it is with us. Lilies are seen in wonderful variety, the stems covered with butterflies nearly as large as humming-birds.
Penang originally belonged to the Malay kingdom, but about the year 1786 it was given to an English sea-captain as a marriage-portion with the King of Keddah's daughter, and by him, in course of time, it was transferred to the East India Company. When Captain Francis Light received it with his dusky bride, it was the wild, uncultivated home of a few hundred fishermen. To-day it has a population of nearly a hundred thousand.
CHAPTER IV.
Our course now lies across the Indian Ocean, westward. The rains which we encounter are like floods, but the air is soft and balmy, and the deluges are of brief continuance. The nights are serene and bright, so that it is delightful to lie awake upon the deck of the steamer and watch the stars now and then screened by the fleecy clouds. In the daytime it is equally interesting to observe the ocean. Large sea-turtles come to the surface to sun themselves, stretching their awkward necks to get a sight of our hull; dolphins and flying-fish are too abundant to be a curiosity; big water-snakes raise their slimy heads a couple of feet above the sea; the tiny nautilus floats in myriads upon the undulating waves, and at times the ship is surrounded by a shoal of the indolent jelly-fish. Mirage plays us strange tricks in the way of optical delusion in these regions. We seem to be approaching land which we never reach, but which at the moment when we should fairly make it, fades into thin air.
Though the ocean covers more than three-quarters of the globe, but few of us realize that it represents more of life than does the land. We are indebted to it for every drop of water distributed over our hills, plains, and valleys; for from the ocean it has arisen by evaporation to return again through myriads of channels. It is really a misnomer to speak of the sea as a desert waste; it is teeming with inexhaustible animal and vegetable life. A German scientist has with unwearied industry secured and classified over nine hundred species of fishes from this division of the Indian Ocean over which our course takes us. Many of these are characterized by colors as dazzling and various as those of gaudy-plumed tropical birds and flowers.
Our next objective point is Colombo, the capital of Ceylon, situated about thirteen hundred miles from the mouth of the Malacca Straits. Here we find several large steamships in the harbor, stopping briefly on their way to or from China, India, or Australia; and no sooner do we come to anchor than we are surrounded by the canoes of the natives. They are of very peculiar construction, being designed to enable the occupants to venture out, however rough the water may chance to be, and the surf is always raging in these open roadsteads. The canoes consist of the trunk of a tree hollowed out, some twenty feet in length, having long planks fastened lengthwise so as to form the sides or gunwales of the boat, which is a couple of feet deep and about as wide. An outrigger, consisting of a log of wood about one-third as long as the canoe, is fastened alongside at a distance of six or eight feet, by means of two arched poles of well-seasoned bamboo. This outrigger prevents any possibility of upsetting the boat, but without it so narrow a craft could not remain upright, even in a calm sea. The natives face any weather in these little vessels.
It will be remembered that to this island England banished Arabi Pacha after the sanguinary battlefield of Tel-el-Keber. It is one of the most interesting spots in the East, having been in its prime centuries before the birth of Christ. It was perhaps the Ophir of the Hebrews, and it still abounds in precious stones and mineral wealth. Here we observe the native women strangely decked with cheap jewelry thrust through the tops and lobes of their ears, in their lips and nostrils, while about their necks hang ornaments consisting of bright sea-shells, mingled with sharks' teeth. If we go into the jungle, we find plenty of ebony, satin-wood, bamboo, fragrant balsam, and india-rubber trees; we see the shady pools covered with the lotus of fable and poetry, resembling huge pond-lilies; we behold brilliant flowers growing in tall trees, and others, very sweet and lowly, blooming beneath our feet. Vivid colors flash before our eyes, caused by the blue, yellow, and scarlet plumage of the feathered tribe. Parrots and paroquets are seen in hundreds. Storks, ibises, and herons fly lazily over the lagoons, and the gorgeous peacock is seen in his wild condition. The elephant is also a native here, and occasionally hunts are organized upon a grand scale and at great expense by English sportsmen who come here for the purpose, and who pay a heavy fee for a license.
Ceylon lies just off the southern point of India; and though it is a British colony, its government is quite distinct from that of the mainland. It forms a station for a large number of troops, and is about three times the size of Massachusetts.
Many of the native women are employed by the large number of English families resident here, especially by officers' wives, as nurses. These last seem to form a class by themselves, and they dress in the most peculiar manner, as we see the children's nurses dressed in Rome, Paris, and Madrid. The Singhalese nurses wear a single white linen garment covering the body to the knees, very low in the neck, with a blue cut-away velvet jacket covered with silver braid and buttons and open in front, a scarlet silk sash gathering the under-garment at the waist. The legs and feet are bare, the ankles covered with bangles, or ornamental rings, and the ears heavily weighed down and deformed with rings of silver and gold.
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