clothes as slowly as they could � men of four races in attendance before i was up in the morning this chinese attendant besides being a common in a brown cotton shirt over a brown cotton pair of trousers is not a good specimen of his class and is a great nuisance to me my doors do not bolt properly and he appears in the morning while i am in my writing and slowly makes the bed and then takes one gown after another from the rail and at me till i point to the one i am going to wear which he holds out in his hands and though i point to the door and say go with much emphasis i never get rid of him and have to glide from my into my gown with a most unwilling dexterity two days ago captain declared that pluck should have its reward and that i should have for going to yesterday he asked me to take charge of his two daughters then x projects of travel said if young ladies go me go and we are to travel under the efficient protection of mr the of police this expedition great interest in the little world this native state is regarded as parts unknown the governor has never visited it and there are not wanting those who shake their heads and wonder that he should trust his girls in a region of rogue and savages the little steam in reality by far the greatest risk of all has been brought into the stream below the ready for an early start to morrow and a has been sent to the to prepare him for such an unusual into his i l b the golden a chapter on i had never heard of this little state until i reached and probably many people are as ignorant as i was the whole from in the south to in the north is a puzzle what with british colonies and province and protected states and p north south and east of which lie a of states with their independent rulers such as n etc in several of these states more or less owing to the and of the and their followers and a similar state of things in the three protected states formerly gave great annoyance to the straits government and was regarded as a to the dominant interests of british trade in the straits in sir a the then governor acting in british interests placed british in and the small state of these were to advise the rulers in matters of and general administration but it may be believed that as time has passed they have become more or less the actual rulers a number of small states are united into a sort of known as the or nine states their relative positions and internal management as well as their boundaries remain unknown as from dread of british they have refused to allow to pass through their territory of the states which they profess to advise merely they are the agents of england to the straits government which in its turn reports to the ofl ce and the amount of pressure which they can bring to bear is overwhelming it is not easy to give the extent and boundaries of the boundary question being scarcely settled and the territory to the eastward being only partially it is mainly an inland state access to its very limited being by the river the protected state of bounds it on the north and joining on to it and to each other on the east are the small independent states of and the river which in its lower part forms the boundary between and forks in its upper part the right branch becoming for some distance the boundary between and it is doubtful whether the area of the state seven hundred square miles the of and several of the adjacent states are supposed to be tolerably directly descended from those of the parent empire in who conquered and have to a great extent the tribes known as etc the of which live mainly in the of the interior are everywhere apart from the and are of a much lower grade in the scale of the story current among the best informed of this region is that a chief with a large crossed to in the twelfth century and went into the interior which he found inhabited only by the or tree people there his followers married women and their descendants spread over the golden and other parts the or sea people the supposed of the and the or forest people themselves to the woods and the hills this mixed race rapidly increasing divided into nine petty states under chiefs who rendered service to the of before its conquest by the and afterwards to the of at whose court they presented themselves once a year this the in the and centuries made various commercial with the dutch but its domestic were in a state of and four of the states late in the century becoming disgusted with the arbitrary proceedings of a ruler who aided by dutch influence had gained the over the whole nine sent to the original source of government for a prince of the blood royal of and after a prolonged conflict this prince became sovereign of the little states of and the chiefs of these states his council of state this came to an end in and and discord prevailed for many years till the of troubled by a hostile neighbour in and a hostile subject or rival at home conceived the bright idea of supporting his somewhat throne by british protection after some curious he succeeded in obtaining both a resident and the english flag to protect his little fortunes but it is obvious that his calling in foreign was not likely to make him popular with his independent neighbours or subjects and the troubles 