The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1906-06-28

IL odAA " lHS OOllOul. SSlQOul ulu
they fail to bring up the coin in
their teeth.
The most beautiful features of
! Singapore are its suburbs. We
visited the botanical park, where
trees and other plants from every
:. tropical country in the world may
be seen; a person might spend
days studying them and walking
i'll the cool shade. The temperate
zones cannot produce gardens and
parks to equal these, where flowers
bloom, and trees and ground are
covered with green all the year;
it is always summer here. On
adjoining low hills are the resi-
dences of the English colonials and
the barracks of the English troops.
Long years of tropical colonial
ton has taught John Bull many
things. He does not live with the
natives in the low land of the
town, but he builds a house-it
may be mansion of stone or only
a bungalow of palm leaves and
wood-out On the nearby hills,
where he can breathe at night the
purest air that blows and avoid
same of the heat, where he can
have groves of shade trees and
grass covered lawns and flowers.
Here we saw pretty white children
playing, carefully watched by Chi
nese and Indian annals"
Few Americans have lived in
the tropics and most look upon
life there with horror instead of
the charm which it really has.
I remember well the dire pre-
dictions that my friends made
when, seven years ago, l volun-
teered to help carry the flag into
what was then an almost unknown
tropical county to us-the Philip
pines. It is true that we from
temperate climes who live in the
land of perpetual summer, ex-
change ruddy cheeks for pale ones
tinged with brown and that we
lose much of our northern energy
and some stength, perhaps, but
if we are careful of Our food and
drink, keep out of the hot midday
sunshine, take sufficient exercise,
live in dry airy houses and are
temperate in all things, then we
shall not be i'll more days in a
year than our friends in the home
land and shall probably live as
long. During more than five years
service in the Insular Bureau of
Education I have never been alb
sent from duty a whole day be-
cause of illness.
Few return to England and
America who do not hear the
East a-calling" and many answer
the call, content to live under
tropic skies where life is easier
than in the snow-bound countries
of the north. A white man of
some education and ability can
command salary here which will
allow him servants, carriages, ETC.,
which he probably could not af-
ford in his fatherland.
At Singapore we loaded several
tons of tin in bars from the mines
of the Malay peninsula; the tin ore
is mined, then smelted into bars
about a foot long, very much as
we make pig iron in the States;
these bars are then exported to the
factories of Europe. This port
is also famous for its pineapples;
we saw them coming in by the
cart load and boat load; we bought
some fine large ones for 5 cents,
U. S: money, each.
At six O'Clock p. III. we sailed
t)r Penang and arrived in the har-
Dor the following night. This is
comparatively a new city. 1t has
handsome public buildings, a good
wharf, water works, electric
lights, a street car line, and is
rapidly growing in Importance.
1t is the port for large part of
the opposite island of Sumatra,
and we took on several tons of the
famous leaf tobacco from there.