“But pray tell us who is to serve it,” laughingly responded one of our party.  “Are we to have monkeys or wild squirrels for caterers?  It must be one or the other, as I am sure I have been informed that neither of those islands are inhabited by human beings.”

“No man there, true, sahib,” was our Mussulman’s ready rejoinder.  “But I send small boat with two men to pull, and two cooks, with rice, fowls, and everything wanted for breakfast and dinner.  I believe they already at Pulo Nanas, cooking breakfast; the palanquins are also at the door; and so, if it be the sahibs’ pleasure, it is better to start before the sun gets very high.”

All this certainly promised well for us pleasure-seekers, and was no doubt quite as satisfactory an arrangement for our scheming comprador, who always took care to add to every charge a very liberal commission for his own valuable services.  We well knew that he was cheating us on a grand scale, but of what avail was such knowledge?  We should gain nothing by discharging one who had at least the merit of being good-looking, well-mannered and pleasant-speaking, only to engage another less civil and probably no more honest.  And in India all disbursements for personal and household expenses are made through these compradors or stewards—­not of necessity, but because it is the custom of the country, and in the East one never rebels against established usage.

Our preparations were soon made:  sketchbooks, drawing materials and covered baskets for specimens were transferred to the keeping of our faithful Mussulman, and we set out, anticipating a day of rare enjoyment.  We were fortunate in securing the company of Mr. M——­, the accomplished president of the Anglo-Chinese College, who had spent some thirty years in Singapore, and was well acquainted with its localities and objects of interest.  He was like a complete volume with illustrations on everything pertaining to the East, could answer all manner of unheard-of questions about things that everybody else had forgotten, and had always ready an appropriate anecdote or story just to the point.  His very dress was characteristic.  It consisted of loose trousers of gray linen, and an old-fashioned white hunting-coat with Quaker collar, and huge pockets that would have answered very well for the saddle-bags of an itinerant surgeon.  These were designed as receptacles for such stray “specimens” in botany, geology or conchology as he might chance to discover en route; while thrust into a smaller breast-pocket he carried a brace of huntsman’s pistols, with antique powder-horn and shot-pouch slung over the shoulder.  His hat was a Panama with low, round crown and a rim nearly as large as an ordinary umbrella.  A Chinese youth, an orphan adopted by Mr. M——­ years before, accompanied his patron in a full suit of yellow nankin made a la Chinoise, with broad-brimmed straw hat, long, braided queue, and the inevitable Chinese fan.  The rest of us donned our white linen “fatigue suits,” and leghorn hats of such vast dimensions as bade the wearers have no thought for umbrellas.  Thus equipped, we were ready for all sorts of emergencies—­climbing rocks, diving into jungles or wading through muddy creeks.