unconscious of the eddying throng about. These chitties are fully six feet tall,
with closely shaven heads and nude bodies. Their dress of a few yards of gauze
wound about their waists, and red sandals, would not lead one to think that they
handle more money than any other class of people in the East. They borrow from
the great English banks without security save that of their caste name, and lend
to the Eurasian clerks just behind them at twelve per cent a month. If a chitty
fails, he is driven out of the caste and becomes a pariah. The caste make up his
losses.
Dyaks from Borneo idle by. Parsee merchants in their tall, conical hats, Chinese
rickshaw runners and cart coolies, Tamil road-menders, Bugis, Achinese,
Siamese, Japanese, Madras serving-men, negro firemen, Lascar sailors, throng
the little square,—the agora of the commercial life of the city.
Such is Singapore, embracing all the races of Asia and Europe. Is it any wonder
that the American boy is bewildered, standing there under the great banian tree
with a Malay in sarong and kris by his side, singing with his syrah-stained lips
the glorious promises of the Koran?
Look on the map of Asia for the southernmost point of the continent, and you
will find it at the tip of the Malay Peninsula,—a giant finger that points down
into the heart of the greatest archipelago in the world. At the very end of this
peninsula, like a sort of cut-off joint of the finger, is the little island of
Singapore, which is not over twenty-five miles from east to west, and does not
exceed fifteen miles in width at its broadest point.
The famous old Straits of Malacca, which were once the haunts of the fierce
Malayan pirates, separate the island from the mainland and the Sultanate of
Johore.
The shipping that once worked its way through these narrow straits, in
momentary fear that its mangrove-bound shores held a long, swift pirate prau,
now goes further south and into the island-guarded harbor before Singapore.
Nothing can be more beautiful than the sea approach to Singapore. As you enter
the Straits, the emerald-green of a bevy of little islands obstructs the vision, and