In the Straits of Malacca
Two hours’ steam south from Singapore, out into the famous Straits of Malacca,
or one day’s steam north from the equator, stands Raffles’s Lighthouse. Sir
Stamford Raffles, the man from whom it took its name, rests in Westminster
Abbey, and a heroic-sized bronze statue of him graces the centre of the beautiful
ocean esplanade of Singapore, the city he founded.
It was on the rocky island on which stands this light, that we—the mistress and I
—played Robinson Crusoe, or, to be nearer the truth, Swiss Family Robinson.
It was hard to imagine, I confess, that the beautiful steam launch that brought us
was a wreck; that our half-dozen Chinese servants were members of the family;
that the ton of impedimenta was the flotsam of the sea; that the Eurasian keeper
and his attendants were cannibals; but we closed our eyes to all disturbing
elements, and only remembered that we were alone on a sunlit rock in the midst
of a sunlit sea, and that the dreams of our childhood were, to some extent,
realized.
What live American boy has not had the desire, possibly but half-admitted, to
some day be like his hero, dear old Crusoe, on a tropical island, monarch of all,
hampered by no dictates of society or fashion? I admit my desire, and, further,
that it did not leave me as I grew older.
We had just time to inspect our little island home before the sun went down, far
out in the Indian Ocean.
Originally the island had been but a barren, uneven rock, the resting-place for
gulls; but now its summit has been made flat by a coating of concrete. There is
just enough earth between the concrete and the rocky edges of the island to
support a circle of cocoanut trees, a great almond tree, and a queer-looking