Fussy
Little Brown Beetles, As Big As Two Lady-Birds, Keep Flying Into My
Eyes, And The Musquitoes Are Rejoicing Loudly In The Prospect Of A
Feast.
You will understand by this that both windows are wide open
into the great verandah, - very unusual in this land of cold nights.
April 4th. - I have been trying in vain to get a passage home. The
Camperdown has not come. In short, I am waiting for a chance
vessel, and shall pack up now and be ready to go on board at a
day's notice.
I went on the last evening of Ramadan to the Mosque, having heard
there was a grand 'function'; but there were only little boys lying
about on the floor, some on their stomachs, some on their backs,
higgledy-piggledy (if it be not profane to apply the phrase to
young Islam), all shouting their prayers a tue tete. Priests, men,
women, and English crowded in and out in the exterior division.
The English behaved a l'Anglaise - pushed each other, laughed,
sneered, and made a disgusting display of themselves. I asked a
stately priest, in a red turban, to explain the affair to me, and
in a few minutes found myself supplied by one Mollah with a chair,
and by another with a cup of tea - was, in short, in the midst of a
Malay soiree. They spoke English very little, but made up for it
by their usual good breeding and intelligence. On Monday, I am
going to see the school which the priest keeps at his house, and to
'honour his house by my presence'.
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