This Room And Its Veranda Are Like The
Fore Cabin Of A Great Clyde Steamer.
It has a red screen standing
partly across it, the back part being used for eating, and the front
for sitting and occupation.
My bedroom and sitting-room, and the room
in which Sultan Abdullah's boys sleep are on one side, and Mr.
Maxwell's room and office on the other. Underneath are bath-rooms, and
guard-rooms for the Sikh sentries. There are no ornaments or
superfluities. There are two simple meals daily, with tea and bananas
at 7 A.M., and afternoon tea at 5 P.M. Mr. Maxwell is most abstemious,
and is energetically at work from an early hour in the morning. There
is a perpetual coming and going of Malays, and an air of business
without fuss. There is a Chinese "housemaid," who found a snake, four
feet long, coiled up under my down quilt yesterday, and a Malay butler,
but I have not seen any other domestic.
Those boys of Sultan Abdullah's are the most amusing children I ever
saw. They are nine and twelve years old, with monkey-like,
irrepressible faces. They have no ballast. They talk ceaselessly, and
are very playful and witty, but though a large sum is being paid for
their education at Malacca, they speak atrocious "pidjun," and never
use Malayan, in my hearing at least. They are never still for one
instant; they chatter, read snatches from books, ask questions about
everything, but are too volatile to care for the answers, turn
somersaults, lean over my shoulders as I write, bring me puzzles, and
shriek and turn head over heels when I can't find them out, and jump on
Mr. Maxwell's shoulders begging for dollars.
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