St. Andrew's Cathedral - Singapore Harbor Scenes - Chinese
Preponderance - First Impressions of Malacca - A Town "Out of the
Running"
S.S. "RAINBOW," MALACCA ROADS, January 20.
Yesterday I attended morning service in St. Andrew's, a fine colonial
cathedral, prettily situated on a broad grass lawn among clumps of
trees near the sea. There is some stained glass in the apse, but in the
other windows, including those in the clerestory, Venetian shutters
take the place of glass, as in all the European houses. There are
thirty-two punkahs, and the Indians who worked them, anyone of whom
might have been the model of the Mercury of the Naples Museum, sat or
squatted outside the church. The service was simple and the music very
good, but in the Te Deum, just as the verse "Thou art the King of
Glory, O Christ," I caught sight of the bronze faces of these "punkah-
wallahs," mostly bigoted Mussulmen, and was overwhelmed by the
realization of the small progress which Christianity has made upon the
earth in nineteen centuries. A Singhalese D.D. preached an able sermon.
Just before the communion we were called out, as the Rainbow was about
to sail, and a harbor boat, manned by six splendid Klings, put us on
board.
The Rainbow is a very small vessel, her captain half Portuguese and
half Malay, her crew Chinese, and her cabin passengers were all Chinese
merchants. Her engineer is a Welshman, a kindly soul, who assured Mr.
- - , when he commended me to his care, that "he was a family man, and
that nothing gave him greater pleasure than seeing that ladies were
comfortable," and I owe to his good offices the very small modicum of
comfort that I had. Waiting on the little bridge was far from being
wearisome, there was such a fascination in watching the costumed and
manifold life of the harbor, the black-hulled, sullen-looking steamers
from Europe discharging cargo into lighters, Malay prahus of all sizes
but one form, sharp at both ends, and with eyes on their bows, like the
Cantonese and Cochin China boats, reeling as though they would upset
under large mat sails, and rowing-boats rowed by handsome, statuesque
Klings. A steamer from Jeddah was discharging six hundred pilgrims in
most picturesque costumes; and there were boats with men in crimson
turbans and graceful robes of pure white muslin, and others a mass of
blue umbrellas, while some contained Brahmins with the mark of caste
set conspicuously on their foreheads, all moving in a veil of gold in
the setting of a heavy fringe of cocoa-palms.
We sailed at four, with a strong favorable breeze, and the sea was
really delightful as we passed among green islets clothed down to the
water's edge with dense tropical vegetation, right out into the open
water of the Straits of Malacca, a burning, waveless sea, into which
the sun was descending in mingled flame and blood.
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