the prison of the Naam-Hoi magistrate at Canton, and I felt a little satisfaction in the contrast. hill, and an enclosure of attap screens with a barrel in it. Under the house is the bathroom. The edge of the hill, from which a few trees have been cleared, is so steep that but for a bamboo rail one might slip over upon the tree-tops below. Some Liberian coffee shrubs, some tea, cinchona, and ipecacuanha, and some heartless English cabbages, are being attempted on the hillside, and the resident hopes that the State will have a great future of coffee. The view in all directions was beautiful: to the north a sea of densely wooded mountains with indigo shadows in their hollows; to the south the country we had threaded on the Linggi River, forests, and small tapioca clearings, little valleys where rice is growing, and scars where tin-min The same afternoon we all made a very pleasant expedition to the Sanatorium, a cabin which the resident has built on a hill three miles from here. A chair with four Chinese bearers carried Miss Shaw up, her sister and the two gentlemen walked, and I rode a Sumatra pony on an Australian stockman's saddle not only up the steep jungle-path, but up a staircase of two hundred steps in which it terminates, the sagacious animal going up quite cunningly. One charm of a tropical jungle is that every few yards you come upon something new, and every hundred feet of ascent makes a decided difference in the vegetation. This is a very grand forest, with its straight, smoothing is going on; the capital, the little stems running up over one hundred feet town of Serambang, with its larger clearbefore branching, and the branches are ings, and to the west the gleam of the loaded with orchids and trailers. One shining sea. In the absence of moscannot see what the foliage is like which quitos we were able to sit out till after is borne far aloft into the summer sun- dark, a rare luxury. There was a gorshine, but on the ground I found great geous sunset of the gory, furnace kind, red trumpet-flowers, and crimson corol- which one only sees in the tropics las, like those of a Brobdingnagian honey-waves of violet light rolling up over the suckle, and flowers like red dragon-fries mainland, and the low Sumatran coast enormously magnified, and others like looking like a purple cloud amidst the fiery large, single roses in yellow wax, falling slowly down now and then, messengers from the floral glories above, "wasting (?) their sweetness on the desert air." A traveller through a tropical jungle may see very few flowers and be inclined to disparage it. It is necessary to go on adjacent rising ground and look down where trees and trailers are exhibiting their gorgeousness. Unlike the coarse weeds which form so much of the undergrowth in Japan, everything which grows in these forests rejoices the eye by its form or color; but things which hurt and sting and may kill lurk amidst all the beauties. A creeping plant with very beautiful, waxy leaves, said by Captain Murray to be vanilla, grows up many of the trees. When we got up to the top of this, which the resident calls "Plantation Hill," I was well pleased to find that only the undergrowth had been cleared away, and that the Sanatorium consists only of a cabin with a single room divided into two, and elevated on posts like a Malay house. The deep verandah which surrounds it is reached by a step-ladder. A smaller house could hardly be, or a more picturesque one, from the steepness and irregularity of its roof. The cook-house is a small attap shed in a place cut into the haze. Dinner was well cooked and served with coffee after it, just as at home. The primi tive bathroom was made usable by our eleven servants and chairbearers being sent to the hill, where the two gentlemen mounted guard over them. After dark the Chinamen made the largest bonfire I ever saw, or at all events the most brilliant, with trunks of trees and pieces of gum damar several pounds in weight, which they obtained by digging, and this was kept up till daylight, throwing its splendid glare over the whole hilltop, lighting up the forest and bringing the cabin out in all its picturesqueness. When it grew dark, tiny lamps began to move in all directions. Some came from on high, like falling stars, but most moved among the trees a few feet from the ground with a slow undulatory motion, the fire having a pale blue tinge, as one imagines an incandescent sapphire might have. The great tree-crickets kept up for a time the most ludicrous sound I ever heard-one sitting in a tree and calling to another. From the deafening noise which at times drowned our voices, one would suppose the creature making it to be at least as large as an eagle. The accommodation of the Sanatorium is most limited. The two gentle men, well armed, slept in the verandah, | he continues to be much burdened by his the two Miss Shaws in camp beds in the responsibility for these fair girls, who, inner cabin, and I in a swinging cot in the however, are enjoying themselves thor outer, the table being removed to make oughly, and will be none the worse. room for it. The bulldog mounted guard over all, and showed his vigilance by an occasional growl. The eleven attendants stowed themselves away under the cabin, except a garrulous couple, who kept the fire blazing till daylight. My cot was most comfortable, but I failed to sleep. The forest was full of quaint, busy noises, broken in upon occasionally by the hoot of the spectre bird," and the long, low, plaintive cry of some animal. He had scarcely returned, when a large company of Chinamen carrying bannerets and joss-sticks came to the residency to give a spectacle or miracle-play, the first part consisting of a representation of a huge dragon, which kicked, and jumped, and crawled, and bellowed in a manner totally unworthy of that ancient and splendid myth; and the second, of a fierce mêlée or succession of combats with spears, shields, and battle-axes. The performances were accompanied by much drumming, and by the beating of tomtoms, not help associating with the orgies of devil-worship. The Capitan China, in a beautiful costume, sat with us in the verandah to see the performance. All the white residents in the Malacca settlements have been greatly excited about a tragedy which has just occurred an essentially infernal noise, which I canat the Dindings, off this coast, in which Mr. Lloyd, the British official, was horribly murdered by the Chinese, his wife, and Mrs. Innes, who was on a visit to her, narrowly escaping the same fate. Lying awake, I could not help thinking of this, and of the ease with which the resident could be overpowered and murdered by any of our followers who might have a grudge against him, when, as I thought, the door behind my head from the back ladder was burst open, and my cot and I came down on the floor at the head, the simple fact being that the rope, not having been perfectly secured, gave way with a run. An hour afterwards the foot-ropes gave way, and I was deposited on the floor altogether, and was soon covered with small ants. Early in the morning the apes began to call to each other with a plaintive "Hoohouey," and in the grey dawn I saw an iguana fully four feet long glide silently down the trunk of a tree, the branches of which were loaded with epiphytes. Captain Shaw asked the imaum of one of the mosques of Malacca about alligator's eggs a few days ago, and his reply was that the young that went down to the sea became alligators, and those which came up the rivers became iguanas. At daylight, after coffee and bananas, we left the hill, and after an accident, promptly remedied by Mr. Hayward, reached Serambang when the sun was high in the heavens. should think that there are very few circumstances which Mr. Hayward is not prepared to meet. He has a reserve of quiet strength which I should like to see fully drawn upon. He has the scar of a spear-wound on his brow, which Captain Murray says was received in holding sixty armed men at bay while he secured the retreat of some helpless persons. Yet I I have written a great deal about the Chinese and very little about the Malays, the nominal possessors of the country, but the Chinese may be said to be everywhere, and the Malays nowhere. You have to look for them if you want to see them. Besides, the Chinese are as twelve to two of the whole population. Still the laws are administered in the name of the Datu Klana, the Malay ruler. The land owned by Malays is being measured, and printed title-deeds are being given, a payment of two shillings an acre per annum being levied instead of any taxes on produce. Export duties are levied on certain articles, but the navigation of the rivers is free. Debt-slavery, one curse of the Malay States, has been abolished by the energy of Captain Murray with the cordial co-operation of the Datu Klana, and now the whole population have the status and rights of free men. It is a great pity that this prince is in Malacca, for he is said to be a very enlightened ruler. The photograph which I enclose is of the marriage of his daughter, a very splendid affair. The buffalo in front was a marriage present from the Straits government, and its covering is of cloth of gold thick with pearls and precious stones. We visited yesterday a Malay kampong called Mambu, in order to pay an unceremonious visit to the Datu Bandar, the rajah second in rank to the reigning prince. His house, with three others, a go-down on very high stilts, and a mound of groves, whitened by the petals of the frangipani, with a great many coco-nut and other trees, was surrounded, as Malay dwellings often are, by a high fence, within which was another enclosing a neat sanded level, under coco palms, on which his "private residence" and those of his wives stand. His secretary, a nice-looking lad in red turban, baju, and sarong, came out to meet us, followed by the Datu Bandar, a pleasant, able-looking man, with a cordial manner, who shook hands and welcomed us. No notice had been given of our visit, and the rajah, who is reclaiming and bringing into good cultivation much of his land, and who sets the example of working with his own hands, was in a checked shirt, and a common, checked, red sarong. Vulgarity is surely a disease of the West alone, though, as in Japan, one sees that it can be contagious, and this Oriental, far from apologizing for his déshabille, led us up the steep and difficult ladder by which his house is entered with as much courteous ease as if he had been in his splendors. it was distinctively Malay; one could not say that it reminded one of anything except of the flecked and colored light which streams through rich old stained glass. The Datu Bandar's brother and uncle came in, the first a very handsome hadji, with a bright, intelligent countenance. He has lived in Mecca for eight years, studying the Koran under a renowned teacher, and in this quest of Mussulman learning has spent several thousand dollars. "We never go to Mecca to trade,” he said; "we go for religious purposes only." These men looked superb in their red dresses and turbans, although the Malays are anything but a handsome race. Their hospitality was very graceful. Many of the wealthier Mohammedans, though they do not drink wine, keep it for their Christian guests, and they offered us champagne, which seems supposed to be an irresistible temptation to the Christian palate. On our refusing it they I thoroughly like his house; it is both brought us cow's milk and most delicious fitting and tasteful. We stepped from the coffee, with a very fragrant aroma, and ladder into a long corridor, well-matted, not darker in color than tea of an average which led to a doorway with a gold-em- strength. This was made from roasted broidered silk valance, and a looped-up coffee leaves; the berries are exported. portière of white-flowered silk or crêpe. A good many pretty, quiet children stood This was the entrance to a small room, about, but, though the rajah gave us to very well proportioned, with two similar understand that they were the offspring of doorways, curtained with flowered silk, three mothers, we were not supposed to one leading to a room which we did not see any of "the mean ones within the see, and the other to a bamboo gridiron gates." Our hosts had a good deal to platform, which, in the better class of say, and did not leave us to entertain Malay houses, always leads to a smaller them, though we are but "infidel dogs." house at the back, where cooking and That we are regarded as such along with other domestic operations are carried on, other unbelievers, always makes me feel and which seems given up to the women. shy with Mohammedans. Some time ago, There was a rich, dim light in the room, when Captain Shaw pressed on the Mawhich was cool, and wainscoted entirely lays the impropriety of shooting Chinawith dark-red wood, and there was only men, as they were then in the habit of one long, low window, with turned bars of doing, the reply of one of them was, the same wood. There were three hand-"Why not shoot Chinamen? they've no some cabinets, with hangings of gold and religion;" and though it would be highly crimson embroidery, and an ebony frame containing a verse of the Koran in Arabic characters hung over one doorway. In accordance with Mohammedan prohibitions, there was no decoration which bore the likeness of any created thing, but there were some artistic arabesques under the roof. The furniture, besides the cabinets, consisted of a divan, several ebony chairs, a round table covered with a cool yellow cloth, and a table against the wall draped with crimson silk flowered with gold. The floor was covered with fine matting, over which were Oudh rugs, in those mixtures of toned-down rich colors which are so very beautiful. Richness and harmony characterized the room, and discourteous in members of a ruled race to utter this sentiment regarding their rulers, I have not the least doubt that it is their profound conviction concerning ourselves. We returned after dark, had turtle-soup and turtle-steak, not near so good as veal, which it much resembles, for dinner, sang "Auld Lang Syne," which brought tears into the resident's kindly eyes, and are now ready for an early start to-morrow. Stadthaus, Malacca. - We left Serambang before daylight on Thursday in buggies, escorted by Captain Murray, the buggies, as usual, being lent by the Chi nese Capitans. Horses had been sent on before, and after changing them we drove the second stage through most | he never lost, in spite of the wide dif magnificent forest, until they could no erences between his earlier and later longer drag the buggies through the mud, points of view. His absorbing passion at which point of discomfiture three saddled horses and two chairs were waiting to take us through the jungle to the river. We rode along an infamous track, much of it knee-deep in mud, through a green and silent twilight, till we emerged upon something like English park and fox-cover scenery, varied by Malay kampongs under groves of palms. In the full blaze of noon we reached the Linggi police-station, from which we had started in the sampan, and were received by a company of police with fixed bayonets. We dined in the police-station verandah, and as the launch had been obliged to drop down the river because the water was falling, we went to the sampan in a native boat, paddled by four Malays with paddles like oval-ended spades with spadebandles, a guard of honor of policemen going down with us. There we took leave of our most kind and worthy host, who with tears in his kind eyes, immediately turned up the river to dwell alone in his bungalow with his bulldog, his revolver, and his rifle, a self-exiled man. After it grew dark we had the splendid sight of a great tract of forest on fire close to the sea. We landed here at a pier eight hundred feet long, accessible to launches at high water, where several peons and two inspectors of police met us. Our expedition had been the talk of the little foreign world of Malacca. We had an enthusiastic welcome at Government House, but Captain Shaw says he will never forgive himself for not writing to Captain Murray in time to arrange our transport, and for sending us off so hurriedly with so little food, but I hope by reiteration to convince him that thereby we gained the night on the Linggi River, which, as a travelling experience, is worth all the rest. From The Athenæum. for reading and his power of reading fast MR. JOHN RICHARD GREEN. It is with deep regret that we announce the death of Mr. John Richard Green, the historian, at the early age of forty-tions for this new step Stanley gave him five. help and counsel, recommending him when he left Oxford to the good offices of Tait, then Bishop of London, and smoothing over for him some of the difficulties which for most sensitive minds are inseparable from the conditions of English Mr. Green was an Oxford boy, and was educated at Magdalen College School. His childhood was passed, both at home and at school, under strong High Church influences, some of the traces of which The "Short History" was written and rewritten, corrected and cancelled and revised, till it seemed as if the process would never have an end; but the publishers, Messrs. Macmillan, were patient and encouraging, and in the midst of a constant struggle with ill health, which in 1870 began to oblige him to spend his winters abroad, his task went steadily forward. At last in 1874 the book was ready. On the eve of its publication Mr. Green was much depressed by one or two friendly but discouraging estimates of it in proof from people whose opinion he respected, which reached him through his publishers. "Never mind," one of his best friends said to him; “it mayn't be a success this time, but you are sure to succeed some day." A month from that time the "Short History of England was acknowledged to be one of the great literary successes of this generation. It was selling with extraordinary rapidity, at the rate of hundreds a week, and, better than that, it was attracting the eager notice of that class of readers all over the country men distinguished in letters and affairs which it is the dearest wish of a writer to influence. The success of the book might be said to be assured before the reviews came out, but they helped and spread the chorus of praise. "Mr. Green's Short History,'" said Mr. Samuel Gardiner in a memorable article, "is the one general history of the country for which, if young and old are wise, all others will be speedily and surely thrown aside." The words expressed a widespread feeling, and Mr. Green found himself at once in the full tide of fame and popularity, invited and courted by public men, and with the ball of literature, so to speak, at his feet. It was a great change from the lonely despondency of the previous months, and it was delightful to his friends to see his whole nature expand under its influence. orders. In 1860, after his ordination, he | which he always showed surprising readibecame curate to the Rev. Henry Ward, ness and facility. of St. Barnabas's, King Square. St. Barnabas's is a large and very poor parish, inhabited mainly by watchmakers. Mr. Green threw himself into the work, finding brightness and relaxation in the family of his vicar, to whose children he was the most delightful, the most inventive, the most long-suffering friend that children ever had. From St. Barnabas's Bishop Tait appointed him to a sole charge at Hoxton in 1862, and very shortly afterwards he became vicar of St. Philip's, Stepney. Few of those friends who only knew him in his invalid years could realize what he was as an East-end vicar. He was indeed an admirable parish clergyman, and fully as ingenious and energetic in his management of clothing-clubs or penny banks or parish nurses as he showed himself afterwards in purely literary affairs. During all these years, however, his historical work was going forward at a great rate, and was beginning already to take some sort of shape in his mind. His study at Stepney, with its parish litter in the midst of a scholar's library of historical books, was a pleasant sight, and he stored up here much of that wealth of information, that knowledge not only of the great roads but of the corners and byways of history, which made him from first to last one of the most brilliant and instructive of talkers. His reading, indeed, was not all of it happiness. His position as a clergyman was becoming more and more uncongenial to him, and mental disturbance, natural delicacy, and overwork during the cholera time of 1868, all conduced to a break-down in health which obliged him to give up his living and to resign himself to the life of an invalid. Some lonely years followed, a great contrast to the active life at Stepney. Archbishop Tait had made him librarian at Lambeth, in succession to Professor Stubbs. Nobody who ever saw him in his post there will forget his eager, enthusiastic knowledge of the palace and its contents. But his true life was lived in his Beaumont Street rooms on the second floor, which would have been gloomy but for the friendly faces of the books which lined the walls and the inviting look of the great armchairs in which he delighted to settle his guests for a talk. The "Short History" was rapidly growing into shape, and meanwhile he was supporting himself by work for the Saturday Review, in The chorus of unmixed praise, indeed, lasted but a short time. The objections to the workmanship of the book felt by a certain number of persons were put in a vigorous way by Mr. Rowley in a review of the "Short History " which appeared in Fraser early in 1875, and attracted a good deal of attention. What the review proved was that in dealing with such an immense mass of materials under the unfavorable conditions of very weak health and constant journeyings, Mr. |