The main street of Penang--with its large buildings, hotels, banks, clubs, and commercial houses--presents much the same appearance as almost always meets the eye in the port towns on the south coast of Asia. The small single-seated "ricksha" is drawn by a Chinaman in a loose blue blouse, bare-legged, and with a pointed straw hat on his head. We go out to the Botanical Gardens, and find them really wonderful. There are trees and plants from India, the Sunda Islands, and Australia, all labelled with their English and scientific names. Monkeys climb actively among the trees, and sit swinging on the boughs, and a high waterfall tumbles down a cliff surrounded by dense luxuriant vegetation. Darkness falls suddenly, as always in the tropics, and is accompanied by pelting rain. In a few moments all the roads are under water. The rain pours down, not in drops but in long streams of water, and we are wet through long before we reach the pier where the launch is waiting. Soon after we get on board, the _Delhi_ moves out into the night down the Strait of Malacca. Singapore is only thirty hours' voyage ahead, and the steamer follows closely the coast of the Malay Peninsula. At sunrise on October 24 we arrive. Singapore is the chief town of the Malay Peninsula, which is subject to Great Britain, and contains nearly a quarter of a million inhabitants--Europeans, Malays, Indians, but mostly Chinese. All steamers to and from the Far East call at Singapore, which is also the chief commercial emporium for the Sunda Islands and the whole of the Dutch Archipelago. It lies one degree of latitude north of the equator, and the consequence is that there is a difference of only three degrees of temperature between winter and summer. It is always warm, and rain falls almost every day. At five o'clock the same afternoon the _Delhi_ steams out again, accompanied by a swarm of light canoes rowed by naked copper-brown Malay boys. These boys swim like fishes, and they come out to the steamers to dive for silver coins which the passengers throw into the sea for them. When the _Delhi_ increases her pace, they drop behind and paddle back to the harbour with the proceeds of their diving feats. The sound gradually widens out, and as long as twilight lasts the land and islands are in sight. Then we turn off north-eastwards, leaving the equator behind us, and steer out over the Chinese Sea after having doubled the southernmost extremity of the Asiatic mainland. UP THE CHINA SEA