From Calcutta several short sea routes may be taken to strange countries: the British India ships go to Rangoon, in Burmah, and then down the Malay Peninsula to Penang, one of the Strait Settlements. Penang is on the road from Ceylon to Singapore, and some of the great liners stop for a couple of hours to take in a mail, some tin, and a few spices. The harbor is one of singular beauty, but not otherwise of much interest to the traveller, hurrying on through the picturesque Straits of Malacca to Singapore. Singapore is the half-way house on the great highway between India and China, where all ships, large and small, stop. Its position is a most important one, not only as a large coaling and docking station, but to a greater extent as an immense entrepôt for goods, the trade being largely one of transit. The shipping business done is enormous; the docks and streets are full of bustle and activity, of hurrying, running, hard-working Chinese, Javanese, Moluccans, and Europeans, unmindful of a temperature averaging 86° Fahrenheit. This town of such activity and go lies almost under the equator, in latitude 1° 17´ north; its longitude is nearly 104° east; just 12 hours and 9 minutes ahead of New York, from which city it is separated by 12,000 miles of water, requiring about 43 days of ocean navigation. Singapore has steam communication with 152 different ports, far and near. During the year, 3,600 foreign ships enter the harbor, and nearly the same number clear, representing a shipping movement of over 5,500,000 tons. The regular liners make connection at Singapore with the Netherland-India Steamship Company—“De Nederlandsch-Indische Stoomvaart Maatschappij”—an efficient organization with headquarters at Batavia, Java. Some of the by-ways of travel over which the tourist can agreeably saunter by means of the 30 or more good steamers of this company lead to all the ports on the coasts of the islands of Java, Sumatra, and Borneo, to the Moluccas, Philippines, Celebes, and so back to Singapore, where the traveller boards the steamer bound for Hong-Kong. The mail, and other full-powered steamships, leaving Singapore for the northward, head straight up the China Sea for Hong-Kong, 1,435 miles away. During this run of 6 days the most learned discussions are held concerning the weather. Typhoons are most prevalent from July to December; from December to May they seldom happen, still they have been known to occur in every month of the year. The September equinox is a very precarious period; therefore, if the tourist is anxious to make sure of smooth weather, he should time his voyaging so as to be in these waters in early June, when the southwest monsoon is lightest. But this brings the ship to Hong-Kong at the beginning of the warm weather and rainy season, whereas the months of December and January are the most delightful, the mean temperature being 65° F.