“At last we made the tall promontory of Cape St. Jacques, with its lighthouse and cable-station, and took on board the half-caste pilot who was to navigate us the sixty miles up the river to Saigon. I remember the trip up-stream with that clearness of the memory for all that immediately precedes a drama, no matter how long ago. It was early morning when he crossed the bar and, relieved from the direct responsibilities of navigation, Captain Strong and I sat in deck-chairs under the awning of the bridge and all day watched the dense, mist-hung, fever-infested forests of mangrove and pandanus slip past us on both banks of the river. The damp, close heat was suffocating and neither of us had much desire to talk, but I fancied that a more than usually heavy moodiness lay over the skipper. He was certainly not quite normal. He frowned to himself, bit his lip, and his eyes roved in an uneasy sort of recognition from side to side of the stream as we rounded reach after interminable reach. I felt that some secret anxiety possessed him, but of course I could not ask him straight out what it was. Rather diffidently, I did venture on one question. “‘Ever been here before, sir?’ I asked. “He shot a suspicious look at me, directly into my eyes, before he answered. “‘Once.’ “The tone of the reply effectually checked any further exhibition of the curiosity it heightened. “The worst heat of the day was over when we dropped anchor in the broad stream opposite the European-looking city of Saigon. The usual swarm of junks and sampans thronged around the quay, but the black Messageries Maritimes packet moored in the river was the only other steamship. “To my pleasure, Captain Strong invited me to go ashore with him, and in a few minutes the gig was pulling us toward the rows of fine-looking Government buildings which stretch back from the quays. I don’t know whether any of you have ever been to Saigon and I don’t know what it looks like now, but in those days it looked like the disastrous enterprise of a bankrupt speculative builder when you got to close quarters. The town of Saigon had been burnt by the French in the fighting by which they had obtained possession of the place, and they had rebuilt it on European lines, shops, cafés, Government buildings, all complete. But a paralysis was on everything, the paralysis of the excessive administration with which the French ruin their colonies. The streets were nearly deserted, a majority of the shops empty. The only Europeans were slovenly, haggard military and the white-faced, dreary Government employees who sat at the cafés and longed for France. I was more depressed and disappointed at every step.