We also saw indigo growing; the dye is prepared very much in the same way as the gambir.  That grown here is not so good as that which comes from India, and it is therefore not much exported, though it is used by the innumerable Chinese in the Malay peninsula to dye all their clothes, which are invariably of some deep shade of blue.  We saw sago-palms growing, but the mill was not working, so that we could not see the process of manufacture; but it seems to be very similar to the preparation of tapioca, which we had seen in Brazil.

On our passage through the town we went to look at a large gambling establishment; of course no one was playing so early in the morning, but in the evening it is always densely crowded, and is a great source of profit to the proprietor.  I could not manage to make out exactly from the description what the game they play is like, but it was not fan-tan.  We now left the carriage, and strolled to see the people, the shops, and the market.  I bought all sorts of common curiosities, little articles of everyday life, some of which will be sure to amuse and interest my English friends.  Among my purchases were a wooden pillow, some joss candles, a two-stringed fiddle, and a few preserved eggs, which they say are over a hundred years old.  The eggs are certainly nasty enough for anything; still it seems strange that so thrifty a people as the Chinese should allow so much capital to lie dormant—­literally buried in the earth.

At half-past nine o’clock the Maharajah, with the Governor and all his guests, came on board.  His Highness inspected the yacht with the utmost minuteness and interest, though his Mohammedan ideas about women were considerably troubled when he was told that I had had a great deal to do with the designing and arrangement of the interior.  At half-past eleven the party left, and an hour afterwards we went to make our adieux to the Maharajah.

On our departure the Maharajah ordered twenty coolies to accompany us, laden with fragrant tropical plants.  He also gave me some splendid Malay silk sarongs, grown, made, and woven in his kingdom, a pair of tusks of an elephant shot within a mile of the house, besides a live little beast, not an alligator, and not an armadillo or a lizard; in fact I do not know what it is; it clings round my arm just like a bracelet, and it was sent as a present by the ex-Sultan of Johore.  Having said farewell to our kind host and other friends, we pushed off from the shore, and embarked on board the yacht; the anchor was up, and by five o’clock a bend in the Straits hid hospitable and pleasant Johore from our view, and all we could see was the special steamer on her way back to Singapore with the Maharajah’s guests on board.  At Tanjore we dropped our funny little pilot, and proceeded on our course towards Penang.  The Straits are quite lovely, and fully repaid the trouble and time involved in the detour made to visit them.  The sun set and the young moon arose over as lovely a tropical scene as you can possibly imagine.