March 12. - Friday anyway. Government House, Singapore. Dearest Mother. In order to thoroughly appreciate the comforts of Govt. House you must come down from Penang [Pinang] on a Chinese boat. We are good travellers - I may say very good - but I think we should have thrown ourselves into the oily sea if there had been another 24 hours in prospect on the Pin Seng. Our only consolation was the reflection that travelling on the ark must have been very similar. We had a cargo of 24 buffaloes, 6 bullocks, innumerable hens and a quantity of dirty little dogs kept by the Captain for his diversion. Besides these, the fore part of the deck was quite covered with native passengers of sorts, distributed commodious between the hen baskets, and in the cabin next to mine - it had 3 berths - there was a family of Chinese, the exact tale of them being as follows: 2 swell ladies with golden lily feet and elaborate headdresses stuck full of jewels and artificial flowers; 1 ditto with natural feet and headdress as before; 3 very small boys, 2 large boys, a nurse and a nursemaid. And they reeked of all China. Now since there was not room for them to sleep in the cabin, they slept all over the floor of the saloon (I call it saloon in the hope of giving pain) between the boxes of the European passengers which were piled there. Fortunately we lived, eat and slept on deck, but even in these climates, where the customs of the inhabitants are casual, you couldn't dress and undress on deck and the evening and the morning of the first day were an experience - unspeakable. The food was not so bad as it might have been. I carefully refrained from enquiring where and how it was cooked. We had also brought tinned things with us and so had the other passengers and we shared and shared about. But it was all eaten to the sense[?] of that sickening smell. I tried to make friends with the little Chinese boys, but they refused to rise even to a Chinese junk twisted out of paper. They sat quite solemnly crosslegged on deck or in the saloon; they were dressed in every detail exactly like a full sized Chinaman, except that the hair of the middle one was so short that his pigtail was mostly red silk, and the littlest's head was shaven all over. When they finally disappeared into a revenue launch, which came to fetch them at Singapore, I was as far from their confidence as at the beginning. But they do play sometimes, though not with me, for the last time I saw the smallest of the 3, he was clambering down the companion with a trumpet in one hand and a hen in the other - a live hen. They are a great and wonderful nation. Penang is exclusively inhabited by them. They have opened up the Malay States and everything is in their hands. They work where no European can work and I see no reason to regret their existence here. Says Sir Frank Swettenham: "They're far better colonists than the Germans. They naturalize themselves and when they've made their pile they live here and spend it. And while they're making it, they consume opium and thereby contribute largely to the expenses of our govt." So in Penang you see the smart ladies with golden lily feet driving about in magnificent carriages, for they are millionaire, archi[?] millionaire. And if they weren't, we probably should not be able to run the Straits Settlements. I watched one on the Pin Seng making out the tickets. There was a deafening noise going on, for the buffaloes were coming in on one side and rice on the other; he was moreover surrounded by a dense crowd of steerage passengers and the atmosphere in the open was that of a vapour bath. He was not the least perturbed; he went on methodically with his work, keeping half a dozen subordinates on the trot to bring him all he wanted at the exact moment he wanted it, and while an Englishman would have been cursing and tearing his hair, the China man's glossy pigtail was only less immaculately composed than his smooth and yellow face. These things are a parable. Edith Talbot came to see us at Port Swettenham where we touched. She had travelled an hour and a half and waited 2 hours for us. She lunched on board and we brought out all our stores and feasted her as well as we could. She looked extremely charming, well and pretty and very attractive. It was delightful having her for that hour. We got here about 10 yesterday morning. Sir Frank sent his launch for us. I came straight up to Govt. House while Hugo went to get our mail and interview Shipping Co.s. Sir Frank was out when I arrived, he had gone to call on a Japanese admiral. A very nice little secretary called Bosanquet made me welcome and put me into a huge, cool, clean room. I have deep verandahs on 2 sides, glazed in and looking onto the garden, a drawing room a bath room, every luxury. And Hugo is similarly lodged. I had a bath, put on my nicest white silk clothes and went down to lunch. Besides Mr Bosanquet, there is an ADC, Captain Barry by name, very pleasant. But he gets a little lost when the talk wanders into book land, which it does often. His Excellency is himself an author. He is also capital company. We sat over lunch more than an hour yesterday, and the same over breakfast today and last night we talked solid from 8 to 11, and what with him and Mr Bosanquet (who is extremely intelligent) the conversation never flagged for an instance. I don't really like him, but I like a good many nice people a great deal less. You can't help feeling the undoubted power and ability of the man under an almost comic self absorption and I equally can't help feeling that he has got a horrid inside. But after all that's not my business and he's excessively kind to us and very entertaining. This morning he talked his own shop to us and it was excellent good hearing. We're coming back here for 2 days when we return from Java [Jawa]. And the funniest thing is that the Russells are arriving here an hour before we leave and have 24 hours to spend in Singapore and I've fished about until I've got Sir F. to invite them to Govt House for the night, and oh lor! I wonder what he'll make of them. I do wish I were going to be here to see! It's extraordinary kind of him; I only hope he'll see the comic side of the Russell family. It's also very kind of me, but I didn't feel I could leave them for 1 night of mosquitoes on board the Sachsen in dock. H. and I drove out at 7.30 this morning and went to the Botanical Gardens. It was wonderfully pretty. We saw the Victoria Regia growing in the ponds, orchids on the trees, amaryllis and eucharis lily in the flower beds. And it's all like a vapour bath. The slightest exertion, writing a letter even, makes you as hot as if you had been up Rosebery Toppin on the hottest summer day. But it's rather fun for a little while. We went to see polo yesterday afternoon - all our hosts playing. And now we're off to Java. Ever your affectionate daughter Gertrude