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 examined elsewhere than on the west coast of Sumatra. This Controller also was afterwards restored to his honour. It was their suspension which inspired me with the epigram that I caused to be put down on the General’s breakfast-table by somebody who was then in his service, and had been formerly in mine—

“Such a thing was not proper,” said Duclari.

“I quite agree but I was bound to do something. Only fancy: I had no money, received nothing: that I feared every day starvation, which in reality I was very near, I had few or no relations at Padang, and, moreover, I told the General that was responsible if I perished from hunger, and that I should accept aid of nobody. In the interior there were persons who, on hearing what had happened, invited me to come to their homes; but the General prohibited the issue of my passport thither. Neither was I allowed to go to Java. Anywhere else I could have managed it, and perhaps there too, if people had not been so afraid of the mighty General. It ap-