Page:Scidmore--Java the garden of the east.djvu/27

Rh bracelets, and medals; and these lithe, lean people from the south end of India are first in the picturesque elements of the great city of the Straits. The Botanical Garden, although so recently established, promises to become famous; and one arriving from the farther East meets there for the first time the beautiful red-stemmed Banka palm, and the symmetrical traveler's palm of Madagascar, the latter all conventionalized ready for sculptors' use. Scores of other splendid palms, giant creepers, gorgeous blossoms and fantastic orchids, known to us only by puny examples in great conservatories at home, equally delight one—all the wealth of jungle and swamp growing beside the smooth, hard roads of an English park, over which one may drive for hours in the suburbs of Singapore.

The Dutch mail-steamers to and from Batavia connect with the English mail-steamers at Singapore; a French line connects with the Messagerie's ships running between Marseilles and Japan; an Australian line of steamers gives regular communication; and independent steamers, offering as much comfort, leave Singapore almost daily for Batavia. The five hundred miles of distance is covered in forty or forty-eight hours, for a uniform fare by the vessels of any of these lines. Before the advent of America into the Philippines (1898) living and travel in the Netherlands Indies, where the gold standard of Holland is observed, were two and three times as expensive as anywhere else in the Far East. American occupation of the archipelago, with American extravagance and waste have corrupted the whole neighboring East, along with the inflation of all silver values. The