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By the evening we were in possession of Balidah, and certainly found it a formidable fortress, situated on a steep mound, with dense defences of wood, triple deep, and surrounded by two inclosures, thickly studded on the outside with ranjows. The effect of our fire had shaken it completely, now much to our discomfort; for the walls were tottering, and the roof as leaky as a sieve.
The neighbourhood is slightly undulating and well wooded, and the country around studded with well-built and substantial houses, belonging to the European merchants and other officials in Singapore. No Europeans live in the town, as the heat there during the south-west and even north-east monsoon is insupportable.
I was ferried across in a little paddle-wheel boat, worked by Dalecarlian women in their peculiar costumes. The King's Park, or Djurgard, is doubly beautiful, not only from its panoramic view of the city, the Malar Lake, and the arm of the Baltic, which comes up to the Skeppsbron Quay, but also from the magnificent oak trees with which it is studded.
He had met Eugenie, a most lovely creature, fair and slender, gay in shining crimson silk and costly lace, with a white ribbon studded with pearls in her hair. The Baron, too, was presented, a man of gentle and frank disposition, but little older than his fiancée and seemingly well suited to her.
An antique sofa, studded with brass nails, exhibited upon its towering back a picture of Tsong Kapa reclining under the tree of a thousand images at the Llamasary of Koomboom. There were scenes which were evidently intended to be historical, but there were others which were wild and inexplicable.
No; there is none of these at Monterey. There is a bay, blue and bottomless, with shores studded with tall beautiful timber. There is a prairie lawn, spread like a carpet in patterns composed of pretty wild flowers. Upon it stand hundreds of cottage-built tenements, covered with the creeping vine.
"Hapa," he whispered, as he carefully climbed down and indicated with his hand that they were near. Again we swung in a wide circle and came over the brow of the next hill. There, four or five hundred yards away, was the herd of elephants, standing idly under the low trees that studded the opposite slope.
A compact crystalline rock, banded in straight lines with innumerable layers of white and grey shades of colour, varying in width from the thirtieth to the two-hundredth of an inch; these layers seem to be composed chiefly of feldspar, and they contain numerous perfect crystals of glassy feldspar, which are placed lengthways; they are also thickly studded with microscopically minute, amorphous, black specks, which are placed in rows, either standing separately, or more frequently united, two or three or several together, into black lines, thinner than a hair.
This fairy-like spectacle lasted for a short time only, however; the golden flashes vanished one by one; the yellow became orange, the orange deepened into crimson, and the crimson in its turn slowly merged into a cold cobalt blue as the light died out of the western sky; and finally the stars came out one by one until the entire firmament was thickly studded with them.
In the background, raised on six steps, each of which was guarded, as it were, by two golden clogs, stood the throne of gold; above it, supported by four golden pillars studded with precious stones, was a purple canopy, on which appeared two winged discs, the king's Feruer. It was in existence before the man was horn, joins him at his birth and departs at his death.
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