“The English colonies down here in Malaysia are called the Straits Settlements. There are about half a dozen of them, and Singapore is the chief. It is the capital, and it is one of the most important financial canters of King Edward’s empire. It is an island so near the Asiatic continent that you can row to it in a canoe in less than an hour, and so small that you can walk from one end of it to the other in a day. It contains only 145,000 acres, and of this only one-seventh is under cultivation. Still, the island does a business of $200,000,000 a year. It has millionaires by the score, and its banks and business houses are among the greatest of the Orient. It has hotels which will accommadate hundreds of guests, fifty great steamship lines connect it with the north, west and south. It has miles of docks, and more than a thousand vessels come in and out of its harbor every month.”

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