The city on the island is Georgetown, while the city on Hongkong is Victoria; but you will never hear any one speak of Georgetown or Victoria.

It is just Penang and Hongkong, and the other names are useless incumbrances.
Singapore was crowded with Americans fighting for accommodations on the China and Japan steamers; other Americans fighting to get reservations on the Java steamers; still other Americans who, in despair, were going to Hongkong by way of Borneo and the Philippines.

They were willing to go first, second or third class--any way at all to get on a ship.
[Drawing: _At Raffles' Hotel_] The Singapore hotels were crowded and we got the last room in the Raffles Hotel.

The great and stately veranda, which serves the double purpose of a bar and an out-of-door reception-room, was usually crowded.
That veranda is the redeeming feature of Raffles Hotel.

In other respects this great hotel, situated at the cross-roads where East and West and North and South meet, is not up to what a good hotel should be.
We got the last state-room on a steamer to Java, and to our great surprise we found the ship to be the nicest we had traveled on, and the cooking to rival that of the great restaurants of Paris.
Cholera was rampant in certain parts of Java, but that didn't stop the sightseers.