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Singapore is almost on the Equator—it is almost half-way between the North and South Poles. Sailors call the Equator “The Line.” When you cross “The Line” for the first time you are supposed to be baptized by Father Neptune, the god of the sea. So I was baptized when I crossed it and this was the way it was done. As Istepped out on deck a sailor suddenly appeared on each side of me. One caught me by my arms and the other bymy legs and, lifting me in the air, they threw me, with all my clothes on, into a big pool of water that hadbeen made out of canvas on the deck of the ship. Then when I clambered out of the pool, sputtering for mybreath, they shoved me into the end of a long canvas pipe, through which I had to crawl. When I came out at theother end they gave me a whack on the back with a paddle. Then I was taken before Father Neptune, a man seated on a throne and dressed up in a bath-robe with a pasteboard crown seton the side of his head, a pitchfork in his hand. He handed me a diploma, as if I were graduating from college, saying that I had been duly baptized and initiated and was now “a regular fellow” in the society of those who had crossed “The Line.”
Near the Malay Peninsula are the East Indies and the Spice Islands, which Columbus tried to reach. Sumatra, which is shaped something like a fat cigar, is where the tobacco is grown for making the covers for cigars. Java, another one of the East Indies, was once famous for its coffee. I had looked forward to getting a goodcup here, but I tried in a number of places and finally got a cup, but the coffee had come from Brazil!
In Java I saw bats as big as eagles and butterflies as big as your two hands.
