Fifty dollars, he told me, were neither here nor there; but he was curious to see the place, and the little _Sissie_ could go anywhere where there was water enough to float a soup-plate.
"Davidson landed his Javanese plutocrat, and, as he had to wait a couple of hours for the tide, he went ashore himself to stretch his legs.
"It was a small settlement.

Some sixty houses, most of them built on piles over the river, the rest scattered in the long grass; the usual pathway at the back; the forest hemming in the clearing and smothering what there might have been of air into a dead, hot stagnation.
"All the population was on the river-bank staring silently, as Malays will do, at the _Sissie_ anchored in the stream.

She was almost as wonderful to them as an angel's visit.

Many of the old people had only heard vaguely of fire-ships, and not many of the younger generation had seen one.

On the back path Davidson strolled in perfect solitude.