A rough bamboo bedstead was soon constructed, and a table made of boards which I had brought with me, fixed under the window.

Two bamboo chairs, an easy cane chair, and hanging shelves suspended with insulating oil cups, so as to be safe from ants, completed my furnishing arrangements.
In the afternoon succeeding my arrival, the Secretary accompanied me to visit the Sultan.

We were kept waiting a few minutes in an outer gate-house, and then ushered to the door of a rude, half-fortified whitewashed house.

A small table and three chairs were placed in a large outer corridor, and an old dirty-faced man with grey hair and a grimy beard, dressed in a speckled blue cotton jacket and loose red trousers, came forward, shook hands, and asked me to be coated.

After a quarter of an hour's conversation on my pursuits, in which his Majesty seemed to take great interest, tea and cakes-of rather better quality than usual on such occasions-were brought in.