At the end of a week they were all clean and neat. Their heads were shaved every Saturday, and their long tails freshly plaited up with skeins of black or red strong silk, made on purpose. At first a barber came to do this, but soon the elder boys learnt to do it, and it was a regular Saturday business. These ten children soon learnt to speak Malay. Then we took five more, and after that one or two as circumstances threw them in our way. The school at last numbered forty-five, but there was not room in the mission-house for so many; we did not get beyond thirty the first year of the school.
I scarcely think thirty English children could have been so easily reduced to order as these little Chinese. School must have been paradise to them after the hardships they had undergone, and that perhaps made it easier to please them; besides, the Chinese readily submit to rule and method. The day was laid out for them. They rose at half-past five when the day dawned; after a bath in a pond in the grounds, they had a slice of rice-pudding with treacle on it, and then went to church for morning prayers. By seven o'clock they were all at lessons in the big room--such a buzzing and curious singsong of Chinese words--until nine, when the breakfast took place; rice, of course, and a sort of curry of vegetables, also a great dish of fish, either salt or fresh; a little tea for the elder children, no milk or sugar, and water for the rest. They soon learnt to sing their grace before and after meals.
The same kind of meal was repeated at five o'clock, but on Sunday they had pork curried instead of fish, and on festivals chickens. I taught these children to sing from the first. The Chinese are not musical generally, and some of them found the sounds of _do_, _re_, _mi_, very difficult to master, but we had very nice singing in church in time; and when a schoolmaster came who knew plenty of songs, glees, and rounds, the children learnt them quickly, and were often sent for to sing to the rajah and other guests when they came to dinner.