The gambling privilege is given to the highest bidder, and he has the monopoly for the kingdom. There is also a small export tax on gambier and tin. On the other hand, any immigrant that wishes to settle and open a farm of any kind is given all the ground he can work, rent free, to have and to hold as long as he keeps it under cultivation. Should he leave, it reverts with all its improvements to the crown.
The government is autocratic, but tempered and kept in sympathy with the English ideas of justice as seen in the great colonies that surround it.
The dinner throughout was European, save for the one national dish, curry. Every Malay, from the poorest fisherman along the mangrove-fretted lagoon to the chef of his Highness's kitchen, justly boasts of the excellence of his curry and the number of sambuls he can make.
First came a golden bowl filled with rice, as white and as light as snow; then another, in which was a gravy of yellow curry powder, choice bits of fowl, and plump, fresh slices of egg-plant. Then came the sambuls, or condiments, more than forty varieties, in little circular dishes of Japanese ware on big silver trays. There were fish-roes, ginger, and dried fish, or "Bombay duck," duck's eggs hashed with spices, chutney, peppers, grated cocoanut, anchovies, browned crumbs, chicken livers, fried bananas, barley sprouts, onions, and many more, that were mixed and stirred into the spongy rice until your taste was baffled and your senses bewildered.
We knew that the curry was coming, so we passed courses that were as expensive and rare in this equatorial land as the fruit of the durians would be in New York,--mutton from Shanghai, turkey from Siam, beef from Australia, and oysters from far up the river Maur. We felt that besides being a pleasure to ourselves it was a compliment to our royal host to partake generously of his national dish.
"This service," said the old Tuan Hakim, or chief justice, pointing to the gold plate off which we were dining, "is the famous Ellinborough plate that once belonged to that strange woman, Lady Ellinborough. His Highness attended the auction of her things in Scotland. Do you see the little Arabic character on the rim of each? It is the late Sultana's name. His Highness telegraphed to her for the money to pay for it, and she telegraphed back two hundred thousand dollars, with the request that her name be engraved on each. Then she presented them to her husband. The Sultana was very rich in her own right, and left the Sultan over two million dollars when she died."