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Bill picked up a very nice American couple named Sheriff, who are going around the world, stopping whenever and wherever they like. At the moment they are headed for Java, but have no plans beyond that.

April 2 - Singapore
 
We landed about eight in the morning. Raymond Creekmore of Baltimore, a young artist working his way around the world, was on the dock to meet us. We had written him we were coming, and invited him to lunch with us. We had also written A. St. Alban Smith of Johore, and received a note from him saying that he was ill, but hoped we would come out and see him. He had sent his car and chauffeur for us, and we went out to see him. He lives now near the Sea View Hotel, having sold his Johor estate. He is badly crippled with a form of arthritis, but still interested in snake collecting, and told us all sorts of harrowing tales. Twice he has been bitten, once by a cobra and once by a krait, and recovered both times to his great surprise. He sent to London the record king cobra of all time, 18 feet 7 inches long. It was one that he had caught himself - simply grabbed it with his bare hand when he saw it was about to bite one of his boys. He has a Chinese boy who has absolutely no fear of snakes, Ah Cheong, and all morning Ah Cheong was kept busy bringing various specimens up to the verandah for us to see. There was a mother-of-pearl cave snake, a brown and gold cobra, a Gray's viper that was so fat and good natured they called it Sophie Tucker. As we left Mr. St. Alban Smith gave me a compact, made of Siamese silver, with lovely figures of Siamese dancers. He said he always gave them to ladies who came to see him, as a souvenir.

We had lunch at the Adelphi, and Bill was thrilled to find that Dr. Osorio had succeeded in getting him at the Consulate.
     
After lunch Basape joined us, with the sad news that the jaguar we had brought for Japan, had died in Singapore before he could send it on to Kobe.

We sailed at 4.30, and spent all afternoon and evening on deck. We saw a school of small porpoises. We stayed up until 11.30, so that I would be conscious when we crossed the Equator - my first crossing, and the ship gave me a certificate signed by the purser and by Father Neptune. Then to bed, and happy to find that a breeze had come up, so that our cabin was much cooler to-night, right on the Equator, than it was last night, when we were in the Straits of Malacca.

April 3 - At sea

Could see flying fish from the dining-room porthole all the time I was eating breakfast.

At ten o'clock we anchored off Muntok, Bangka Island, and took quite a few passengers aboard, and let off one Dutch family, with a large number of small blond children. The island looked typically tropical with a sandy beach, a line of coconut palms, a yellow hotel, a row of thatched houses, and high forested hills beyond. A lighthouse and a beached steamer marked the entrance to the harbor, which is evidently very shallow. From time to time as we were approaching we could see waves breaking on the reefs.