Built in the early 19th century by the first Hokkien and Cantonese settlers in Penang, the temple isn’t so impressive architecturally, but it’s very central and popular with the Chinese community, and seems to be forever swathed in smoke from the outside furnaces where whorshippers burn paper money, and from the incense sticks waved around inside.

You can't reform ODOT, he says wearily, you can only drive a stake through its heart.

Carried somehow, somewhither, for some reason, on these surging floods, were these travelers,[…]. Even such a boat as the Mount Vernon offered a total deck space so cramped as to leave secrecy or privacy well out of the question, even had the motley and democratic assemblage of passengers been disposed to accord either.

And fear of God, from whom their piety feign'd In sharp contest of battle found no aid Against invaders