nine in the morning
`` Too hot to bustle round now , '' said the leading citizen , lighting his pipe . `` What 'll you have to drink ? Have some square ; it 's the best drink here . '' Hugh thought it well to fall in with the customs of the inhabitants , so he had a stiff gin-and-water at nine in the morning , a thing he had never done , or even seen done , in his life before . Then he went over in the blazing sunlight to the storekeeper , and asked whether he knew where Reeves ' camp was . `` That I do n't , '' said the storekeeper . `` I send out what they want by a Malay who sails a one-masted craft round the coast , and goes up the river to their camp , and brings the hides back .