* The inhabitants of Malacca, in 1830, came to a unanimous resolution to liberate every slave in the sized bullet mould with a small orifice, and then compare a mould of the tin under examination, with that of the pure metal; if the former be heavier, the proportion of adulteration may readily be calculated. Antimony has the effect of hardening the admixture with lead, thereby increasing the difficulty of detection, as regards external appearances. The total value of imports in 1828-29, was sicca rupees 10,81,782; of exports, sicca rupees 6,72,211. The imports of specie amounted to sicca rupees 4,19,717; and the exports amounted to sicca rupees 2,65,239. The value of imports from Calcutta, is sicca rupees 1,12,565; from Madras, 2,43,178; from England, 1,01,664; and from small native ports, 2,98,591. VI. One of the most valuable British institutions | by melting a standard muster of pure tin in a large in the east, is the Anglo-Chinese college at Malacca, established in 1818, by the joint efforts of the late Rev. Drs. Morrison and Milne. The object in view is the reciprocal cultivation of Chinese and European literature, and the instruction of native youths in the principles of Christianity. The native Chinese students in the college, generally average from 25 to 30, all of whom are on the foundation of the college, receiving each a monthly allowance. Several valuable and interesting translations have been made from Chinese books, and English standard works have been translated into Chinese; a foundry for types has been established, paper manufactured, and a periodical commenced. The college is indebted for existence to private contribution, and it is to be hoped that so useful an institution will not be allowed to languish for want of support. Attached to the college at Malacca are several schools, the whole of which are supported by the London Missionary Society; the Chinese schools alone contain nearly 300 boys, and the Tamul schools are increasing. The female schools at Malacca are doing well, and three schools have been established by the Malays for the instruction of their countrymen in the English language. Schools are also established at Tavoy, Moulmien and Rangoon. At the latter place, the head master is a Chinaman, who has been brought up in the Anglo-Chinese col lege at Malacca. VII. When acquired by the British government, the whole revenue of the settlement was but 20,000 dollars; its revenue accounts are now incorporated with those of the other settlement (vide Penang). VIII. Malacca, being situate between the two great emporiums of trade in the eastern archipelago, Penang and Singapore, the one at the north-west, and the other at the south-east of the straits, has necessarily a trade limited to its own consumption and produce. Before the establishment of the two latter named settlements, and during the monopolizing sway of the Dutch there, it was a place of considerable traffic. Tin forms one of the principal items of export, and as the free trade captains may perhaps enter into the trade, it may be well to caution them of the adulterations practised by the Chinese and Malay miners. Lead is the metal usually alloyed with tin, and in order to detect adulterations, buyers may readily ascertain (with sufficient approximation to correctness) the extent of fraud endeavoured to be practised The accounts, however, of this government, as stated by Mr. Fullerton, are extremely defective. IX. Throughout the Straits of Malacca, the common weights are the pecul, catty, and tael. The Malay pecul, three of which make a bahar, is heavier than the common or Chinese pecul, which is=133 lbs. Rice and salt are usually sold by the coyan of forty peculs nearly, and gold dust by the Bunkal= 832 grs. troy. The gantang (by which grain, fruit and liquids are sold) =14 English gallon, is divided into two bamboos. Twenty gantangs of rice make a bag, and forty bags a coyan. Cloth is measured by the astah or covid of eighteen inches nearly. Land, by the orlong of twenty jumbas = 14 acre. The currency of the straits is Spanish dollars divided into 100 cents. The Dutch rix dollar and guilder (divided into fanams and doits) are also used, chiefly at Malacca. One guilder=12 fanams=120 doits. The rix dollar is a nominal coin of about 20 fanams, 31 or 32 of which make a Spanish dollar. The silver coins comprise dollars of all descriptions, guilders and halfguilders. The copper, the cent, half and quartercent; there are also doits, stivers, and wangs, including a great variety of copper coins, of different countries. X. Natural Productions.-The staple of the settlement is tin mines (which are all within a circuit of 25 miles round Malacca), which produce, generally 4,000 peculs (a pecul is 133 pounds avoirdupois) a year. In the vallies vegetation is extremely luxuriant : rice yields from 200 to 300 fold; the sugar cane is equal to any produced in any part of the globe; coffee, cotton, indigo, chocolate, pepper, and spices, have all The gold from Hoolo Pahang, 100 miles inland from Malacca, is of the purest quality; and there are some small mines of gold at the foot of Mount Ophir, called Battang Moring, about 36 miles from Malacca. been tried, and thrive remarkably well. The spon- as the veins become thin, remove from place to place. taneous productions of the soil are very numerous, consisting of an almost endless variety of the richest and most delicious fruits and vegetables. The country is covered with very fine and durable timber for ships| and house building; the Murbon tree, which is nearly equal to teak, is extremely abundant. Canes and rattans form a considerable branch of the exports; the forests yield gums, resins, and oils in great plenty; the camphor tree grows near the south-east extremity of the peninsula; a great variety of medicinal plants and drugs are common in the woods; the nutmeg grows wild. If the gold and tin mines in the vicinity of Malacca were scientifically worked, they would prove of great value; at present, the Malay and Chinese miners seldom dig below six or ten feet, and Bird's nests, wax, cutch, dammeer, fish maws, and sharks' fins (for Chinese soups) rattans, camphor, betelnuts, gold dust, sago, dragon's blood, ivory, hides, aguilla and sappan woods, &c., are among the principal productions. Captains of ships will be glad to hear that fruit and vegetables of every variety are abundant and low priced, and that poultry, hogs, buffaloes, and fish are plentiful and cheap. During the progress of the expedition against Java in 1811, 30,000 troops, with their followers were abundantly supplied with fresh provisions of every variety daily. CHAPTER IV.-SINGAPORE (SINGHAPURA.) I. THIS rapidly rising emporium of trade, is situate | on the southern extremity of the peninsula of Malacca just described, in latitude 1. 17. 22. north; longitude, 103. 51. 45. east, (this is the position of the town); of an elliptical form, about from 25 to 27 miles in its greatest length from east to west; to 15 miles in its greatest breadth from north to south; and containing an estimated area of 270 square miles, with about 50 small desert isles within 10 miles around it, in the adjacent straits, whose area is about 60 miles; the whole settlement embracing a maritime and insular dominion of about 100 miles in circumference. II. The Malay annals relate that in A. D. 1252, Sri Iscandar Shah, the last Malay prince of Singapore, being hard pressed by the king of Majopahit, in Java, returned to the main land, where he founded the city of Malacca. That the Dutch or Portuguese may have settled on the island is probable, from the remains of religious buildings and other structures, which indicate its having been once thickly inhabited. On the design of Sir Stamford Raffles, the settlement of Singapore was first formed in February 1818, and its sovereignty in its present extent was confirmed to Great Britain in 1825, by a convention with the King of Holland and the Malay Princes of Jehore. There is, I believe, a pension of 24,000 Spanish dollars a year paid by the East India Company to this Rajah, as an equivalent for the cession. III. The island is on the north separated from the main land of the Malayan peninsula, by a very small strait, which in its narrowest part is not more than one quarter of a mile wide. On the front, and distant about nine miles, is an extensive chain of almost desert isles, the channel between which and Singapore, is the grand route of commerce between east and west Asia. The aspect is low and level, with an extensive chain of saline and fresh water marshes, in several parts covered with lofty timber and luxuriant vegetation here and there, low rounded sand hills interspersed with spots of level ground, formed of a ferruginous clay with a sandy substratum. The town stands on the south coast, on a point of land near the west end of a bay where there is a salt creek or river navigable for lighters nearly a mile from the sea; on the east side of the town is a deep inlet for the shelter of native boats. The town consists generally of stone houses of two story high, but in the suburbs called Campong-glam, Campong-Malacca, and Campong-China, bamboo huts are erected on posts, most of them standing in the stagnant water. On the east side of the harbour enterprising British merchants are erecting substantial and ornamental houses fronting the sea, presenting a strange contrast to the wretched tenements of the Malays. The ground is generally raised three feet, and the mansions have a superb entrance by an ascent of granite stairs, then an elegant portico supported by magnificent Grecian columns of every order of architecture: the rooms are lofty, with Venetian windows down to the floor, and furnished in a luxuriant manner; each tenement provided with its baths, billiard tables, &c., while the grounds are tastily laid out with shrubs of beautiful foliage, the tout ensemble affording a most picturesque prospect from the shipping in the roadstead. IV. The principal rock is red sandstone, which changes in some parts to a breccia or conglomerate, containing large fragments and crystals of quartz. The whole contiguous group of isles, about 30 in number, as well as Singapore, are apparently of a submarine origin, and their evulsion probably of no very distant date. V. Notwithstanding its lowness, marshiness, intertropical position and consequent high temperature, with a rapid and constant evaporation by a nearly vertical sun, from a rank and luxuriant vegetation, and a profusion of animal and vegetable matter in every stage of putrefaction, Singapore has hitherto proved exceedingly healthy, owing perhaps to its maritime position. Being so near the equator, there is of course little variety of seasons, neither summer nor winter: Fahrenheit ranges from 71 to 89 deg.; the periodical rains are brief, indistinctly marked, and extending over about 150 days of the year. VI. The following Census of the Population (with its divisions) of the settlement, has been furnished me from the India House. List of the Population at Singapore on the 1st of January, 1829. Islands: When taken possession of by our establishment in 1820, it had been inhabited for eight years by about one hundred and fifty Malays, half fishermen and half pirates. Within the brief space of time from 1820 to 1832, its population has thus rapidly increased (we have no correct data previous to the end of 1823). Population of Singapore from the end of 1823 to beginning of 1833. Classes. 1823. 1824. 1825. 1826. 1827. 1828. 1832. the shopkeepers and most valuable part of the citizens are Chinese, nearly 5,000 of whom arrive annually from China by the yearly trading junks, about 1,000 of whom remain at Singapore, and the remainder disperse themselves over the neighbouring islands. The Malays are chiefly fishermen, and the natives of the Coromandel coast boat-men. Society is divided as at the Presidencies, into four distinct castes-1st. The civilians of the Company. 2d. The military. 3d. First class merchants. 4th. Second class merchants, shopkeepers, &c.; and, as in all small communities, they are exclusive in their coteries. VII. There is an American missionary and two Roman Catholic priests in the island, but as yet no house of worship. A Romish chapel is in progress, and near its completion. The humbler classes are uneducated, but honest and faithful to their employers. VIII. No accounts of the trade of the island were kept prior to 1824; since then the value of the imports and exports have been as follows: January 1833, shewing the pro- Foreign Europe Census of Singapore, 1st portion of Males to Females. South America Calcutta .Sp. D. 1161945 1514664 3535576 3037926 75301 31563 81302 99637 20976 6016 5897 7068 18484 12661 1215958 1072852 1061636 879559 48733 141049 135714 148576 105625 91575 2857505 2433959 193125 172501 899305 735412 40 96 Java 1135025 300 978978 542389 359693 Rhio 8 35 Siam 200007 243980 149449 212180 0 96 Cochin China 37717 126402 40778 223405 Ceylon 12724 7341 14849 labar. Ditto of Bengal and other parts Acheen & N. Pepp. Ports Sumatra Jews E. C. Peninsula Siamese 5 Straits Baggies, Balanese, &c. 40424 794 Celebes 3368 234346 173917 7131 Borneo 244176 209637 234 192229 178016 7650 867 8517 Manilla 17638 110871 Total Sp. D. 8458731 7936974 Difference.. 521757 | As Singapore is one of the largest entrepôts in the eastern hemisphere, a detailed statement of the trade of the island for 1837 is given in the next page. 164700 33328 Camboja Other Ports, &c... 118135 175875 124784 |