about five years’ purchase, and brought an interest
on the capital laid out of from fifteen to twenty
per cent.
The town of Singapore is naturally divided
into three portions, namely, the Malay part;
that which contains the dwellings of the European
merchants, the public offices, and the military
cantonments ; and the Chinese, or commercial
portion. The two first are situated upon a plain
fronting the harbour, running to the length of
about a mile and a half along the shore, and having
its breadth confined to about one thousand
yards by a range of hills of from one hundred to
one hundred and fifty feet high. The commercial
portion of the town is divided from the other two
by the salt creek already named, and is situated
upon a narrow peninsula, lying between this last
and the sea to the westward. The Malayan portion
of the town lies at the eastern portion of the
plain, and is chiefly occupied by the Sultan of Je-
hore and his followers, from whom we purchased
the island, and who is our pensionary. The dwellings
of the merchants and the military cantonments
occupy the central and western portion of
the same plain, and the highest portion of the
range of hills which I have named is occupied
by the Government-house, other portions by the
dwellings of public officers or merchants. Almost
all the best warehouses and the whole dwellings
of the Chinese are on the peninsula, to the western
side of the creek, which is connected with the
plain by a very good wooden bridge. The whole
of the warehouses, and all the dwelling-houses in
the principal streets in their vicinity, are built of
brick and lime, and roofed with red tile. The
more distant dwelling-houses and shops are built
of wood, but roofed with tile also ; and it is only
in the distant outskirts that any huts with thatched
roofs are to be found, although, five years ago,
nearly the whole of this portion of the town was
composed of dwellings of this last description.
The streets are formed upon a regular plan, intersecting
each other at right angles; and the roads,
both in the town and the immediate vicinity of
the settlement, are constructed of a mixture of
sand with a clay-iron-ore, which, constituting the
crust of all the hills in the island, is of course
abundant. These materials make roads which are
at once level and durable.
There are two public markets, the property of
Government, the leases of the stalls of which are
separately sold, from year to year, by public auction.
These are furnished with grain, fish, poultry
» eggs, vegetables, spiceries, pork, green tu rtles,
&c. &c. The supply of these articles is always
abundant; and when it is considered that
most of them are imported, and some from a
great distance, they are comparatively cheap.
The profit derived by the Government from
the markets is the mere rent of the ground and
2 c 2