TheauesHonnf tl f f “ ® Profef lon as tbe Dampiers and the Horsburghs.
to e en tlem a n f i i t ^'mation of such a settlement was, on the representation of
n h t ,eatei'tained and resolved upon under the administration of the
that’o f C ’i r T ^ r v f 3 WalTenJ ^ n g s , although not carried into effect until
the • successor. Mr. Light had been in the habit of trading with
states r+ T e I S f v ? °? JJ18 , Bengal, and with states on the eastern side of the Peninsula. He first recomQmueenddae da nfodr otthhee rl oMcaalliatyy
ot the future settlement the larger island of Junk Ceylon, the Salang of the
! Slame!)e, and finally, Penang an uninhabited island belonging
J T ’t“ a tributary of Siam. A romantic story had long obtained currency
W j f ]g t had “ amed the daughter of the king of Queda, and received with
7 tb,6 ^ land Penang, which he sold to the East India Company,
lhere was no foundation of truth m this tale. The wife of the enterprising adven-
,?r a prln,cess n°y a Malay, but a mestizo Portuguese of Siam, and
+ ? U6da dld not S^o his desert island to any one, but sold it to the British
government for the payment of a quit-rent of 10,000 hard Spanish dollars a year
which sum is at the present day paid to his descendant. Francis Light the agent in
this transaction became the first governor under the title of superintendant, planted
the colony and earned on its administration until 1793, when he died at his post.
nf was.fifst occuPlcd d yas an entire forest throughout, without a rood
of cultivation, or an inhabitant, with the exception of a family or two of migratory
SIn 1800,S thr eT ternr’iutWorhy0S o6n Sthe Wmearm® °wna st haen nbeexaeedb tnoe tahre w ihsliacnhd s, thanavdisn gn obwee Gn epourrgcehtoawsend.
s te riW 6« rtfl Queda for tbe consideration of 2000 Spanish dollars, about 4301.
. a penny an acre’ wMch was probably H as much as *
testified*^ of+Penan? *■* a “ n of comprehensive'mind and forecast is
n i C , f t0 whlch hls Tlews have been realised by experience. In a
f n ^ SO^emment, he gives the following summary of the advantages
fm T ,?° ny7 for such> m reality, it was. “ A harbour with good
i S 3 wel l’11'6 f om bad weatPer> and capable of containing any number of vessels
an island well watered, of excellent soil, capable of containing 50,000 people, and
abounding in all necessary materials for their service and security;—a port favourable
to commerce, the present imports amounting to upwards of 600,000 dollars per
annum a place of refuge for merchant ships, where they may refit and be supplied
with provisions, wood and water, and protected from the insults of enemies, and an
emporium, centrically situated, where the merchants of all nations may conveniently
meet and exchange their commodities.” **
Most of the anticipations here held out have been realised, and some of them have
f J l 3 eX+Cee^ sanguine expectations of the founder. The only serious exception
l elates to the supposed excellence of the soil, which Mr. Light fancied was well
adapted for the growth of corn, a vulgar error derived from the notion that the land
which grows huge forest trees, must, of necessity, be fertile and adapted to produce
the staple necessaries of life. The soil of Penang, notwithstanding the luxuriant
vegetation which with the help of heat and moisture it produces, is anything but
fertde. and found by experience very ill suited to the production of corn. I t consists
t 7 n ° f vegetable mould OTer a sharP sand, or a stiff clay, both the produce
of the decomposition of the granite, on which the soil rests. Fertility might with
equal truth be predicted of the “ barrens” of North America, or the mountains of
Scandinavia, on account of tlie tall pines which they produce.
7v0n0n0n rwesnid en°£t inhabitaSnetJse, no ry, ®inarc?l uSdin lgt sp uebstlaicb leissbtambleiasht’ mPeenntasn agn dh asdo joau prnoeprusl, a1ti0o n00 o0f
By a census made m l 810, the population, which now included the annexed territory
on the continent at the time of its occupation, nearly as destitute of inhabitants as was
the island itself, amounted to 31,600. In 1827, it rose to 55,354, and in 1851, sixty-
five years after its foundation, to 111,096, this last extraordinary augmentation haring
been, in a good measure, caused by migrations from the neighbouring Malay state of
Queda, laid waste by Siamese invasion. The relative population is, L o rd in g to the
statements now given at the rate of 370 inhabitants to the square mile, and yet by
far the larger part of the country is still unoccupied, and a mere forest. Thus, of the
teiTitory on the continent, the most fertile and available for cultivation, not above
one-fourth is reckoned to be reclaimed from the jungle.
In 1789 or within three yearsof itsestablishment, its founder reported the imports
of Penang to be of the value ofl30,0002. In 1854, or in sixty-five years’ time, they were
of the value of 581,2402. But in the first of these years, Penang was the only British
port in the Straits of Malacca, and its imports represented, therefore, the whole
British trade of the Straits. In 1854, it was competing with two other British settlements,
as an emporium, the joint imports of the three settlements in that year having
amounted to 4,923,2372., or to near thirty-eight fold what they were three years after
the foundation of Penang. These figures represent the progress which British commerce
has made in this remote quarter in little more than sixty years time.
The products of the soil of Penang include none of the staple articles of food, its
rice and pulses being all imported. It produces the coco and areca palms, nutmegs,
cloves, and in perfection all the Malayan fruits. At one period of its history, no less
than three millions and a-half of pounds of black pepper were yearly produced by
Europeans and Chinese, but, in time, it was found out that this article could be produced
far cheaper in the wide lands, and with the cheap labour of Sumatra and other
places, and the culture has now been wholly abandoned. On the territory on the
continent the sugar-cane is largely cultivated, and several thousand tons of sugar are
yearly exported. Sheep cannot be reared, but are imported, nor is the pasture fit for
rearing oxen, the only useful domestic animal that flourishes being the dull, coarse,
but useful buffalo. Poultry is chiefly imported, but abundant, and fish is of finer
quality and more abundant than in any other part of India.
Penang at present forms with Singapore and Malacca what is called the Straits’
government, which is, in fact, a Lieutenant-Governorship, subject directly to the
Governor-General of India. The laws administered from its first foundation have
been those of England, and the all-sufficient proof of their having, upon the whole,
given satisfaction, is to be found in the constant immigration of strangers seeking
their protection. Since 1807 they have been administered by a Recorder’s Court.
In 1852-53 the gross revenues of Penang, drawn from excises on opium, spirits,
and intoxicating drugs, quit rents, and sale of waste lands, &e., &c., amounted to
18,2362. This, however, does not include the municipal revenue or rates imposed on
police purposes, which is considerable. As at the other Straits’ settlements, there is
an entire exemption from all imposts on ship or cargo.
PEPPER (BLACK). Piper nigrum. This commodity, although now compared
to others, such as sugar, coffee, cotton, and indigo, all of them either unknown, or
little known, in the early period of the Indian trade of Europe, of very little importance,
formed for many ages the staple article of it. The great Vasco Di Gama did
not think his achievement complete, until he had loaded his ships with cargos of it,
and for three centuries after his time, the maritime nations of Europe contended with
each other for the possession of the monopoly of it, forming costly establishments in
India that had no other object in view.
The pepper vine grows readily in very indifferent soils, which consist of dry upland.
Heat, moisture, and some shade are alone indispensable to it. Unlike the sugar-cane,
indigo, and even coffee, the careless husbandry of the Malays is sufficient to rear it in
perfection. Sumatra is the principal Malayan country which produces it, but it is
also produced in the Peninsula, Borneo, Java, and to a small extent in some of the
Philippines. Thus we find it growing from the seventh degree of south, as far as the
eighteenth of north latitude. In an easterly direction, however, its cultivation,
within the Malay Archipelago, is not known beyond Java and Borneo. The soils
most favourable to it seem to he those of sedimentary and plutonic formations, and it
does not succeed equally well in the richer volcanic ones, such as those of Java.
There is no doubt but that black pepper is an exotic in the Indian Archipelago,
and as little, that it must have been introduced from Malabar, the only other country
that produces it. I t is not found wild in any of the Malayan islands, but abundantly
so in the mountains and valleys of most of the countries of the western side of India,
according to the testimony of an excellent botanist, Ur. Francis Buchanan Hamilton.
This fact would be sufficient to prove its foreign origin, but it is corroborated by
etymology. In Malay, the name of the plant, lada, which in the language of the
Sundas of Java, among whom we may suppose the exotic to have been first cultivated,
signifies “ pungent,” but it is a generic one, requiring the epithet “ black,”
in fact corresponds exactly with our own name for it, and this, of course, proves
nothing as to its origin. So it is with several other of the insular languages, but in
Javanese the name is maricha, which is pure Sanscrit. The Javanese appear to have
extended this Hindu name to the languages of Celebes, Bali, and Lomboc. In those
of the Philippines, again, we have the Malay name, lada, corrupted lara, by the
conversion of the palatial c2 into r, a very frequent commutation. Of the time in