of a few eighteen-pounders for keeping
the domineering Malay Rajah in check.]

CHAPTER VI.

MALACCA AND PENANG.

Malacca, which I first visited in 1829, and have repeatedly revisited,
is completely shorn of its ancient glory, and is no longer of the
slightest importance, either as a military position or as a trading
mart. Penang, at one end of the Straits, and Singapore at the other,
have destroyed its prosperity; and it is now a poverty-stricken place,
with little or no trade. The town is built in the old Dutch fashion,
each house with its out-offices forming a square with a yard in the
centre. The Government offices are still held in the ancient
Stadt-House, a venerable pile built by the worthy Dutch burghers some
hundred and fifty years ago, and retaining to this day its ancient
furniture of ebony, many pieces of which, by the way, have lately
supplied patterns for modern sofas and other furniture. The European
population is composed almost entirely of the civil servants of the
Government and the military men, who reside principally in the immediate
neighbourhood of the town, not liking their Malay neighbours well enough
to feel inclined to spread far into the country. Some few attempts have
been made, within the last fifteen years, to establish nutmeg and other
plantations at Malacca; I fear, without much success. Not that the trees
do not thrive, but that labour is scarce, owing to the prevailing
indolence of the people in this part of the world. Moreover, occasional
disturbances among the natives render a residence on the spot (without
which little success can be expected) any thing but pleasant. The place
is a burthen to the East-India Company, as its revenues do not pay half
its expenses.

The country round Malacca is mountainous, and covered with large timber.
In its neighbourhood are several tin-mines, which yield a metal some
twenty per cent. inferior to that of Banca. This tin finds its way, like
every thing else in the Archipelago, to Singapore, where it has of late
fetched only thirteen dollars and a half _per pecul_.

There is a race of men at Malacca, who appear to be the descendants of
some natives of Malabar who settled there a century ago, and Malay
women; a bad breed certainly, and the men I speak of seem to possess all
the _devilry_ of both races. Numbers of them visit Singapore from time
to time, bringing among other things, thousands of the Malacca canes
which are so much esteeme