later taken by us
for the purpose of suppressing piracy, and forms part of this British
settlement. The island has an area of 107 square miles, and the province
of 270 square miles. Another dependency of the settlement since 1889 is
the Dindings with the Island of Pangkor, where the treaty of 1874 was
made by Sir Andrew Clarke, and which eventually led to our protectorate
of several of the native states of the Malay Peninsula, and their
complete federation in 1896.

[Illustration: FORT CORNWALLIS, PENANG.

_Plate II._]

When Penang was first occupied it was almost uninhabited, and the whole
island was covered with the densest jungle, but it was not long before
Captain Light, who was appointed the first Superintendent of Trade, made
a road to the highest point of the island, then called "Bel retiro" but
now Penang Hill.[2] A great part of the island was soon cleared and
roads made, so that in 1792, seven years after it came into our hands,
Captain Light was able to report that the population had increased to
10,000 souls; this increase of population has been steadily going on
from year to year, until, with its dependencies, Penang, after a little
more than a century, now numbers no less than 240,000.

[Footnote 2: There is an old legend in the island that Captain
Light, in order to encourage the Malays in the work of cutting
down the jungle, pointed a cannon in the direction in which he
required it to be cleared, then he loaded it with powder, and
instead of a shot he put in several dollars, and firing it off
he called out to the Malays, "Now you may have all you can
find."

It is said that the eager contest which ensued, of one
endeavouring to get the money before another, led to a regular
scramble, which considerably helped forward the work.]

Since 1825, when the Indian convicts from Bencoolen were added to those
already on the island, their labour was almost wholly turned to account
in the construction of roads both on the island and in the province; but
about 1850 some intramural work was also undertaken. The gangs in the
province were at last taught to cut and burn the jungle as well as to
construct the roads, and the records say at some risk from tigers which
infested the province in those days, and occasionally carried off a
straggler from the gangs at work. They were also bitten in large numbers
by the venomous hamadryads which used to abound there, and from the
po