1884.] THE TEA YELLING FORESTER IN ASIA. 



THE TRAVELLING FORESTER IN ASIA., 



THE Edinburgh Exhibition, now closed, at least emphasized Sydney 

 Smith's saying, that travel where you please o'er the circuit of our 

 globe, you will meet a Scotchman. The photographs of scenery in 

 Labrador, done by a Glasgow artist, might be our most nortliern 

 testimony to the adage ; while the intimate connection of Edinburgh 

 gardeners or capitalists with the North American forests are matters 

 of arboricultural history. In the meanwhile, dropping a systematic 

 geographical description, the presence of Cleghorn and Michael, 

 besides the ever-varying stream of Indian forest officers, as well as 

 the local connections of Commissioners of Native Governments such 

 as Ceylon and Johore, were sufficient evidence that Asiatic subjects 

 have a pre-eminently Scottish interest. The following notes and 

 scraps seem worthy of preservation : — • 



THE JOHOKK STAND 



recalls the time, not more than eighty years ago, when Sir Stamford 

 liaffles founded Singapore, the present Maharaja's grandfather being 

 Tumungong of that island. Eventually the British obtained the 

 wliole island, principally through tlie good offices of the Tumungong, 

 who was paramount in the island. The present Mahmoud, His 

 Highness Abukasker, still has considerable private property there, 

 and frequently resides at Tyresliall, a beautiful place three miles 

 from tlie town of Singapore. The Maharaja is an independent 

 prince ; his family have always been on friendly terms with the 

 British Government officials, and from his having visited this country 

 and having had the benefit of education in his youth, together with 

 his preference for the society of educated Englishmen, he certainly has 

 become one of the most liberal and enliglitened Native princes of the 

 whole Eastern Archipelago. In this great slice of the Malayan Pen- 

 insula, as yet almost virgin forest, thougli so near the equator the 

 thermometer averages about 7 8° Eahr. in the shade. It is the 

 home of the gutta-percha and Borneo camphor trees. In one of the 

 Exliibition lectures by Mr. Meldrum, Commissioner to the Maharaja, 

 courteously placed at our service, and of which we may hereafter 

 make further use, the woods brought into commerce by the Johore 

 Steam Saw Mills Companj' are described at length. 



EUEOPEANS IN JOHORE. 



The mills are situated at the edge of what was once dense forest, 

 though now cleared, and the town of Johore Baru is becoming quite 



c 



