92 CHINESE EMIGRANTS. 



value. Its texture is strong and neat ; its colours 

 are fast, and usually red, blue, white, and yellow, 

 blended with tasteful effect* The finer kinds 

 possess qualities which recommend them strongly 

 to Europeans. I am informed, that English 

 weavers have endeavoured in vain to imitate 

 them nor is this improbable the patient toil 

 and care which the Malay woman devotes to her 

 web can be but badly represented by the rapid 

 evolutions of machinery, or by the manual labour 

 of the busy workman of highly civilized lands, 

 whose time is so precious, that he too often 

 depends for his daily bread, less upon the ex- 

 cellence than upon the quick dispatch of his 

 work. 



There were no foreign residents at this place, 

 except a few Chinamen, employed in collecting 

 sandal- wood, bees-wax, or any commodities 

 which would turn to profitable account in their 

 commerce with China and Java. It is true, 

 that there are but few countries which have not 

 Chinese amongst then* residents. From the 

 thrifty, and (notwithstanding the opposition of 

 their national laws) the migratory disposition of 



* The red yarn is stained with the bark of the mangrove- 

 tree (Rhizophora mangle) ; the blue, with the berries of a 

 species of Phyllanthus ; the yellow, with the root of the 

 Morinda umbellata. 



