178 SINGAPORE RIVER. 



bilities, or the picturesque scenery and fertile 

 soil it contains, their rambles being merely con- 

 fined to evening drives, or walks, in the imme- 

 diate vicinity of the settlement. 



We M^ent a short distance up the Singapore 

 river in a sampan ; the banks abounded in 

 the dark green and rank mangrove trees, be- 

 hind which hills arose, and occasional native 

 dwellings. We did not proceed far before 

 we landed among some Malay houses, sur- 

 rounded with numerous palm, fruit, and flower 

 trees ; among which the lofty Jack tree, with 

 its enormous fruit pending from the trunk or 

 larger branches, the feathered cocoa palm, 

 the erect Areka palm, a beautiful shrub of 

 Hibiscus rosa-cliinensis covered by a profusion of 

 large flowers of a delicate nankin colour, and 

 several large trees of the Bixa oi'ellana, or arnotto 

 of commerce, the Cashumpa of the Malays, (some 

 of whom occasionally used it as a dye,) were nu- 

 merous. One of these dwellings was a manufac- 

 tory for the refining of sago, and another a native 

 foundry for small cannon ; the powerful fragrance 

 of the tube rose (Polianthes tuberosa) was diffused 

 around at the very early hour of the morning we 

 arrived, when the sparkling dew-drops had not yet 

 forsaken the herbage, the sun not having yet the 

 power to cause their glistening and refreshing 

 decorations to vanish. 



