CHINESE SETTLERS. 207 



There are said to be about two thousand Chi- 

 nese inhabiting and cultivating the soil in the in- 

 terior of the island. They have neatly-constructed, 

 although not well-furnished habitations. They 

 offered us tea, (and it was poured out in the 

 usual Lilliputian cups,) fruits, rice cakes, and 

 more substantial articles of diet ; indeed they 

 always appeared ready to give us the best they 

 had. After taking a rustic dinner, we returned 

 to the sampan by the same route we came. 

 On the road we observed a Malay lad collecting 

 some plants, as he informed us, for medicine : 

 those I examined consisted merely of several 

 grasses. He said it was for a patient suffering 

 under small-pox. The plants were to be boiled, 

 mixed with rice, and employed as an external 

 application to the body. 



We. rejoined our sampan at the Singapore 

 creek, and arrived at the town early in the 

 evening. 



Early one morning I visited a plantation of a 



lief, when suffering from a long drought, they pour the 

 water from all the appendages they can find, satisfied that 

 the ceremony will be followed by a change of weather. Such 

 belief is curiously contrasted with their notions of the me- 

 dicinal properties of the water contained in them, which they 



believe an infallible specific for incontinence of urine 



Humph, cit. in Abel's China, pp. 340, 341. 



