144 THE SEA. 



Siam, and Java. Twelve years ago it exported over sixty-six million rupees' worth of 

 gambier, tin, pepper, nutmegs, coffee, tortoise-shell, rare woods, sago, tapioca, camphor, 

 gutta-percha, and rattans. It is vastly greater now. Exclusive of innumerable native 

 craft, 1,697 square-rigged vessels entered the port in 1864-5. It has two splendid 

 harbours, one a sheltered roadstead near the town, with safe anchorage; the other, a 

 land-locked harbour, three miles from the town, capable of admitting vessels of the 

 largest draught. Splendid wharfs have been erected by the many steam-ship companies 

 and merchants, and there are fortifications which command the harbour and roads. 



" A great deal has been written about the natural beauties of Ceylon and Java," says 

 Mr. Cameron,* "and some theologians, determined to give the first scene in the Mosaic 

 narrative a local habitation, have fixed the paradise of un fallen man on one or other of 

 those noble islands. Nor has their enthusiasm carried them to any ridiculous extreme ; 

 for the beauty of some parts of Java and Ceylon might well accord with the description 

 given us, or rather which we are accustomed to infer, of that land from which man was 

 driven on his first great sin. 



" I have seen both Ceylon and Java, and admired in no grudging measure their many 

 charms; but for calm placid loveliness, I should place Singapore high above them both. 

 It is a loveliness, too, that at once strikes the eye, from whatever point we view the 

 island, which combines all the advantages of an always beautiful and often imposing 

 coast-line, with an endless succession of hill and dale stretching inland. The entire 

 circumference of the island is one panorama, where the magnificent tropical forest, with 

 its undergrowth of jungle, runs down at one place to the very water's edge, dipping its 

 large leaves in the glassy sea, and at another is abruptly broken by a brown rocky cliff, 

 or a late landslip, over which the jungle has not yet had time to extend itself. Here 

 and there, too, are scattered little green islands, set like gems on the bosom of the 

 hushed waters, between which the excursionist, the trader, or the pirate, is wont to steer 

 his course. ' Eternal summer gilds these shores ; ' no sooner has the blossom of one tree 

 passed away, than that of another takes its place and sheds perfume all around. As for 

 the foliage, that never seems to die. Perfumed isles are in many people's minds merely 

 fabled dreams, but they are easy of realisation here. There is scarcely a part of the 

 island, except those few places where the original forest and jungle have been cleared away, 

 from which at night-time, on the first breathings of the land winds, may not be felt 

 those lovely forest perfumes, even at the distance of more than a mile from shore. These 

 land winds or, more properly, land airs, for they can scarcely be said to blow, but only 

 to breathe usually commence at ten o'clock at night, and continue within an hour or 

 two of sunrise. They are welcomed by all by the sailor because they speed him on either 

 course, and by the wearied resident because of their delicious coolness." 



Another writer f speaks with the same enthusiasm of the well-kept country roads, and 

 approaches to the houses of residents, where one may travel for miles through unbroken 

 avenues of fruit-trees, or beneath an over-arching canopy of evergreen palms. The long 



well-kept approaches to the European dwellings never fail to win the praise of 



* " Our Tropical Possessions in Malayan India," by John Cameron, Esq. 

 5- J. Thomson, " The Straits of Malacca, Indo-China, and China." 



