BOUKIT TIMAH. 221 



A similar anecdote was told me of a cargo of 

 nutmegs, which being sent home, either from Ma- 

 lacca or Penang, in their husk or rind, had when 

 opened the bright red colour which they always 

 have when fresh. They were declared unsaleable ; 

 but after lying for a year or two in a warehouse at 

 home, fetched a high price as a "very superior 

 article." 



After remaining a week at Malacca we returned 

 to Singapore, where we stayed for a fortnight. Dur- 

 ing this time I made one excursion to Boukit Timah, 

 a hill near the north side of the island, and about 

 eight miles from the town. Very good roads have 

 now been made in several directions across the 

 island, and a number of plantations cleared, in 

 which are grown nutmegs, pepper, cloves, gambir, 

 etc. The hill of Boukit Timah, which is about 400 

 feet high, consisted of granite, but all the remainder 

 of the ground passed over was either clay or sand, 

 or a soft argillaceous sandstone, sometimes ferrugi- 

 nous.* The country was abruptly undulating, with 

 many little winding valleys. The soil did not seem 

 rich, except in the flat bottoms ; but the whole 

 country, both hill and dale, where it had not been 



* It contained harder beds of sandstone, and in some loose 

 sands and clays I saw blocks of sandstone embedded of large size, 

 and well rounded, as if water-worn boulders. I could not be 

 sure, however, that they were true boulders, and not spheroidal 

 concretions, such as I have seen in the sandstones of New South 

 Wales. 



