222 LAND ON JOHORE. 



cleared by the hand of man, was covered by a dense 

 and impenetrable jungle. Trees of vast height and 

 size rose from amongst a profusion of undergrowth, 

 studded with many varieties of palms and groves of 

 tree-ferns. The subjacent rock did not seem of a 

 more tractable description than that of Port Essing- 

 ton, which indeed it much resembled; but how 

 different was the native vegetation ! and how much 

 more rich in consequence the vegetable soil ! 



Another excursion I made was in the Government 

 gun-boat, with Mr. Evans, to survey the Johore 

 shoal, off the south-east point of the island of Singa- 

 pore. 1 only succeeded in landing on the mainland 

 of Johore for about half an hour. The rock, and of 

 course the vegetation, was the same as that of Sin- 

 gapore. We visited a small Malay village, of which 

 the Malay inhabitants seemed to be all mat-makers, 

 but there were two Chinese shopkeepers, and a Bugis 

 family was settled on a small island opposite, where 

 they seemed to be cultivating the ground. Entering 

 one of the Malay houses, we found a party of men, 

 women, and children playing at cards. The cards 

 were Chinese, and as well as the game quite unin- 

 telligible to me. They played with great good 

 humour, although a considerable number of the 

 small coins they used frequently changed hands ; 

 as twelve of these coins, however, go to a penny 

 sterling, the losses could not be very serious. 



On August 3rd, 1845, we left Singapore, and 

 beat back through the Strait of Banca to that of 



