SINGAPORE. 
401 
These prahus are said when trade or employment fails, to turn their 
attention to piracy, if a favourable opportunity should offer; though 
no one seemed disposed to class them as pirates of the same character 
as the Malays, but rather to look upon them as generally inclined to 
be peaceable. 
The island of Celebes sends to Singapore nearly a hundred prahus 
annually, and they also come from Flores, Timor, Amboyna, Sumbawa, 
Lubok, and even from Papua and Aroo. From the latter countries 
they bring the bird of paradise, so abundant in the market of Singa¬ 
pore. The prahus that come annually from these distant ports are 
not more than fifty in number. 
With the ports of Sumatra and Java there is a great deal of inter¬ 
course, and I was told that the native vessels engaged in it, indepen¬ 
dently of those belonging to Europeans, amount now to some six 
hundred. These are of various sizes, and keep up a constant inter¬ 
course, some of them visiting the ports several times during the year. 
These arrive from both coasts of Sumatra, and belong to the rajahs 
or chiefs of small places, of which even the names are little known, 
and whose subjects are mostly engaged in piracy. The island of Bali 
likewise engages in this trade, through the agency of the Bugis. The 
products of the Malayan peninsula, and of all the ports of the Malacca 
Straits, are also brought to Singapore; but these may be termed 
incidental supplies, for they fluctuate much, both in quantity and value. 
The most regular of all the trade is that with the islands of Rhio 
and Lingin, in the neighbourhood on which the Dutch have a factory. 
This trade is carried on in the sampan boats, and the people of these 
places prefer resorting to this free port to dispose of their produce, 
rather than sell it to the Dutch. The number of the vessels employed 
in this traffic was represented to me to be somewhere about five hun¬ 
dred. The articles brought from all these places are very much the 
same, and consist of pepper, rice, camphor, sago, coffee, nutmegs, oil, 
tobacco, wax, benzoin, sea-weed, dragon’s-blood, biche de mar, birds’- 
nests, tortoise-shell, diamonds, gold-dust, pearls, the pearl-oyster-shell, 
sandalwood, rattans, ivory, some hides, and articles of native manu¬ 
facture, such as sarongs (worn as a wrapper, which come principally 
from Celebes), salendongs, and lacquered ware. 
The foregoing detail exhibits a vast variety of articles of commerce, 
and accounts for the employment of the fifteen hundred, or two thou¬ 
sand vessels of various sizes, that are continually pouring into this 
mart. It may readily be imagined what a stir and life this commerce 
must create ; and when it is considered that nearly all the various 
nations of the East resort here for the purpose of trade, it will not 
212 51 
VOL. V. 
