370 



MALACCA. 



getis, Cycas circinalis, C. revolutis, Casuarina this is uncommon, only 

 three trees of it at Ching, one, at Tonjong, one in Mr. Rodyk'a 

 garden a Cynometra, shewy from its pretty pink pendulous young 

 leaves, Barleria, Ravcnula, one young tree in Rodyk's garden, Lan- 

 tana, Poineiana, Murraya exotica, Poliauthus, Hibiscus Rosa sinensis, 

 Passiflora laurifolia, P. fsetida, Bseckia fruticens like a weeping willow. 



Vegetables — ^Various Cucurbita, as Indian, but not so many. A 

 few Leguminosae, yams from Dioscorea, but generally from a large 

 leaved Caladium, Capsicum, some few salad plants, but no European 

 vegetables are to be found good, Asparagus very poor, sweet pota- 

 toes, cabbage, coconut-cabbage, a sort of leek. 



The lower orders eat spinaches of a wild Amaranthus, and Her- 

 pestes monuiera, and many others ; but the malays are not so indiscri- 

 minate in this respect as the Burmese. 



Scents, — Anthoxanthus, 



Sward.— Toven'm polygonoides, Vandellia arguta, Leguminossa, 

 Poa, Salomonia, Spermacoce, Burmania, Scirpus. 



An Indian Forest. — There are few things more oppressively soli- 

 tary than an Indian forest just before sun set, and however proud 

 man may be inclined to feel at all times, in crowded cities, where the 

 noise and bustle of population coaviace him that he is the principal 

 agent, the silence of the forest, (save where broken by the unnatu- 

 ral screaming and groaning cicades) and the vast size of most of the 

 objects by which he is surrounded, prove him to be a thing of no- 

 thingness, to say nothing of the feeling of utter helplessness, which 

 must steal across the mind of every one in such loneliness. 



Similar feelings always overcome me, when looking from a tower- 

 ing mountain, over a wide expanse of level country, as often occurs 

 in the East, where a vast map may be extended before the eyes with- 

 out the sign of a human habitation, and often marked by a grand 

 river, stealing noiselessly on, lifeless as the forest, with the sandy 

 tracts stretched along it, or the patches of clear spots, as if intended 

 expressly for human habitation. 



Even in those cases in which the country before us is known to 

 be densely peopled, producing abundance of the necessaries of life, 

 yet monotonous and flat from the distance at which we view it, the 

 same feeling steals over the soul, perhaps the more so, when we con- 

 sider that a few brief miles are sufficient, to render the works of 

 man Invisible. 



