Jan.] 



SINGAPORE. 



469 



CHAPTER XI. 



Disappointed Hopes — Take Freight for Cadiz — Touch at Singapore to lighten 

 the Vessel — Description of the Place — Climate, Soil, Health, and Beauty of the 

 Country — An Aerial Excursion — Delightful Prospects — Sail from Singapore — 

 The treacherous Malays — Precautions necessary to be observed — Double the 

 Cape of Good Hope — Saldanha Bay — Necessary Repairs — Island of St. Helena 

 — Tomb of Bonaparte — History and Description of the Island — The Azores 

 ■ — Cadiz — Bordeaux — Homeward Bound — Safe Arrival — Melancholy News — 

 Tho Conclusion. 



The importance of my new discoveries was universally acknowledged 

 at Manilla *, and had it not been for the envy and perfidy of some of 

 my own countrymen, I should have succeeded in raising funds to fit 

 out the Antarctic in such a manner as immediately to realize a portion 

 of the immense profits which still await a well-conducted expedition 

 to those islands. The sanctity of the tomb, combined with a delicacy 

 for the feelings of the living, protects the memory of one whose name 

 would otherwise, in this very narrative, have been stamped with irre- 

 deemable infamy. His perfidious machinations so far succeeded as 

 to compel me to abandon the idea of returning to the islands of Sunday 

 and Monday until I had first visited the United States. I therefore 

 obtained a freight for Cadiz, on my way home, and the Antarctic was 

 ready for sea on the 13th of January, 1831. The Asiatic cholera 

 was at this time in Manilla. 



Jan. 2\st. — After taking leave of all our friends and acquaint- 

 ance at Manilla, we went on board, on Thursday, the 13th; and at 

 6, P. M., got under way ; homeward-bound, via the Cape of Good 

 Hope. At half-past eight, P. M., we passed the Corregidor, with a 

 strong north-east monsoon ; before we had reached the coast of Cochin 

 China, however, we found that the Antarctic was overloaded, and there- 

 fore made the best of our way to Singapore, where we arrived on 

 Friday, the 21st of January, and landed such a portion of the cargo as 

 lightened the vessel sufficiently to be considered safe. 



The town of Singapore is a recent British settlement, on an island 

 of the same name, lying at the eastern extremity of the Strait of 

 Malacca, in latitude 1° 17' 22" north, long. 103° 51' 45" east. Singa- 

 pore is separated from the mainland forming the peninsula of Ma- 

 lacca, or Malaya, on the north, by a narrow strait of the same name ; so 

 narrow, indeed, that in some places it is scarcely a quarter of a mile 

 across, and yet, in the early period of European navigation, this little 

 channel was the thoroughfare between India and China.* At present, 



* Native Foreign Trade of China. — "The principal part of the junk trade is carried on by the four 

 contiguous provinces of Canton, Fokien, Chekiang, and Kiannan. 



"No foreign trade is permitted with the island of Formosa ; and I have no means of describing 

 the extent of the traffic which may be conducted between China, Corea, and the Leechew Islands. 

 The following are the countries with which China carries on a trade in junks ; viz, Japan, the Philip- 



