S7S 



A VISIT TO THE INDIAN ARCEllPELAGO. 



one of political, social, oomnierciaJ, and ruligious progress. 

 It is iudtfed tiitie tiiat the navica of tho Cbrntian 

 TvorM should eiirncstlj coopefate, shaking oflT indif- 

 ference, sacrificing jealousies, until tliGj shall have 

 swept from every part of the liighwaj of cations an 

 evil, which is at once the irapediment to civiliJiatioii and 

 its reproach. 



In the Dutcii Report, to which I have more ihm once 

 referred, England \s cliarged with "reiterating protes- 

 tations that she will faithfully execute the treaty of 

 London, but — by her * authointies at Sincapore * — <lrawing 

 back -when it is proposed to act esimiiltaneously," However 

 this may have been, every European nation must feel that 

 this is not an era, at which the common school-book of 

 geograplij should have nothing moiio to say of the vast 

 expanse conipriseil in the Indian Arcliipeiago, than that 

 it is "a world of piratical outrage and eommercial peril" 

 Neither is it an ago in whicli the poet should find only a 

 revolting paradox, where nature has been lavish of the 

 sublime and beautiful — 



** G]id« w«! tt rough Mog^Uiui'a Stnute, 

 Where iwa Oceans 4p« tbdf guica — 



&(s& — ihe VQst Piiciitc: amjlea 

 J/aunitt fiiufeiux. aiid ttileil /'* 



Nor, lastly, is it an age, in which a mere casual visitor, 

 lite myself, to our great oriental emporium, Sincapore, 

 should be able to testify that he luu^ many a time stood 



