C26 
SKETCH or THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY 
to the present continuation of the beach, which is a section of a newer 
and lower bank of sand on which the western suburbs of Malacca 
stand. Behind tills bank is a cultivated clayey fiat, from which the 
old coast line rises 3 to 4 feet This coast line, which is now cover¬ 
ed with paddy, must have been the site of a village in former days, 
as numerous fragments of pottery and hewn stone are thrown out in 
digging pits. When the sandbank was formed in front, the Malays- 
must have abandoned their old dwellings. The inhabitants have a 
tradition that Pulo Upe was formerly united to the mainland. 
Tanjong Tuan (Cape Rachado) is evidently the remnant of a hill 
of which the greater part has been eaten away by the sea. The con¬ 
cave coast between it and Tanjong Kling is sandy, and, in several 
places, lined with rocks, and, towards Tanjong Tuan, with small is¬ 
lets. In this first characteristic it resembles the bight to the south 
of T. Kling, in which we found the evidences of abrasion so striking. 
H e would not be understood to lay much stress on the character 
of the shore taken by itself, because in many places where the shore is 
yielding to the waves, the coast may be the field of great accumulations, 
destined, ere the lapse of many years, to convert the wasting shore 
into an inland ridge or permatang. Thus a portion of the shore of 
Province Wellesley north of the Prye is wasting. On revisiting it in 
March 184G, alter an absence of two years, we noticed that several 
cocoanut trees had been undermined and prostrated in the interval, 
let the mud fiat in front is gradually rising and extending to the south. 
At Cape Rachado, on the contrary, the main current of the Strait flows, 
and, at a short distance from the point, there arc 30 fathoms of water. 
As a general rule in the Straits (but subject to exceptions) a grow¬ 
ing coast is covered with mangroves and overflowed by the sea, and 
a wasting coast is above the sea level and has a sandy beaeh in front. 
Even where the soil is clayey, the finer particles being suspended and 
carried away by the ordinary tides, and only the coarser left, a beach 
of this kind is formed. We may remark that in the middle and 
southern division of the Straits, there are no strong waves driven per¬ 
pendicularly on the coasts from the open sea, and consequently broad 
ami elevated sandy ridges or permutangs are not so liable to be form- 
