POSSESSIONS IN THE STRAITS OP MALACCA, 141 
zones raised a little above the level of the clayey flats. Where 
swamps have been formed by such sand belts banking in the water, 
vegetable matter has been accumulated. Its depth is regulated by 
the level which the clay or sand flat that has been banked in had pre¬ 
viously attained, and in different localities varies greatly. Where 
new, it consists of fragments of wood and masses of acquatic plants 
more or less decomposed, and, where old, of a soft black peaty mat¬ 
ter, spongy and elastic at the surface, and below passing into a thick 
vegetable mud.” 
From which description it will be inferred that the soil is general¬ 
ly good, which will be readily admitted on seeing the gigantic trees 
and the thick underwood of which the interminable forests are com¬ 
posed of along the whole coasts from Johore to Province Wellesley, 
a distance of upward of four hundred miles. 
Until very recently Europeans had done little in plantations of 
any kind. In the early part of the present century the high prices 
which spices bore induced several Europeans to commence the cul¬ 
tivation of pepper, nutmegs and cloves on the island of Pinang then 
recently ceded to the East India Company and made a principal 
place of stoppage for their ships trading to China. But subsequent¬ 
ly a long period of uninterrupted peace induced larger productions of 
these products and consequently lowered their value, which, together 
with the very high pretensions of the Company for the occupation of 
the waste lands, deterred enterprising Europeans from applying for 
them. But after some years a modification of the terms, with the 
prospect of a diminution of duties on sugar, led to the establishment 
of considerable Sugar plantations in Singapore and Province Wel¬ 
lesley under European management. The boon obtained by the last 
named place in having her Sugar and Rum imported into the home 
markets on payment of the reduced duties encouraged the extension 
of cultivation there, whilst the denial of the same advantage to Sin- 
pore at once checked any further efforts in Sugar cultivation. 
So recently as 1843 the official reports of Pinang show that only, 
cvvt. qrs. ibs. 
353 3 10 of Sugar and 4,000 gals, of Ilum were exported. 
