OP THE ISLANDS NEAR SINGAPORE, 
579 
well to do in the world, compared to similar classes of natives ; 
their wages or profits being greater, their food better, and their 
houses and clothing superior to the natives amongst whom they 
live. In the first part of this paper, I have stated my belief that 
the consequences of extreme poverty powerfully induce those sub¬ 
ject to it, to receive malarious impressions. In this locality, as 
poverty cannot be said to exist amongst its inhabitants to such an 
extent as to aid in the developement of fever, it cannot therefore be 
considered as the cause of the disease, supposing 1 allowed poverty 
and its concomitant evils to be one of the causes of fever, which I 
do not. As no causes exist, as far as we can see, external to the lo¬ 
cality, to engender this fever, and as the physical comforts of the 
natives are equal if not superior to the same classes inhabiting other 
islands as Pulo Sikra, Pulo Sikejang, islands of known salubrity, the 
field of causation is reduced to very narrow limits indeed. The 
first idea that occurred to me as likely to be the cause of the fever, 
3 to 5 children, all of whom they rarely rear $ they have a singular custom 
of suckling all their children one after another, so that a Bugis mother is 
never relieved from the duties of a nurse. I have seen a baby of 12 months, 
a child of two years, and another of 4 suckling from the same mother, one 
after another. In habits they are very gregarious. Where there are families, 
two or thrcegenerallylive in one house; where there are old, or young men, 
3 or 4 generally do the same Their houses are built in the Malay fashion 
on posts elevated 5 or 0 feet above the ground. The roof is made with at- 
laps of the Nipa Palm, which also form the sides. The floor is generally 
composed of slips ofNibong, or the wild Pinang tree laid loosely on, through 
the interstices of which all the water and filth fall into the space below, 
which is generally enclosed so as to form a store room, and poultry yard. 
The occupation of the Bugis near Singapore is generally a combination of 
pine-apple planters and fishermen. Wherever one of that nation places 
his house, he plants cocoanuts, and some other fruit trees. From their pine¬ 
apples which grow in abundance, and which arc sold on an average at the 
rate of 3 to 400 per dollar, and from the fish which they sell at the neigh¬ 
bouring market of Singapore, the Bugis settlers can live well, and clothe 
themselves well, their receipts generally averaging one third more than 
the average wages of Singapore. The women contribute their mite, and 
not a small one, to the general profits. Their cloths, called Sarongs , 
woven of gold and silk, are raiments for princes, while their coaser articles 
of manufacture are celebrated for their durability. In religion they are 
Islamites, which denies them the use of wines and spirits, but they make 
up for it, by a drink made from the pulp of the pine-apple by allowing it to 
ferment. This liquid must be drunk in the first stage of fermentation or 
it becomes very soon acid; it is pleasant and exhilarating, but it seems to 
have a strong purgative property, as they invariably steep in it some of the 
bark of the Poco Nerei, a tree generally found amongst mangroves, which 
counteracts the tendency to Diarrhoea. Jollifications from the indulgence 
of this fermented juice of the pine apple are not of frequent occurence, 
only happening when friends long separated meet again, or on great fes* 
rival days, the juice never being kept prepared in the house, 
e 2 
