542 
FOURTH BULLETIN OF 
[1846. 
February , 1845.—Singapore is rapidly rising to a large city, and may well be 
styled the key of the Gulf of Siam and the China Sea. It is situated on an island 
of an elliptical form, twenty-five to twenty-seven miles in its greatest breadth from 
north to south, and containing an estimated area of two hundred and seventy 
square miles, with about fifty small desert isles within ten miles around it, in the 
adjacent straits, whose area is about sixty miles, the whole settlement embracing a 
maritime and insular dominion of about one hundred miles in circumference. The 
island is, on the north, separated from the main land of the Malayan peninsula by 
a very small strait, which in its narrowest part is not more than a quarter of a 
mile wide ; on the front, and distant about ten miles, is an extensive chain of almost 
desert isles, the channel between which and Singapore is the grand route of com¬ 
merce between Europe and America and western Asia. The aspect is low and 
level, with an extensive chain of saline and fresh water marshes in several parts, 
covered with lofty timber and luxuriant vegetation, here and there low rounded 
sand hills, interspersed with spots of level ground, formed of a ferruginous clay 
with a sandy substratum. 
The principal rock is red sand-stone, which changes in some parts to a breccia 
or conglomerate, containing large fragments and crystals of quartz. 
The whole contiguous group of isles, about thirty in number, as well as Singa¬ 
pore, are apparently of a submarine origin, and their evulsion probably of no very 
distant date. 
On several of the small islands of the strait are fine quarries of syenite, which 
are worked by the Chinese, and used for most of the buildings now being construct¬ 
ed in Singapore. 
The town stands on the south coast, on a point of land near the west end of a 
bay, where there is a salt creek or river navigable for lighters, nearly a mile from 
the sea ; on the east side of the town is a deep inlet for the shelter of native boats. 
The town consists generally of stone houses of two stories high, but in the suburbs, 
called Campcng Glam, (Campong, Malacca, and Glam, China,) bamboo huts are 
erected on posts, most of them standing in the stagnant water on the east side of 
the harbor. Enterprising merchants have erected many substantial and ornamental 
houses fronting the harbor, and presenting a strang8 contrast with the wretched 
tenements of the natives. The ground is generally raised three feet, and they have 
an elegant entrance by an ascent of granite stairs. The rooms are lofty, with 
Venetian windows down to thefioor, and many are furnished in a luxuriant manner, 
with baths, &c., while the grounds are tastily laid out with shrubs of beautiful 
foliage, affording a most picturesque prospect from the shipping in the harbor. 
On the design of Sir Stanford Rafiles, the settlement of Singapore was first formed 
in February, 1818, and declared a free port in 1819, and its sovereignty, in its pre¬ 
sent extent, confirmed to Great Britain in 1825, by a convention with the King of 
Holland and the Malay Princes of Johore. There is, it is said, a pension of 
$24,000 Spanish, a year, paid by the East India Company to this Rajah as an equiva¬ 
lent for the cession. In 1823, the town consisted of only a few buildings, but it now 
can boast of the handsomest, most regular, and best built bazaar, it is said, in In¬ 
dia. The shops and houses (upper stories) are all pukka, uniform, neat, and re¬ 
spectable, with fine wide streets, and are occupied solely by Chinese, who carry on 
the business of the place, not excepting commercial speculations, as their houses 
are full of goods, and they themselves are in a thriving condition. 
Singapore was down to the year 1818 a haunt of pirates; no European or native 
vessels ever visited it, and as late as the year 1810 the boats of the English frigate 
Greyhound cut out and recaptured from one of the most secure spots of the present 
harbor a European vessel which had fallen into the hands of the pirates in question. 
The population of Singapore is, at present, computed at more than sixty thousand, 
two-thirds of which are Chinese, and the remainder Malays, Hindoos, and foreigners. 
During our stay there of five weeks more than seven thousand Chinese arrived as 
settlers, but it was the proper season for the arrival of their junks, as they are obliged 
to come down near the termination of the northeast monsoon, not being able to beat 
against an adverse wind with their ill constructed vessels. Upwards of forty of 
these vessels were lying in the harbor, some of six hundred weight tonnage. 
Notwithstanding its lowness, marshiness, intertropical position, and consequent 
high temperature, with a constant and rapid evaporation by a nearly vertical sun, 
from a rank and luxuriant vegetation and a profusion of animal and vegetable mat- 
