form; their diet is spare, and confined generally to a few articles of the first necessity; their clothing is scanty and mean; their habitations poor and unfurnished; what we term luxuries, are confined to the opulent few. In all this the keen eye of the financier sees nothing to touch; and he is compelled to have recourse to the expedient of taxing produce in the aggregate.

The government share of rice crops is, on an average, about fifty per cent.! But the mode of collection causes the cultivator to pay about three fourths of his crop. The public treasury is replenished by monopolies; duties on exports and imports, for the most part heavy; licenses for the sale of arrack and toddy; stamps; fees on judicial proceedings; &c. The entire revenue of the Company is probably about a hundred millions of dollars.

But the taxes on India are nothing compared with the oppressions and miseries inflicted by her religion. No statistics can measure these-no eloquence describe them. They must be seen, to be understood. In vain poets describe her citron breezes and palmy woods, her consecrated rivers, balsamic gums, fragrant spices, and trickling manna. One wide-spread shade rests on the scene. It is the kingdom of the god of this world an empire where darkness reigns, and the shadow of death. At every glance, one is reminded of the prophet's forcible description of a people who have forsaken God-"They hunt every man his brother with a net; that they may do evil with both hands, earnestly; the prince asketh, and the judge asketh a reward; and the great man uttereth his mischievous desire; so they wrap it up. The best of them is as a brier; the most upright is sharper than a thorn hedge." Micah vii. 3, 4.

The following are the modern or living languages of Hindustan:- Hindustanee, Bengalese, Cashmerian, Dogura, Ooch, Sindy, Cutch, Gujeratty, Concan, Punjaub, Bicanere, Marwar, Jeypore, Odeypore, Harowty, Malwa, Bruj, Bundlecund, Mahratta, Magadha, Koshala, Maithila, Nepaul, Orissa, Teloogoo, Carnata, and Tamul. Except the Hindustanee, which is the universal language of intercourse, all these are local.

Coasters
Harbor and Town of Singapore

Missionary Operations - Malacca

Extent

Population Progress of Common Schools

Commerce Islamism Population Moral Character of Population-
Orang Louts Chinese Wedding
History of the Settlement
Christianity Anglo-Chinese College
Peninsula
Salengore Johore
tani 1

Origin of Malay Race Divisions - Keda

Rumbo

Malay Perak

Pahang Tringano Calantan Pa

Ligore Character of Malays - Slavery - Language.

MARCH 18th, 1837. Again at sea. The lapse of ten days, since Mr. Day's arrival, enabled me to arrange with him various plans of action, and to feel, on leaving Madras, that my work there was done. I had already procured him a house, and some furniture, in the midst of Teloogoo people, and near to the residence of George Vansomerin, Esq., than whom he could not have a warmer friend; so that he entered at once on housekeeping; and his knowledge of the language will enable him at once to commence some parts of his work. Few are the missions blessed with so devoted a missionary, and few are the missionaries blessed with so devoted a wife.

The "Thames," in which I this day embarked for Singapore, is one of the huge vessels, lately belonging to the East India Company, and has now a cargo of seventeen hundred tons. The ample decks, the cleanliness, the little motion given by the sea, the size of my cabin, the excellent table, and all other circumstances, form an agreeable contrast to the small coasters, in which all my voyages in these seas have, with one exception, been made. I feel truly thankful for this relief. Continued inconvenience, and exposure for so many months, and especially my inland journey to Trichinopoly, had seriously impaired the small stock of health with which I left home, and made me doubtful of living to return. The truly paternal hospitalities of Mr. V. and family in Madras have set me up, and my present voyage is carrying on the improvement. As the rest of my tour will be performed in large vessels, I now set forward, not only with a fair prospect of finishing the work assigned me, but of regaining established health.

In taking my leave, as I hope, of "country vessels," as the coasters are called, I will just “show up a fair average of their comforts, drawn from my experience in seven such voyages. By this plan, I shall not hurt the feelings of any of those captains whose eye may meet these pages, and at the same time avoid telling the same story " with variations" seven times over.

You find, on getting aboard, a cabin five or six feet square, and are fortunate if in it you can stand erect, and still more so if it have a port-hole, or any ventilation, except through the scuttle, by which you enter. Here you eat with the captain, or perhaps off of a stinking hen-coop on deck. There can be no awning on deck, because it would be in the way of the boom; so that you stay below, while the sun blazes on the plank over your head, and keeps the thermometer in the cabin about blood heat. Your mattress is laid on a locker at night, and rolled up in the day. Perhaps you may be able to swing it. The seams on deck, neglected and parched up, during a six months' dry season, let the salt water on you in rapid drops, when the decks are washed. If it be rainy season, your confinement below is scarcely less unpleasant. Trunks and small stores must occupy the margin of the cabin, or be stowed where you cannot come at them. If you attempt to write, three times a day you must huddle together your papers, that the trunk or table may be spread for meals; or if you eat on deck, and so have uninterrupted use of the table, the heat and motion make study difficult. Your cooking is by no means scientific. The fowls, sometimes without the privilege of a coop, and lying on the deck tied by the legs, "get no better very fast." The smallness of the vessel makes her toss about most uncomfortably, when a larger vessel would be quite still; so that, if you take any thing out of its place, it must be "chocked" again with care, or it will "fetch way." As to walking the deck, there is hardly room to turn; and if there be, you must have either the sun or dew upon you. But your worst time is at night. Several must sleep in the tiny cabin; and the heavy, damp air, coming down the gangway, gives you rheumatism, without producing ventilation. You perspire at every pore, till nature is exhausted, and you sleep, from very inanity.

There are other disagreeables, which, though worse, are happily not quite so common. Some of the captains have no means of ascertaining latitude, and still fewer their longitude. Sometimes there is no chart on board. The cables, anchors, and general inventory, are apt to be poor. Vessels in the habit of

carrying rice, timber, stick-lac, &c., have always mice, cockroaches, centipedes, scorpions, and ants, in great abundance. In one of my voyages, I killed nearly thirty scorpions in the cabin, and in another, eight or ten centipedes. Thrice, on taking out of my trunk a clean shirt, I found a centipede* in its folds. Large, winged cockroaches infest all Indian vessels; but in some they creep about in every direction, day and night. I had one full specimen of this. Such crowds lighted upon the dinner-table, that we could hardly tell meat from potatoes. To drive them away and eat at the same time was impossible, for they would keep off of a dish no longer than it was agitated. The captain and I just dined patiently, each contenting himself with being able to keep them out of his own plate. At night, they swarmed in thousands on the boards and on the bed, eating our fingers and toes to the quick. A hundred oranges, tied up in a bag, had not been on board thirty-six hours, before it was found that these cormorants had left nothing but the skin. It was a bag full of hollow globes! Uncomfortable and confined as were the voyages up and down rivers, in Burman canoes, they were every way more pleasant than these little voyages at sea.

These things ought not, perhaps, in strictness, to be called hardships, but they are inconveniences, which I found tended rapidly to make me old, and convince me that voyages of this sort cannot be a wise resort for invalid missionaries. I might indeed have gone more comfortably, had I chartered for myself some proper craft, or waited for larger vessels; but I could not think of so greatly increasing the expense, or prolonging my absence. Those who pass only between great seaports, may generally, with some delay, obtain good vessels, and the usual marine comforts.

The prices paid for passages in India are startling to an American, accustomed to cheap locomotion. In general, they are two or three times dearer in proportion to distance, than those of our splendid New York and Liverpool packet-ships. Freights are charged at rates equally exorbitant. Even at these prices, the accommodations between unfrequented ports are generally much worse than our little coasting packets.

The passage through the Strait of Malacca furnishes much to interest the lover of wild scenery. Lofty islands, covered

* These are generally about two inches long, and the thickness of a pipe stem. The bite is never fatal, but more venomous than our spiders.

with forests perpetually verdant, are continually in sight. Equatorial temperature spreads its delightful uniformity, and a smooth sea imparts feelings of safety. Heavy squalls, however, often occur from the west, which the people here call Sumatras. One is constantly reminded of being in the region of the Malays, by the recurrence of the name Pulo, which is their name for "island."

The whole strait has long been notorious for piracy; and shocking instances of it, are even now often committed on small vessels. Malays are far from considering piracy dishonorable; and many of their princes openly engage in it. Their old romances and traditions constantly refer to such cruises, and invest them with all the glories of a crusade. According to their Mahometan notions, no doom is too bad for "infidel dogs,” so that Christians and pagans are robbed, murdered, or enslaved, without compunction. Whatever else of the Koran their Sheiks may conceal, they take abundant pains to proclaim the decrees of merit for the foe of infidels.

Singapore, where we arrived April 19, 1837, lies in latitude 1° 17', longitude 103° 51'. The harbor can scarcely be surpassed for extent, safety, and beauty. Lofty islands keep the water perpetually smooth, and seem to lock it in on every side. The town has not an imposing appearance from the anchorage, but the fine hill in the rear, covered with vigorous grass, is a charming object to one coming from other parts of India at the close of the warm season, and who has scarcely seen grass for six months.

Numerous vessels, of various uncouth shapes, lie at anchor; while more numerous boats ply in every direction over the still surface. The aspect along shore is busy, and the few European houses, handsome and oriental. The settlement was made here at the suggestion of Sir Stamford Raffles, in 1819. The next year, it was declared a free port, and in 1825 its sovereignty was confirmed to Britain by the Dutch government, which held claims upon it, and by the sultan of Johore, within whose territory it is embraced. The latter had a pension of about 24,000 Spanish dollars per annum settled upon him. Captain Alexander Hamilton says that, at his visit in 1703, the then sultan "made me a present of the Island of Sincapure; but I told him it could be of no use to a private person." A miserable village of fishermen and pirates was, at that time, the only remains of what was, some centuries before, a flourishing Malay city, engrossing the commerce of these seas.