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Most of them at Manilla are people who have made everything for themselves, from nothing except their hands to begin with, as no rich Chinamen, such as are met with in their native country, and occasionally in Java and Singapore, are found at Manilla; for nearly all those who come there have originally arrived as coolies, earning their bread by manual labour, but very few of them indeed having inherited anything from their fathers, except the arts of reading and writing, which nearly the whole of them, however poor, understand and are able to perform.
Until this impression is made, we hardly know why we have been sailing onward for four months past, so quiet and unvarying is the daily tenor of a life aboard ship. "1st June, Singapore. On reaching Singapore I was most hospitably received by the kind inhabitants, and took up my abode with Mr. Scott.
"Come to Singapore with me it will take but a few days and then we can return with some good medical man and a couple of Europeans, and take your father away from the terrible creatures he has created. You will be mine then and safe from the awful fate that now lies back there in the camp awaiting you.
As Batavia is, or rather was, before Singapore was established, the sole depot for the spices of the Moluccas and the productions of the island of Java, consisting of rice, coffee, sugar, arrack, and pepper, ships were coming continually from every part of India, Africa, and even Europe; and as they were not allowed to take away coin, they were compelled to fill up with some or other of the above-mentioned productions.
In the brief stay which we made at Singapore and Penang, it is hardly to be supposed that any very reliable judgment could be formed as to the characteristics of the common people; but with observation, fortified by intelligent inquiry, certain deductions were natural. The Malay seems to be a careless, happy-go-lucky race, the merest children of nature, with no thought of the morrow.
Almayer, at last consenting, said the powder would be obtained, but Dain must trust him with dollars to send to Singapore in payment for it. He would induce Ford to buy and smuggle it in the steamer on board the brig. He did not want any money for himself out of the transaction, but Dain must help him in his great enterprise after sending off the brig.
In the Life of Sir Stamford Raffles is printed a letter from Singapore, under date of November 30, 1822, with the following statement: The only amusing discovery we have recently made is that of a sailing-fish, called by the natives "ikan layer," of about ten or twelve feet long, which hoists a mainsail, and often sails in the manner of a native boat, and with considerable swiftness.
The situation of European prisoners is indeed dreadful in a climate like this, where even the labor of natives is intolerable; they are compelled to bear all the drudgery, and allowed a bare sufficiency of rice and salt to eat." It is utterly impossible for Europeans who have seen these pirates at such places as Singapore and Batavia, to form any conception of their true character.
"First I have declared that the port of Singapore is a free port, and the trade thereof open to ships and vessels of every nation, free of duty, equally and alike to all." It was a hatred of their monopolist policy which had especially inspired Raffles in his opposition to the Dutch.
Under these unfortunate circumstances they bore up once more, still intending to prosecute the voyage to Singapore, and made the land to the southward of Palawan; and, being then short of water and provisions, landed on a small islet off Balabac, or Balambangan.
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