malabarees

Updated: June 19, 2025

Of the other inhabitants, the most numerous are the Malabarees, who are principally employed as shopkeepers, and are as knowing in the art of bargain-driving as any tradesmen of London or Paris. They generally go here under the denomination of "Klings," an appellation synonymous, in the Singapore vocabulary, with "scamp," to which I have no inclination to dispute their title.

G. F. Davidson - Trade and Travel in the Far East: or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java,: Singapore, Australia and China.