The Natives, Both Men And Women,
Are Very Courteous And Are Reckoned The Most Skillful In The
World In Compliments, And Study Much To Compose And Repeat Verses
And Love-Songs.
Their language is in vogue through the Indies, as
the French is here.
At present, a vessel over a hundred tons hardly ever enters its
port, and the trade is entirely confined to a few petty products
of the forests, and to the fruit, which the trees, planted by the
old Portuguese, now produce for the enjoyment of the inhabitants
of Singapore. Although rather subject to fevers, it is not at
present considered very unhealthy.
The population of Malacca consists of several races. The
ubiquitous Chinese are perhaps the most numerous, keeping up
their manners, customs, and language; the indigenous Malays are
next in point of numbers, and their language is the Lingua-franca
of the place. Next come the descendants of the Portuguese - a
mixed, degraded, and degenerate race, but who still keep up the
use of their mother tongue, though ruefully mutilated in grammar;
and then there are the English rulers, and the descendants of the
Dutch, who all speak English. The Portuguese spoken at Malacca is
a useful philological phenomenon. The verbs have mostly lost
their inflections, and one form does for all moods, tenses,
numbers, and persons. Eu vai, serves for "I go," "I went," or, "I
will go." Adjectives, too, have been deprived of their feminine
and plural terminations, so that the language is reduced to a
marvellous simplicity, and, with the admixture of a few Malay
words, becomes rather puzzling to one who has heard only the pure
Lusitanian.
In costume these several peoples are as varied as in their
speech. The English preserve the tight-fitting coat, waistcoat,
and trousers, and the abominable hat and cravat; the Portuguese
patronise a light jacket, or, more frequently, shirt and trousers
only; the Malays wear their national jacket and sarong (a kind of
kilt), with loose drawers; while the Chinese never depart in the
least from their national dress, which, indeed, it is impossible
to improve for a tropical climate, whether as regards comfort or
appearance. The loosely-hanging trousers, and neat white half-
shirt half jacket, are exactly what a dress should be in this low
latitude.
I engaged two Portuguese to accompany me into the interior; one
as a cook, the other to shoot and skin birds, which is quite a
trade in Malacca. I first stayed a fortnight at a village called
Gading, where I was accommodated in the house of some Chinese
converts, to whom I was recommended by the Jesuit missionaries.
The house was a mere shed, but it was kept clean, and I made
myself sufficiently comfortable. My hosts were forming a pepper
and gambir plantation, and in the immediate neighbourhood were
extensive tin-washings, employing over a thousand Chinese. The
tin is obtained in the form of black grains from beds of
quartzose sand, and is melted into ingots in rude clay furnaces.
The soil seemed poor, and the forest was very dense with
undergrowth, and not at all productive of insects; but, on the
other hand, birds were abundant, and I was at once introduced to
the rich ornithological treasures of the Malayan region.
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