At Night, When These
Rooms Are Lighted Up With Eight Or Ten Massive Lamps, The Appearance Is
Splendid.
These are the houses of Chinese merchants of the middle
class.
And now I must divulge the singular fact that Malacca is to most
intents and purposes a Chinese city. The Dutch, as I wrote, have
scarcely left a trace. The Portuguese, indolent, for thc most part
poor, and lowered by native marriages, are without influence, a most
truly stagnant population, hardly to be taken into account. Their poor-
looking houses resemble those of Lisbon. The English, except in so far
as relates to the administration of government, are nowhere, though it
is under our equitable rule that the queerly mixed population of
Chinese, Portuguese, half-breeds, Malays, Confucianists, Buddhists,
Tauists, Romanists, and Mohammedans "enjoy great quietness."*
[*By the census of 1881 the resident European population of the
Settlement of Malacca consists of 23 males and 9 females, a "grand"
total of 32! The Eurasian population, mainly of Portuguese mixed blood,
is 2,213. The Chinese numbers 19,741, 4,020 being females. The Malay
population is 67,488, the females being 2,000 in excess of the males,
the Tamils or Klings are 1,781, the Arabs 227, the Aborigines of the
Peninsula 308, the Javanese 399, the Boyanese 212, and the Jawi-Pekans
867. Besides these there are stray Achinese, Africans, Anamese,
Bengalis, Bugis, Dyaks, Manilamen, Siamese, and Singhalese, numbering
174. The total population of the territory is 93,579, viz., 52,059 males
and 41,520 females, an increase in ten years of 15,823.
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