He Has A
Handsome Warehouse Or Shop In Town And A Good House In The
Country.
He keeps a fine horse and gig, and every evening may be
seen taking a drive bareheaded to enjoy the cool breeze.
He is
rich - he owns several retail shops and trading schooners, he
lends money at high interest and on good security, he makes hard
bargains, and gets fatter and richer every year.
In the Chinese bazaar are hundreds of small shops in which a
miscellaneous collection of hardware and dry goods are to be
found, and where many things are sold wonderfully cheap. You may
buy gimlets at a penny each, white cotton thread at four balls
for a halfpenny, and penknives, corkscrews, gunpowder, writing-
paper, and many other articles as cheap or cheaper than you can
purchase them in England. The shopkeeper is very good-natured; he
will show you everything he has, and does not seem to mind if you
buy nothing. He bates a little, but not so much as the Klings,
who almost always ask twice what they are willing to take. If you
buy a few things from him, he will speak to you afterwards every
time you pass his shop, asking you to walk in and sit down, or
take a cup of tea; and you wonder how he can get a living where
so many sell the same trifling articles.
The tailors sit at a table, not on one; and both they and the
shoemakers work well and cheaply. The barbers have plenty to do,
shaving heads and cleaning ears; for which latter operation they
have a great array of little tweezers, picks, and brushes. In the
outskirts of the town are scores of carpenters and blacksmiths.
The former seem chiefly to make coffins and highly painted and
decorated clothes-boxes. The latter are mostly gun-makers, and
bore the barrels of guns by hand out of solid bars of iron. At
this tedious operation they may be seen every day, and they
manage to finish off a gun with a flintlock very handsomely. All
about the streets are sellers of water, vegetables, fruit, soup,
and agar-agar (a jelly made of seaweed), who have many cries as
unintelligible as those of London. Others carry a portable
cooking-apparatus on a pole balanced by a table at the other end,
and serve up a meal of shellfish, rice, and vegetables for two or
three halfpence - while coolies and boatmen waiting to be hired
are everywhere to be met with.
In the interior of the island the Chinese cut down forest trees
in the jungle, and saw them up into planks; they cultivate
vegetables, which they bring to market; and they grow pepper and
gambir, which form important articles of export. The French
Jesuits have established missions among these inland Chinese,
which seem very successful. I lived for several weeks at a time
with the missionary at Bukit-tima, about the centre of the
island, where a pretty church has been built and there are about
300 converts.
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