BIRDS and most other kinds of animals being scarce at Singapore,
I left it in July for Malacca, where I spent more than two months
in the interior, and made an excursion to Mount Ophir. The old
and picturesque town of Malacca is crowded along the banks of the
small river, and consists of narrow streets of shops and dwelling
houses, occupied by the descendants of the Portuguese, and by
Chinamen. In the suburbs are the houses of the English officials
and of a few Portuguese merchants, embedded in groves of palms
and fruit-trees, whose varied and beautiful foliage furnishes a
pleasing relief to the eye, as well as most grateful shade.
The old fort, the large Government House, and the ruins of a
cathedral attest the former wealth and importance of this place,
which was once as much the centre of Eastern trade as Singapore
is now. The following description of it by Linschott, who wrote
two hundred and seventy years ago, strikingly exhibits the change
it has undergone:
"Malacca is inhabited by the Portuguese and by natives of the
country, called Malays. The Portuguese have here a fortress, as
at Mozambique, and there is no fortress in all the Indies, after
those of Mozambique and Ormuz, where the captains perform their
duty better than in this one. This place is the market of all
India, of China, of the Moluccas, and of other islands around
about - from all which places, as well as from Banda, Java,
Sumatra, Siam, Pegu, Bengal, Coromandel, and India - arrive ships
which come and go incessantly, charged with an infinity of
merchandises.
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