FROM England to Pinang, by way of the Suez Canal, is a
voyage of about eight thousand miles, and the last stage of it, from Colombo to
Achin Head, the northern point of Sumatra, is practically due east Turning that
comer, the vessel steams down the east coast of Sumatra and then crosses to the
Malay Peninsula, Pinang being a very small island at the northern end of the
Malacca Strait, just off the coast of what used to be part of the Malay State
of Kedah. The strip of territory facing Pinang was ceded to the East India
Company a century ago; it is now British, and is called Province Wellesley. A
reference to the map will show the exact positions of Pinang and the Province,
as well as of Malacca, Singapore, and the Federated Malay States, far better
than could be done by any written description, but the reader should understand
at once that the following pages are concerned with the British Crown Colony
known as the Straits Settlements, comprising Pinang, Province Wellesley and the
Dindings, Malacca and Singapore; with Perak, Selangor, Negri
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Sambllan, and Pahang, which constitute the Federated Malay
States ; with Johore and Trengganu, independent states, the former of which is
under British protection ; and with a number of other states over which Siam
claims suzerainty.
What strikes the traveller, as his ship rounds the northern
end of Pinang, is the extraordinary beauty of the scene to which he is
introduced with almost startling suddenness. On his right is the island, a
vision of green verdure, of steep hills rising from the water's edge till they
culminate in a peak 2500 ft. high. The sides of these hills are partly forest,
partly cultivated, but everywhere green, with the freshness and colour of
tropical vegetation washed by frequent rains. About the hills, at varying
heights, are picturesque buildings nestling amongst the trees or standing on
outcrops of grey rock. Down by the shore — a fascinating in-and-out shore of
little sandy bays and little rocky promontories — there is a deep belt of
palms, shading but not altogether concealing quantities of brown cottages. Then
a broad ribbon of sand, sometimes dazzlingly white, sometimes streaked, or wholly
tinted, with burnt sienna ; and so the sea, a very wonderful summer sea, blue
or grey or pale gold, under different conditions of sunlight, often chequered
by great purple and indigo cloud shadows. Along the beach lie boats and nets
set out to dry ; black nets and brown nets, of immense length, stretched on a
framework of poles ; quaint objects and infinitely picturesque, but not more so
than the fishing stakes, the upper half of which stand above the water, many
fathoms from the shore, on the edge of every sand bank. That is what you see as
you round the north foreland, by the loftily-placed lighthouse ; and then, in a
moment, there is the town, and the ship seems to be running into its main
street The white buildings and red roofs, which house a hundred thousand
people, crammed closely together on the flat tongue of
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land that stretches, from the foot of Pinang Hill, right oat
into the Strait which divides it from the mainland, just as though the island
were ever trying to get its foot back on to the opposite shore. And when the
red roofs cease to catch the eye as a mass, they twinkle at you, here and
there, from out the foliage of garden and orchard, till all is merged in green
and purple against the background of that great hill.
Close in shore, beside the busy quays, are hundreds and
hundreds of strange craft, a very forest of masts and rigging rising from acres
of fantastically coloured hulls, of every form and every nationality the
Further East produces. There are Chinese junks, small and great, with painted
eyes on their low, narrow bows, and quaint erections on their high, wide stems
; there are Malay schooners, and fast boats, and fishing boats, things so small
and so crank that only an amphibious creature, like the Malay, would trust
himself in them. There are huge, unwieldy cargo boats, manned by natives of
Southern India, and propelled by immense heavy sweeps when there is no wind to
fill their single square sail. There are wicked-looking Bugis vessels from
Celebes, low in the water, with black hulls, fine lines, brown canvas or yellow
palm-leaf sails; clumsy old craft from Sumatra and the Malay States ; Chinese
junks, piled high with firewood or palm thatch; long rakish Chinese fishing
boats, loaded with dark brown nets ; scores and scores of every eastern boat
that swims, navigated by black and brown and yellow men, in every kind of dress
and undress known from Japan to Jeddah.
These form the inner line, five or six boats deep,
stretching as far south as the eye can reach. Then there are steam launches, of
every colour and size, and every degree of cleanliness or dirtiness, rushing or
crawling about the harbour, some full of passengers, some empty ; while a few
ride silently at anchor, here and there, amongst
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the crowd of small coasting steamers, which puff and squeal,
arrive or depart, take or discharge cargo, or simply rest between two voyages.
And last the outer line, where, in midstream, a few large steamers and sailing
vessels strain at cables. But, there is another
shore, upon the other side,the shore of Province Wellesley, distant from the nearest
point of Pinang, about two miles. Far to north and far to south, an endless
grove of palm trees fringes the strip of yellow sand, which is sometimes land
and sometimes sea. Behind the palms are acres of rice fields, villages,
hamlets, and isolated huts ; then low hills, forest, and higher hills ; range
upon range in ever rising steps, till the eye loses count in heat waves, mist,
and distance. Nearly due north, a little inland, and distant about thirty-five
miles, stands the sharp peak of Gunong Jerai, five thousand feet high. Almost
in a line with this mountain, some hazily-blue islands seem to swim on the
surface of the sea. Looking south, the coast line of Pinang curves,
crescent-wise, to its extreme point, and in the land-locked space of water are
islands, large and small, clad like the rest in green. What is called the South
Channel is not often used now except by coasting steamers, but the approach to
Pinang is even more attractive by this route than by the North Channel. The
beauty of the place comes more gradually, sinks deeper into the appreciation,
and leaves a picture of form and colour, a sensation of real warmth and real
life, which only the East can offer. This feeling will be intensified if the
traveller is fortunate enough to see what I have tried to describe under the
glamour of a moonlit night.
Yet the pride of Pinang is the Hill, and those who reach the
summit will not regret the effort Looking westward, the eye travels over a wide
expanse of jungle — covered slopes, and foot hills, pierced by narrow
cultivated valleys, till it rests on the " measureless expanse of
ocean." One
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may gaze for hours, fascinated by the ever-changing effects
of sunlight and shadow playing on the mirror of the sea. Northward lie the
islands, coast, and sharply outlined peak of Kedah ; while to the south are
lower ranges of the main hill, the rice fields and the sinuous coast line of
Pinang. Due west is the ship-board view reversed, only softened by height and
distance. There are the woods, with their half-hidden dwellings, leading up to
a flat but ever-narrowing plain, completely covered by white, red- roofed buildings,
broken here and there by groups of dark trees. Then the shining stretch of
water, carrying its burden of ships and boats, the smaller craft looking like
queer black insects ; and last, the long coast line of Province Wellesley, with
its palms and rice fields and winding rivers, the whole bounded by successive
ranges of blue hills, the most distant summits lost in clouds.
Seventy miles south are just visible some islands off the
coast of Peak, and the traveller who means to see Malacca, and prefers a journey
by ship to one by rail, will appreciate their beauty on closer inspection. Mail
steamers do not call at Malacca, so the voyage from Pinang, about two hundred
and fifty miles, must be made in some humbler vessel. She will probably reach
the roadstead before dawn, and the passenger will have the advantage of landing
at the ancient port in the early morning. Even small vessels cannot get within
less than two or three miles of the shore, and whilst covering that distance in
a launch or more probably a Malacca boat, the visitor will first be struck by
the curious spectacle of a town with its legs in the sea. The reason is that
the houses which face the main street of Malacca have their backs to the shore,
and the space between road and sea is so narrow that the Chinese, who love
deep, narrow houses, have built out over the water ; this end of the building
being supported upon high pillars of a peculiar red stone called laterite. The
effect is strange but picturesque, and from the
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Malacca River, where Albuquerque and his men performed such
deeds of valour, to the northern end of the town, every
house on the sea side of the long main street has one foot on land and one in
the sea. On the south side of the river, and close to it, is the landing-place
; further south still, a long pier with the end still in very shallow water.
Beyond the fact that a sea-wall protects a broad strip of close green turf,
with great ansenna trees planted at intervals along its edge, while a small
hill, crowned by the ruins of an ancient church, shows well above the trees,
there is nothing particular to be seen from the boat Quite near the
landing-place, and close to the left bank of the river, is the old Dutch Stadt
House, a very solid old-world building, approached by flights of steps. The
house is built round a square, stone-paved courtyard, with a double flight of
stone steps leading up to the side of the hill, on the summit of which are the
walls of the roofless old Portuguese church. There is also on this bill the
house of the Resident Councillor of Malacca, with a most attractive garden of
very ancient date. The view from the hill is enchanting, whether one looks
southward over the orchards and villages to Gunong Ledang, called Mount Ophir,
or westward to the hill which has been appropriated by the Chinese as their
fashionable burying-place; or over the dark red roofs of Malacca town, across
the rice-fields and cocoanut groves to Cape Rachado in the north. Drive along
any road in Malacca and you can feast your eyes on a picture which is typical
of cultivated Malaya at its best On either hand there will be rice fields :
emerald-green when newly planted, golden with ripe grain, or brown when fallow.
These are studded by topes of lofty palms shading a few brown huts. The
distance is always shut in by hills of a marvellous blue. But of all roads the
most lovely is that which runs along the very edge of the coast, passing
through palm groves and villages, with vistas of rice fields and blue hills on
one side, and
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on the other spaces of water, green or blue, grey or
blood-red, molten silver or black, under the varying conditions of sunlight and
shadow, of eastern day or eastern night. There are no Malay villages, no
country scenes, more picturesque than those of Malacca; and if the visitor
chances to meet a wedding party in bullock carts, or a Malay funeral procession
; if he witnesses a fleet of fishing boats putting out at sunset, or homing at
dawn ; and has eyes to see and to appreciate the colours, the movement, the
strange people with their strangely beautiful surroundings, the scene will live
in his memory for all time.
Singapore is 120 miles south-east of Malacca, a few miles
north of the southernmost point in Asia ; the island stands sentinel at the
narrow gate which divides the Straits of Malacca from the China Sea. A dozen
ocean-going steamers pass into or out of its harbours every day, and most of
these vessels call at no other port in the Straits. By good fortune, it commonly
happens that, owing to the dangers of navigation in such narrow seas, one
arrives at dawn and leaves at sunset In either case, the most unobservant must
be struck by a scene as beautiful as it is unusual Long before making the Karimun
Islands (which are thirty-five miles from Singapore, on the right as you come
from the west), the coast of the Malay Peninsula has been visible ; a low coast
covered by mangroves growing out into the water. Ten miles from the narrow
entrance to the harbour the vessel passes between the mainland (and later the
shores of Singapore) and a succession of small islands, which gradually
converge till they seem to bar further progress. Just when the space of water
has so narrowed that the forts and guns, on either side of the channel, become
visible to the practised eye, the bow of the vessel swings to the left, through
jade-green eddying waters, and she slowly forces her way along a channel so
narrow that it will only just admit the safe meeting of two
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large steamers. Still there are islands, quantities of
islands, large and small, but only large by comparison. They are covered with
foliage, with gardens, with cool pleasant-looking bungalows, with barracks and
other military buildings. Near the water the soil, where you can see it, is
more red than brown, and the rocks, where they come through the soil, are much
more red than grey. But the water is always green, and clear, and swirling ; it
looks and is very deep, and the foliage of the islands is repeated on its
surface, in dark green reflections. Then the passage widens somewhat, the shore
of Singapore becomes one interminable line of wharves, against which lie an
almost unbroken chain of ships, flying every known flag, but mostly the red
ensign of Britain. The wharves, the warehouses, the docks, the coal-sheds, seem
parts of some gigantic manhive, where men of every colour, in every conceivable
garb, load and unload, gather and stack and store, every imaginable human
production, from locomotives and lanterns, to mail bags and matches, pianos and
pickaxes. Behind the ships, and wharves, and docks, and warehouses are roads,
with a ceaseless traffic of people, carts, and carriages ; then villages and
green hills, chequered by houses and gardens. Across the waterway there are
still islands, far as the eye can reach ; but they are curving seawards, and
whilst those nearest are covered, or partly covered, by buildings and chimneys or
groups of Malay huts straggling off the land right out into the water, as
though they had walked there on stilts, there are others green with pineapples
or jungle, and others still, away in the distance, like opals on the shining
surface of the water. It is a thousand to one that the vessel, which brings the
stranger from a distance, will tie up alongside the wharves, and he will then
enter the town by a drive along a dusty, crowded road. The more excellent way
is that of the small steamer which, skirting the long line of wharves, makes
for the roads and gives the traveller the best and most compre
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hensive view of the Lion City, Queen of Far Eastern Seas.
Between the docks and the town, a bold headland, crowned by
a battery, juts out into the water, and forms the southern horn of a crescent
which embraces the whole city ; till the land curves round to a far distant
point, where a thick grove of palms faintly indicates the northern horn.
Singapore from the Roads is very fair to see. From Mount Palmer (the fortified
headland), to the Singapore River — that is, about one-third of the crescent —
there is an unbroken mass of buildings, shining and white, facing the sea. The
next third is green with grass and trees, through which are caught glimpses of
public buildings and the spires of churches, backed by low hills, on one of
which, in the distance, stands white and stately the Governor's residence. The
remaining third is again covered by closely packed houses, seen indistinctly
through a forest of masts. The space enclosed by the beach and a line drawn
from horn to horn of the crescent, would contain about 1500 acres of water, and
that is the real harbour of Singapore. Native craft, mainly Chinese junks,
great and small, with hundreds of other vessels of every form, and size, and
rig, lie crowded together in the northern half, while the southern half is
occupied by numbers of small coasting steamers. Outside, in the deeper water,
four or five miles from shore, is the man-of-war anchorage. As for launches and
cargo boats, fishing boats, passenger boats, and pleasure yachts, their name is
legion, and their goings to and fro, day and night, are ceaseless. The
Singapore river is so tightly packed with hundreds of small craft that it is
difficult enough to preserve a fairway to admit of passage. On shore it is the
same ; the place is seething with life, and, to the unaccustomed eye, the
vehicles to be met with in the streets are almost as strange as the boats in
the harbour ; while such a medley of nationalities, such a babel of languages,
surely finds no parallel in all the
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world. Of colour and life there is enough to satisfy the
greediest ; of heat and dust and strange smells there are usually too much for
the western visitor. Only the extraordinary novelty of the scene, the wonderful
colouring, the unusual interest, will banish every other feeling — for a time.
Each of the three Settlements, which together form the
Straits Colony, has attractions of its own, peculiar to itself, though all have
much in common. Pinang has its hill, with that glorious view, and it also has
Province Wellesley, where one can see the Malay and his rice fields, but not
quite as they are to be found in Malacca. There Is a romance of age, of
experience, of a full life lived, which remains with Malacca to-day as the
heritage of her history. Malacca has drifted out of the stream of endeavour,
away from the struggle for riches and greatness. She has drifted into the back
waters of Time, and her attractions, for the dreamer, the lover of beauty and
the student, may be greater than those of her sisters. Singapore has a history
too, far more significant than and as full of thrilling incident as that of
Malacca ; but of her former glory not a trace is left, not a stone remains to
recall her ancient greatness, and little more than tradition to establish the
fact that it ever existed. Yet it did exist, seven or eight hundred years ago,
and perhaps not then for the first time ; and to-day it has come again, with
new life, to flourish as never before. No stranger will approach this far eastern
fortress, these wharves, and docks, and coalsheds, weaving stories of its
long-forgotten past ; his eyes will glean unmeasured delight from the rich
colours of ever-changing landscape and seascape, the countless islands and the
wonderful harbour, half circled by a sunlit shore. But his mind will carry away
an impression foreign to the east, a sense of hurry, of movement, of boats
driven fast through the water, by steam or sail, of straining oars propelling
deep-laden barges, of bustling
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crowds jostling each other in the streets, of white and
yellow, brown and black men, intent on something that matters, that makes for
money. That is the new Singapore, where the traveller and his kind are the only
idlers.
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