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EMIGRATION FROM CHINA TO THE WEST INDIES.

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

די.

C.O.

Reference :-

885

No. 7.

JAMES T. WHITE Esq. to HENRY BARKLY Esq., Governor of British Guiana,

SIR,

Calcutta, November 17, 1851.

I HAD the honour to address your Excellency on the 4th instant, men- tioning my arrival in Calcutta on the Ist instant, and that I would address your Excellency with reference to Singapore, Penang, and province Wellesley, by the following mail. I now beg to lay before your Excellency the observations which occurred to me during my short stay in these dependencies.

I arrived in Singapore on the 1st September, and left it on the 20th, being detained longer than I wished from the want of a favourable opportunity to Penang. At this latter place arrived on the 28th September, and remained there and in the province Wellesley until the 12th October, when I proceeded by the Peninsular and Oriental Company's steamer "Pekin," on my return to Calcutta.

2. Singapore is a small island lying off the extreme south point of the Malay l'eninsula, from which it is separated by a narrow channel. The town is situated in a bay on the south side, and faces towards the south-east, looking down the straits of Rhio, which lead to Batavia.

The island is about 30 miles in circumference; small round-topped and conical- shaped hills, rising close together, or separated only by narrow and confined valleys, give an undulating and ridgy appearance to the surface of the country. Bukit Timmah, the highest, has an elevation of about 600 feet. It is situated seven miles from town, and gives rise to a small stream, bearing the same name, which, running towards the south-east, forms the only valley of any considerable extent that is to be met with throughout the island.

3. With the exception of the immediate neighbourhood of the town, and the small clearances of the Chinese, the whole island is covered with forest. The soil consists principally of red ferruginous earth, or of heavy impulverizable clay, and appeared to me, with few exceptions, to be of a poor description; for althought the forests attain a great height and luxuriance, the nutmegs, and other plants not indigenous to the island, require great care and artificial cultivation, and are rendered productive solely by the use of stimulating manures. In the Bukit Timmah valley, above mentioned, the soil is alluvial and sandy, and in some parts composed of vegetable matters, which, when mixed up with the alluvium, appeared to me to possess considerable fertility. The only sugar plantation now in the island lies in this district; two other plantations, which were established some years ago, at a very heavy outlay, were found to be unproductive, and have been totally abandoned.

4. The population of Singapore amounts to about 58,000 (exclusive of the military, sailors, and convicts), of whom 28,015 are Chinese, 12,206 Malays (natives of the island, and of the adjoining peninsula), and 6,261 are natives of India; the rest are Europeans and natives of other islands in the Archipelago. Of the 28 015 Chinese, 23,760 are males and 2,255 are females: and of these females, probably not more than half a dozen are from China; they are either Malay women married to Chinese, or the offspring of a former intercourse between Chinese men and Malay women. Of the 6,261 Indians, 5,423 are males and 838 females; and in this case, as well as with the Chinese, a con- siderable portion of the females are Malays, or of Malay extraction. Of the 12,206 Malays, 6,612 are males and 5,594 females.

The Chinese, as soon as they have sufficient means, purchase women and female children from the Malays, and although this is illegal, and to the utmost extent discouraged by Government, it has become, as I am informed, by the consent of both races, an established custom; nor do the Malay women object the transfer, for they are generally better fed and better dressed, and are treated with more kindness and consideration by the Chinese than they are by their own natural protectors.

The same inequality of the sexes prevails in Penang and in province Wellesley. In the former there are 12,152 China men against 3,305 women, and 5,816

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1PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

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