[48] This island is of an elliptical form, and is said to be about twenty-seven miles in its greatest length, and containing an estimated area of about two hundred and seventy square miles. The latitude of Singapore flag-staff is in 1° 17′ 22″ north, and longitude 103° 51′ 45″ east.
Singapoor is derived from Sing-gah, signifying to call or touch at, bait, stop by the way, and Poor, a village, (generally fortified,) a town, &c. (Marsden’s Malay Dictionary.) It is considered at this island, or rather at this part of the island where the town is now situated, (the name, however, has been given by Europeans to the whole island,) there was formerly a village, inhabited principally by fishermen. The Malays, who traded from the eastward to Malacca, and other of the ports to the westward, touched at this place. Singa also signifies a lion, (known by name only in the Malay countries,) from which the name of the island has been (no doubt erroneously) supposed to be derived.
[49] Kampong Glam, near Singapore, has its name derived, it is said, from Kampong, signifying a village, and Glam, the name of a particular kind of tree.
[50] Crawford’s Embassy to Siam and Cochin China, 4to. pp. 565 to 567.
[51] Blackan Mattee is derived from the Malay word “Blackan,” behind; and Mattee, dead or lost: it was supposed to be so named, because the hill, when this place was resorted to by pirates, concealed them from the view of the settlement or village—the present town. The explanation, however, of the name is not very satisfactory.
[52] The sugar-cane is cultivated to a very limited extent, and the canes I inspected were of very fine size and quality; they are only used, however, for edible purposes, no sugar being as yet manufactured from them.
[53] When the barking noise was made, the lips were pursed out, and the air driven into the sac, at the same time that the sound was uttered, the lower jaw was also a little protruded.
[54] The account of the orang-utan, given by Dr. Abel, in the Narrative of a Journey in the Interior of China, accords with the habits of this animal, and the comparison is very interesting.
[55] “Hanno sailed from Sierra Leone southerly to the equinox, where he discovered an island, not far from the African coast, inhabited by a rough and hairy people, to take one of whom, he used all possible means, but could not: only two women, being encompassed by soldiers, were taken and carried aboard; but being very savage, and barbarously wild, could not be tamed, or brought to any complacency; so they killed them, and carried their stuffed-up skins to Carthage, where they were a long time gazed upon with great admiration. This island, which Hanno then found, can be no other but that which we call St. Thomas; and the hairy people which he makes mention of were babeons, or baboons, which Africa, in this place, breeds large, to the amazement of the beholders.”—Ogilby’s America, p. 20.
[56] I have heard that the natives of Terra del Fuego, who were lately brought to England, when they arrived in the hot latitudes, would lie down and roll about the decks of the ship which conveyed them from their native land, exclaiming, “Why they had been brought into this fiery country?”