In addition to the native Singhalese, Hindus, Tamils, Moors, Malays, and Portuguese engage in various occupations, a large number of these being employed on the coffee and tea plantations.
In the Prince of Wales Hotel I met some soldiers of the famous “Black Watch” who had participated in the Boer War and who had been sent to Colombo to recuperate; I accompanied them to their barracks, where we exchanged various curios.
A large revenue is derived by the government from the pearl-fishery in the Gulf of
Manaar, and whales are captured off the coast.
Seven days were spent in the harbor of Colombo, after which our ship steamed across the Indian Ocean, and through the Straits of Malacca to Singapore, an island in the Straits Settlements, south of the Malay Peninsula, and eighty miles from the equator. It commands the highway leading from British India to China, and became a British possession by a treaty with the Sultan of Johore in the year 1824.
Singapore is the entrepôt for the trade of the Malayan archipelago and China; its chief exports are tapioca, tin, tortoise-shell, camphor, coffee, nutmegs, gutta percha, and rattan. Situated on the south side of the island, the town has a very oriental appearance, and its inhabitants represent sixteen nationalities speaking different tongues, the most enterprising of these being the Chinese. Though very warm, the climate is healthy and it is seldom subjected to quarantine.
For ages past the tiger has been a menace to Singapore, and the government’s archives
record an average of three hundred Chinese and other natives carried off annually by these blood-thirsty man-eaters.
While lying in the harbor of Singapore, the crew of the New York had the opportunity of witnessing a total eclipse of the sun. Astronomers from various nations had come to take observations and data for the official chronological records of their respective governments. It was an amusing sight to watch the natives as the eclipse passed over the sun; their superstition led them to believe that the end of the world had come, and their utterance and performance were ridiculous.
From Singapore our ship steamed into the China Sea for ports in the Philippine Islands.