This text is part of:
[710]
through the Seychelle Islands to the mouth of the Red Sea, thence to the Comoro Islands; from these latter to the Strait of Madagascar, and from the latter Strait to the Cape of Good Hope—thus varying my route back to the Cape.
We were received with great cordiality by the people of Singapore, and, as at the Cape of Good Hope, much curiosity was manifested to see the ship.
After she had hauled alongside of the coaling wharf, crowds gathered to look curiously upon her, and compare her appearance with what they had read of her. These crowds were themselves a curiosity to look upon, formed, as they were, of all the nations of the earth, from the remote East and the remote West.
Singapore being a free port, and a great centre of trade, there is always a large fleet of shipping anchored in its waters, and its streets and other marts of commerce are constantly thronged with a promiscuous multitude.
The canal—there being one leading to the rear of the town—is filled with country boats from the surrounding coasts, laden with the products of the different countries from which they come.
There is the pepper-boat from Sumatra, and the coaster of larger size laden with tinore; the spice-boats from the spice islands; boats with tin-ore, hides, and mats from Borneo; boats from Siam, with gums, hides, and cotton; boats from different parts of the Malay peninsula, with canes, gutta-percha, and India-rubber.
In the bay are ships from all parts of the East—from China, with silks and teas; from Japan, with lacker-ware, raw silk, and curious manufactures of iron, steel, and paper; from the Phillippine Islands, with sugar, hides, tobacco, and spices.
Intermixed with these are the European and American ships, with the products of their various countries.
As a consequence, all the races and all the religions of the world were represented in the throngs that crowded the coaling jetty, to look upon the Alabama, wearing the new flag of a new nation, mysterious for its very distance from them.
We were to their eastern eyes a curious people of the antipodes.
The physical aspect of the throng was no less curious than its moral.
There was the Malay, the Chinese, the Japanese, the Siamese, the Hindoo, the Persian, the wild Tartar, the Bornese, the Sumatran, the Javanese, and even the New Zealander
Baltimore, MD. Kelly Piet & Co. 1868.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.