powerful towns and regions around about. The natives, both men and
women, are very courteous and are reckoned the most skillful in the
world in compliments, and study much to compose and repeat verses and
love-songs. Their language is in vogue through the Indies, as the French
is here."
At present, a vessel over a hundred tons hardly ever enters its port,
and the trade is entirely confined to a few petty products of the
forests, and to the fruit, which the trees, planted by the old
Portuguese, now produce for the enjoyment of the inhabitants of
Singapore. Although rather subject to fevers, it is not at present
considered very unhealthy.
The population of Malacca consists of several races. The ubiquitous
Chinese are perhaps the most numerous, keeping up their manners,
customs, and language; the indigenous Malays are next in point of
numbers, and their language is the Lingua-franca of the place. Next come
the descendants of the Portuguese--a mixed, degraded, and degenerate
race, but who still keep up the use of their mother tongue, though
ruefully mutilated in grammar; and then there are the English rulers,
and the descendants of the Dutch, who all speak English. The Portuguese
spoken at Malacca is a useful philological phenomenon. The verbs have
mostly lost their inflections, and one form does for all moods, tenses,
numbers, and persons. Eu vai, serves for "I go," "I went," or, "I will
go." Adjectives, too, have been deprived of their feminine and
plural terminations, so that the language is reduced to a marvellous
simplicity, and, with the admixture of a few Malay words, becomes rather
puzzling to one who has heard only the pure Lusitanian.
In costume these several peoples are as varied as in their speech. The
English preserve the tight-fitting coat, waistcoat, and trousers, and
the abominable hat and cravat; the Portuguese patronise a light jacket,
or, more frequently, shirt and trousers only; the Malays wear their
national jacket and sarong (a kind of kilt), with loose drawers; while
the Chinese never depart in the least from their national dress, which,
indeed, it is impossible to improve for a tropical climate, whether as
regards comfort or appearance. The loosely-hanging trousers, and neat
white half-shirt half-jacket, are exactly what a dress should be in this
low latitude.
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