The Mission to Siam, and Hué the Capital of Cochin China, in the Years 1821-2. Finlayson George
feet, covered with a thick profusion of large, oblong, fleshy leaves, disposed in tufts at the extremities of the branches. The singular form of the fruit in this tree is too well known to require description. The descriptions of botanists are, however, but indifferent.
The stem would seem to perform the usual functions of leaves, being covered with a remarkably thin epidermis. It is frequently submerged to the height of twelve feet or more, on which occasions it doubtless performs different functions. Numerous roots are thrown down from the branches, and in this manner a single tree is often conducted, as it were on props, over a great extent of ground, rendered intricate and impervious to animals.
Another species, the Rhizophora Mangle, is more independent of the presence of fresh water; often extending laterally along the sea-beach, or growing entirely in sea-water. Other species are possessed of similar habits.
The shade of these plants is the favoured abode of innumerable tribes of insects, particularly of mosquitoes. Inhospitable, therefore, is the shade or shelter they afford to man3.
One great purpose which these plants serve, is that of preventing the encroachment of the sea upon the land. They even overcome this tendency, and produce the opposite effect, as the coasts of Singapore manifestly evince. It may readily be conceived, therefore, how ill judged is the practice of destroying barriers of this sort. In many parts they extend for miles into the country, until the soil on which they grow has been raised above the water, when they gradually give place to trees of another description; and in this manner lands favourable for the cultivation of rice are produced. Of this description extensive tracts exist in the neighbourhood of the settlement. A slight embankment would prevent the ingress of salt water along the banks of the creeks, and retain a supply of fresh water favourable for this species of culture. As yet, however, the pepper-vine, and nauclea, which require a dry and exposed soil, are almost the sole objects of culture. The neatness, the industry, the ingenuity displayed in plantations of this sort, afford a very gratifying spectacle, and attest the great progress which the Chinese nation has made in agricultural science. The Chinese may be considered as the sole cultivators of the soil. The woods are for the most part cut down by the Malays. The Chinese clear away the incumbent wreck, selecting the best woods for domestic purposes, converting the refuse into charcoal, palings, fences, &c., and enriching the soil with the ashes of the remainder. I have not observed the manufacture of the vegetable fixed alkali, potash, to be an object of attention with them. Their plantations, whether of pepper-vines or of gambir, are uncommonly neat, well trimmed, and healthy. Their habitations are slight and temporary, inferior in many respects even to those of the Malays. They are constructed of bamboos, twigs, and rattans, and thatched with leaves of the Pandanus lævis, sewed together. They are always surrounded by a few garden shrubs, esculent roots, and vegetables. Several varieties of Musa and Amomum; several species of Arum; sometimes small plantations of Jatropha manihot, are of the most common occurrence. There is a manifest air of poverty in the dwelling of the Chinaman, and of negligence, slovenliness, and even meanness in his dress. He has scarce a stool or a bench to sit on. His furniture is scanty, – of the simplest kind, and constructed of the cheapest materials. In his culinary operations alone we observe an air of neatness and of cleanliness. It is here indeed that the Chinaman shines superior to all other Asiatics. Negligent of personal ornament, insensible to the advantages of comfortable lodging, he appears to entertain a just, nay, we may say, an exalted sense of the pleasures of good eating. To this end and aim are directed all his industry and ingenuity. The traveller who would judge of the comforts of the Chinese planter, must see him at his meals. How erroneous his judgment, were he to infer, from the sordid appearance of the labourer’s hut, a corresponding degree of penury in all other comforts. The peasant, thus indifferent to the advantages of comfortable lodging, will be found to live on the richest, though not always the most delicate fare. Pork, ducks, geese, the best kinds of fish, the rarest delicacies, are purchased at any price by the Chinese. The proportion of animal food consumed by them would appear to be incomparably greater than that used by any other description of labourers on the face of the globe. They seem to regard the quality of animal food less than the quantity or richness. The only point of consideration is, whether the alimentary mass will afford rich nutriment, or as Cobbett says, whether it will lay fat on their bones.
Hence the flesh of dogs, of rats, of monkies, of alligators, and other reptiles, afford in their turn, a savoury meal. The marine gelatinous fishes, Holothuria, Sepia, &c., and bird’s nests, are ranked amongst the most delicate of Chinese dishes, for the most part reserved for the luxurious gratification of the epicurean palates of the wealthy. The abomination in which dog’s flesh is held by the various tribes of the Archipelago has rendered the eating of it a reproach even amongst the Chinese emigrants, who will not always confess their propensity to feed on this social, but unclean animal.
The most prominent feature in the character of the Chinese emigrant, is industry, – the best and highest endowment which he has attained. He is mechanically uniform and steady in the pursuit of what he conceives to be his immediate and personal interest; in the prosecution of which he exerts a degree of ingenuity and of bodily labour and exertion, which leave all other Asiatics at a distance. He labours with a strong arm, and is capable of great and continued exertion. He is not satisfied to bestow the quantity of labour necessary for the mere gratification of his immediate wants. Profusion and indulgence claim a share of the produce of his toils.
Next in the catalogue of his virtues, may be reckoned general sobriety, honesty, a quiet, orderly conduct, obedience to the laws of the country in which he resides; and, as is affirmed, a strong and unalterable sense of the important duties which parental affection inculcates. To this we may add a strong attachment to his native country, and the very questionable virtue of blind, undistinguishing admiration of, and submission to, all its laws.
Notwithstanding this fair exterior, we shall find on examination that the Chinese have but little real pretension to moral distinction amongst nations; of the sublime, soothing, and pathetic duties of religion they are as ignorant as they are regardless; a mean, senseless, and unworthy superstition, the offspring of fear alone, has usurped its place amongst the many; while the learned affect a cold-hearted and scarcely intelligible theism. In all that regards the more amiable feelings of our nature, and that tends to unite the great family of the human race in closer union, they are still more deficient. A disgusting and culpable apathy, an involved and concentrated selfishness of gratification, a total disregard of the wants, and necessities, and helplessness of their fellow-creatures, marks the Chinese in their conduct through life. They know not the pleasure of doing good for its own sake. They not only talk of, but witness the misfortunes and distresses of their fellow-men, with an apathy of feeling little short of mockery. They will stipulate for reward with the wretch who is sinking in the water, before they will extend a saving arm. They will talk of the greatest scourges to which the human race is subject, famine, pestilence, war, as catastrophes almost to be wished for, – considering the survivors as benefited by the destruction of so many of their fellow-creatures. Their industry is the result of the quick sense of gratification which they derive from the indulgence of the more grovelling passions and animal appetites, and where these can be indulged without labour, the Chinese will be found to indicate their full share of Asiatic indolence.
It must be confessed however that the Chinese are, in a political point of view at least, by far the most useful class of people to be found in the Indian Seas or Archipelago. Their robust frames, their industrious habits, and their moderate conduct, place them beyond competition. They furnish the best artisans, the most useful labourers, and the most extensive traders. Their commercial speculations are often extensive, often of the most adventurous nature; and we may remark by the way, that they are often immoderately fond of games of chance, as cards, dice, cock-fighting. Inebriety is a vice of which they are but rarely guilty. At their meals they indulge in the use of ardent spirits, undiluted, but never use them to excess.
In point of mental capacity, they would appear to be inferior to many other Asiatic tribes. They are chiefly distinguished by a certain mechanical turn in all they do; and even their mental operations partake of this distinction.
Notwithstanding the prohibitory laws of the Celestial Empire, there would appear to be no other limit to the extent of emigration than the capacity of individuals to procure a passage to the neighbouring countries,
Much stress has been laid on the apparent insalubrity of marshes of this sort; and it has been maintained that in many parts they are the chief, if not the sole, cause of the most fatal of intertropical diseases, remittent fever. Humboldt, in his Essay on New Spain, lays great stress on the effect produced by the growth of Rhizophora Mangle, Pothos, Arum, and of the other plants which flourish in a marshy soil charged with saline particles, in the production of yellow fever. Without calling into question the insalubrity of marshy situations in general, there appears great reason to believe that we are still ignorant of the actual causes of this frightful disease. The settlement of Singapore is possessed in an eminent degree of the circumstances which are thought to be most conducive in producing the disease. Yet here it is as yet unknown. An intertropical climate on the margin of the sea, a continually high temperature, rapid and intense evaporation, a humid and extensive series of saline and fresh water marshes exposed to a burning sun, the vegetative impulse in a degree of activity unequalled perhaps in any other part of the globe, the occasional suspension of herbaceous vegetation by long-continued heat, accompanied by drought, profusion of vegetable matter, as leaves, felled wood, fruits, &c., intermixed with animal matter, forming fomites in every stage of the putrefactive process, are amongst the more conspicuous of the causes to which the occurrence of this disease is usually attributed; and here all the causes enumerated operate with tenfold force.