Wednesday, Dec. 23rd.—­Weather variable, with occasional showers of rain—­raining heavily in the afternoon.  Visited the city, and was astonished at its amount of population and business.  There are from eighty to one hundred thousand Chinese on Singapore island, nearly all of them in the city, from twelve to fifteen thousand Malays, and about fifteen hundred Europeans.  Singapore being a free port, it is a great entrepot of trade.  Great quantities of Eastern produce reach it from all quarters, whence it is shipped to Europe.

The business is almost exclusively in the hands of the Chinese, who are also the artisans and labourers of the place.  The streets are thronged with foot-passengers and vehicles, among which are prominent the ox, or rather the buffalo cart, and the hacks for hire, of which latter there are nine hundred licensed.  The canal is filled with country boats of excellent model, and the warehouses are crammed with goods.  Money seems to be abundant and things dear.  They are just finishing a tasteful Gothic church, with a tall spire, which is a notable landmark as you approach; they are also completing officers’ quarters on a hill which commands the town.  Barracks for three or four regiments lie unoccupied a couple of miles outside the city, and a large court-house.

The moving multitude in the streets comprises every variety of the human race, every shade of colour, and every variety of dress, among which are prominent the gay turbans and fancy jackets of the Mahomedan, Hindu, &c.  Almost all the artisans and labourers were naked, except a cloth or a pair of short trousers tucked about the waist.  The finest dressed part of the population was decidedly the jet-black, with his white flowing mantle and spotted turban.  The upper class of Chinese merchants are exceeding polite, and seem intelligent.  I visited the establishment of Whampoa and Co.  Whampoa was above the middle height, stout, and with a large, well-developed head.  I was told that his profits some years amounted to forty or fifty thousand pounds!  He was sitting in a small, dingy, ill-lighted little office on the ground floor, and had before him a Chinese calculating machine, over the numerous small balls of which, strung on wires, he was running his hands for amusement, as a gambler will sometimes do with his checks.  At the suggestion of the gentleman who was with me, I requested him to multiply four places of figures by three places, naming the figures, and the operation was done about as rapidly as I could write down the result.  Their shaved heads, and long queues, sometimes nearly touching the ground, are curious features of their personal appearance.  The workshops front upon the streets, and in them busy, half-naked creatures may be seen, working away as industriously as so many beavers all day long, seeming never to tire of their ceaseless toil.