not pretend to judge him in regard to this, and the questions that will evolve out of this are so great that they will task the abilities of the best statesmen that India can engage. As an antidote to Sir Stamford's generous impulses, nature has given a climate that makes the Malays naturally lazy, so for them to be otherwise would be unnatural. It is curious to observe that regenerators always select a task that can never be accomplished; thus their employment is continuous, never ending. Abdulla in this respect is an active disciple of Sir Stamford, having ideas far advanced beyond his countrymen; but it is to be remembered that he had Arab blood in him. Thus he was ambitious to advance the prestige of his adopted countrymen, but in this he, with a practical eye, sees there is no hope. His proverbs seem to indicate that, as a cat's leap does not startle you in sleep, and a cock's crow is not reserved till noon, so the torpor of the Malays will not be disturbed from its settled immobility.

Baulked in his wishes to educate the Malay princes, Sir Stamford now directs his attention to founding a school, which afterwards rose to be the most prominent establishment in Singapore, under the name of the Institute. It will be seen to have been initiated on rigidly secular principles, so as to avoid distrust on the part of the natives, who considered Christians, Hindoos, Mahomedans, Buddhists, Jews, and Fetishists, each again divided into their various sects, all more or less opposed to each other in various shades of doctrine. Thus the great love of contention in national education appears to have been amicably settled at the beginning, whatever troubles occasionally arose afterwards. The Institute, during my residence in Singapore, was used by all nationalities and colours, but principally by Christians, Buddhists, and Hindoos, to the number of two

or three hundred; and teachers of the various languages, as designed by Sir Stamford, were employed.

The various branches of the Institute worked smoothly and cordially as a rule, except when an occasional governor, holding sectarian instead of cosmopolitan views, would allow the good station chaplain to make a raid on the heathen within the walls, which stirred up bitter feuds between the teachers of the different religions. But these raids were never very vigorous, so the duties fell back to their usual quiet routine. Such episodes were perforce intermittent, as the East India Company's chaplains were understood by the rules of the service not to undertake missionary labour. They indeed got salaries ranging from £800 to £1200 a year, while the highest pay given to missionaries never exceeded £300 a year. The propriety of this arrangement has often puzzled me, unless it be that the hard worker gets least pay, or that we are sometimes paid not to do our duty.

The sum subscribed speaks volumes of the openhanded liberality of the Singapore British merchants, who bore the largest share, and who have continued their support whenever called upon; yet at that time they were "interlopers."

The elevation of the natives seems to have been a hobby with Sir Stamford Raffles-due, no doubt, to his original radical politics, which were also the politics of his masters, the merchant adventurers trading to the East. In the embryo state of things in his time, his doings were of little consequence; but the subject will have some day to be seriously looked in the face, when possibly there will be every kind of opinion, and many opposing measures suggested. Abdulla tells us that not more than one in a thousand natives can read and write. The question then that arises first is this: Shall a

European Government step in to educate the natives, or shall it leave things as they are? The British Government incline to the former course, the Dutch Government to the latter. The results of these antagonistic policies no one can anticipate. But we know that knowledge is power; therefore, by suffusing knowledge over a whole people, that people will, undoubtedly, from being weak, become powerful. With a people in the latter condition, then, what influence can an outside power have? Here, then, we are led to consider the tendencies of the conservative and democratic factions in the conquering nation. The conservative faction would rather hold India, for England's sake.. The democratic would do the same; but its principles overbear interest, and urge the cry of India for the Indians, as all men are equal. So with it English interests would go to the wall. Thus the two elements in the home country work against each other, one overturning the other in their respective cycles; and neither attaining the ends they seek. The conservative measures weaken England herself by drawing off her life's blood to defend India, as it is. On the contrary, the democratic measures have a tendency to weaken India, because once they shall have destroyed the English element in her, anarchy will be universal; for, however much they may educate her in the interests of democracy, no education can be of avail to a people morally weak. Thus, let England abandon India, that country would become a prey to new conquerors-a battle-field for northern contending The Dutch solution on the whole appears to powers. be the most sensible under the circumstances, however much it may grate against liberalism. It is a fair concession of interests between Europeans and natives.

Sir Stamford Raffles appears to have been imbued with the utopian and impracticable ideas now so much

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blazed before the British public, by a school that had little development in his time, though the English press now teems with its lucubrations-he would have brought the lower masses in direct contact with the Government, thus ignoring the middle classes; he would have supported sinew against intellect, and thus have brought to life what he did not anticipate, viz. an immense and overpowering officialdom, to minister to the wants of the hydra.

XV.

THE SLAVE TRADE.

"On a certain day during the Bugis season I noticed fifty or sixty male and female slaves taken about the town of Singapore, some of whom were youths; others had infants in their arms, some also were sick. These were

driven by Bugis people like sheep; so I went forward to them and asked of what race they were, when I was told (by their keeper); this one is from Bouton, this from Mengri, that from Mandor; but if you take a boat and go to the prow that entered last night, you will find that it has two to three hundred slaves on board. I then, for the sake of curiosity only, asked their prices, on which one was offered at forty dollars, another at thirty; I then went away. Then on the morrow I took a boat and went to the prow, which I found "chock full of slaves, to the number as above stated, male and female, amongst whom were young handsome girls; others were in the family way, near about their time. This filled me with compassion towards them. I now observed, as I stood looking over the scene as it presented itself to me, hundreds of Chinese coming with the intention of purchasing. I was especially grieved to see the condition of the pregnant women, who turning to me with weeping eyes, forced tears from my own; for whose wives and children may they have been? And I was yet