CHAPTER IV: THE THIRD DECADE (1839-49)
IN his Diary for July 1839 Sir James Brooke (afterwards Rajah of Sarawak) gives his impressions of the Chinese in Singapore:
Emigrants from the Celestial Empire greatly exceed the natives of all other countries put together, and form the chief mass of labourers and shopkeepers. I know not whether most to admire the Chinese for their many virtues or to despise them for their glaring defects and vices. Their industry exceeds that of any other people on the face of the earth, they are laborious, patient and cheerful; but on the other hand they are corrupt, supple and exacting, yielding to their superiors and tyrannical to those who fall into their power. The most interesting class of Chinese are the squatters in the jungle around the high hill of Bukit Timah. Their habitations may be distinguished like clear specks amidst the woods, and from each a wreath of smoke arises, the inmates being constantly engaged in the boiling of gambier. We may estimate at nearly 2,000 these people who, straying from the fold of civilisation, become wild and lawless on its very confines
