Haus are in front, St. Paul's Hill rises immediately above them, and to the left may be seen the beautiful strand and the tranquil harbour. There is no noise, no bustle, or activity, which strike one so rudely at Singapore; no vehicles are in waiting, there are but few passengers in the streets, and these all look so lazy, and contented, that a feeling of repose comes over the traveller wearied with the eternal din of the sister station in the South. As one walks up, he finds all whom he meets, Chinese, Malays, or Europeans, wearing the same lazy, comfortable look. Malacca is eminently a city of the past, not one of the present with its incessant bustle and commerce. The beauties of other places strike us by their novelty, which soon wears out, but that of Malacca, like Naples, though in a lesser degree, continues to expand in loveliness and new points of interest day by day. Were we to choose any place in all the East to doze away our existence in a calm enjoyment of the picturesque and beautiful in nature, and in a quiet round of pleasant and hearty social intercourse, our choice would rest on Malacca.

The old province attached to Malacca extended further than the limits of the present, and included mount Ophir; but by some ill-considered treaty the district surrounding the latter, rich in deposits of gold and tin, has been given up to the Natives. The present province of Malacca is about 31 miles square and contains from six to seven hundred thousand acres. There is very little cultivation carried on, and that only in paddy by the Malays. A road leads from the Station direct to Mount Ophir which is well worthy of a visit whether by men of science, or mere sportsmen, or lovers of beautiful scenery. The country near the suburbs of the town presents only sights of extensive paddy fields; but further off virgin forests cover the soil, with here and there a small Malay clearing. The Chinese consider Malacca a place for repose; the Malays are essentially lazy, and we have no European planters here as at the other two Stations, the reason of which is, that while the lands of the other two were unoccupied and the right to hold them could be obtained without difficulty, those in Malacca were burdened by various incomprehensible tenures. This has checked the prosperity of the Settlement, and made Government merely the nominal lords of the soil. It was to do away with these tenures that the Malacca Land Bill was introduced into the Legislative Council. We may explain them briefly by stating, that when the Dutch were masters of the port of Malacca, and but nominal owners of the outlying province, they recklessly parcelled it out among their servants in large tracts of from five to fifty thousand acres, on condition of their

paying a tenth of the produce raised. Thus the whole province belonged to a few lazy Dutchmen. This claim rests upon a document discovered in 1827, which referring to one of 1773, interdicts proprietors from levying more than one tenth of the produce from their tenants. We see here one of those trifling causes from which serious difficulties take their rise; for when in 1807 the province passed into the hands of the British, not a word was said about this wholesale giving away of lands; the Dutch were burning for shame that their empire of Netherlands India, their sacred preserve, should be taken away from them by the British; they even yet cannot look with a kindly eye upon the Straits Settlement; considering all these things it does not look improbable, that in order at once to do the British an injury and to reward their own servants and fellow-countrymen, the document discovered in 1827 was written out, just before the Dutch were leaving Malacca for ever, and made to refer to an apocryphal one of 1773. We trust we are doing the Dutch Government no wrong. It is remarkable, that not one of the so called proprietors possessed a title deed. This was perhaps forgotten in the hurry. This circumstance of course was explained away, when a strict investigation into their claims was made in 1827. What is asserted by the so called proprietors is, that the lands and the right of levying the tax on them, had been given away in perpetuity. Thus they were the real lords of the soil. The British Government, with that tenderness which has always characterised it in dealing with just or unjust claims on lands in India, determined not to ignore these doubtful claims, (which should have been done, and which was wisely done by Lord Canning in the parallel case of Oude with eminent success) but redeemed them at a total payment of Rupees 17,354 per annum to the claimants, who thereby received what they had never expected, for the tenth of the produce of their lands was a mere nominal revenue and they seldom could get it. At present, it is remarkable that though cultivation has increased on these lands, Government is a loser through paying the redemption money. The Dutch proprietors knowing the fact of the increase of the cultivation, and that British authority is real over the whole province, so that they could now go about their estates and collect the fair tenth, which would exceed the payment they receive, have clamoured to get back the management of their lands, and have thus once more drawn the attention of the Government to the anomalous tenures under which Malacca lands labour. We trust the Malacca Land Bill will decide the question for ever, and that Malacca will now start on a new career of prosperity.

intermingled with any other crop. The other reason is that fibre of the 'Bondee' is, though short, exceedingly strong a close, and as it is procurable at a lower rate than the other, fi. the smaller expense incurred in its cultivation, and as it is equa well if not better adapted for the common coarse purposes to wh it is to be applied, it is in general use. Nor must it be f gotten that for making ropes, which are in common use the cotton districts, it is by far the best adapted.

There is therefore an indigenous cotton plant in India, whi with little care might be made to yield a staple in every w suited to Manchester spinners. The staple is quite as fine a long as ordinary Upland cotton, and by attention to the cultiv tion both its fineness and length might be improved. The or drawback before which all others pale is the inadequate price a Indian cottons command in the home market, when the Ame rican varieties are available; and while there is so little securit for any maintenance of price, it cannot be expected that s suspicious and timid a race as the natives of India will pay much attention to improvement, when the results of their labor and money is of so very doubtful a nature. Any improvement therefore as well as any marked increase in the cultivation of cotton must depend entirely on British enterprise, for as it has been endeavoured to be shewn, the cultivator himself has no direct interest in its production, inasmuch as he can employ his land far more profitably.

The means, by which all that is requisite to induce both increase of cultivation and improvement in the staples could be ensured, may be shortly stated as being the establishment of British Agencies in localities contiguous to the known cotton fields of India, with appliances for cleaning and packing the cotton on the spot, and improved means of transport, to which must be added the enactment of an equitable law rendering performance of contract by either party compulsory, and punishing promptly and severely all dishonest evasion. Without this latter condition the European would stand no chance of success in any endeavour to promote the object in view, his advances would be taken but the native dealer or agent would alone profit by them; but with such a law to back him he could soon drive his opponents out of the field. The advances he made to the Ryot might be independent of interest, and the evils attending on the usurious practices of the native traders being removed from the cultivator, his crop of cotton would at once become more profitable. Besides, with improved means of transport, and with appliances for cleaning, screwing and baling on the spot, the bulk of the article would be so much

Stamford Raffles's views. First, British influence should be made to be felt throughout the Peninsula and the North of Borneo; and secondly, the standard of education should be raised far above its present level. As for the first, when the Settlement has become a colony it will be compelled to take up a decided position; but as for the second, we fear, that in the midst of increasing commercial excitement, it will be entirely lost sight of and forgotten, but it is for this very reason, that we have so earnestly drawn attention to the subject throughout this article.

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productive of incalculable good. It is by such means that the waste lands at the disposal of Government, and which are now obtainable on very liberal terms may be turned to good account, not only as rendering productive barren wastes, but as bringing into immediate intercourse the two peoples, where the interests of both, so far from clashing, are similar, and by such intercourse doing more to efface the present careless and slovenly style of agriculture pursued by the native, and substituting for it the careful neatness of the English system, than years of antagonism such as now rages in Bengal between the two races could by any possibility effect. To the introduction into India of a practical class of farmers from England we look for more advantage to the people and more security against revolt than to any other means, and if the present demand for cotton by England, and the pressure put upon the Government, by causing the removal of present and past obstructions to the settlement of Anglo-Saxons in India, be the means of insuring the immigration of the required class, both England and India may have cause to bless the day when from internal commotion the supplies of American cotton were cut off.

With regard to the foreign varieties of cotton, which have been introduced into India with as yet but partial success, there is much to be said as to the causes of failure in so many instances, and, notwithstanding these failures, of the promises of eventual success in satisfactorily acclimatizing one and all of the descriptions found in every part of the world. The known varieties are distinguishable under three different heads:-1st Gossypium Barbadense' under which is classed, Sea Island, Egyptian, New Orleans, Mobile, Alabama, Uplands, Demarara, Berbice, and West Indian,-2nd 'Gossypium Peruvianum' comprising Peruvian, Pernambuco, Aracali, Ceara, Maranham, Para, Bahia and Maceio; and 3rd 'Gossypium Indicum,' under which head are found all the Asiatic varieties, Smyrna, Surats, Madras and Bengal. The three varieties are generally distinguishable by the formation of the leaves. The leaves of the Gossypium Barbadense are in most descriptions three lobed with the lobes full and short. The Gossypium Peruvianum assimilates much with the former, except that the leaves have generally five lobes. But as all these varieties are considerably affected, by soil and climate, they one and all very materially alter their features in different situations, the short full leaf of the New Orleans variety becoming very considerably lengthened when produced in some parts of India, so much so as to make it resemble in many respects the indigenous plant, while in others, where soil and climate