MISCELLANEOUS.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 245, 4 December 1847, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS.

Malacca — Its Mineral and Agricultural resources. — The re-discovery of Malacca by Europeans (for such was the recent movement in England) appears to have awakened a new spirit of enterprise amongst the inhabitants, and to have opened their eyes to the treasures which they have so long neglected. The Chinese miners, as if already feeling the presence of their great rivals from from ihp west, and foreseeing that their monopoly must fall before their skill and combination, are eagerly extending their works. Four new mines have been opened within the last three months, and unless English capitalits bestir themselves in time, they may find all the best stanniferous valleys pre.-pccupied. We believe the great mining associations of England have for some time had their eyes upon the Peninsula. If they deliberate too long they will find the prize snatched from them. An American gentleman lately visited all the mines in Malacca and in the Malayan states to the north and south, and as his report upon some of the localities where tin is now worked is very favourable, it cannot be doubted that the information which he has obtained will be duly appreciated by his enterprising countrymen, whose habit ii is to plunge in mediasres, whilst we sit weighing the pros and cons. It may give our Cornish readers some idea of the metallic fertility of Malacca if we state that in one valley there are at this moment thirtynine mines in opiration. Can it be doubted that the granitic hills at the head of this valley the waters from which have strewed its whole length with tin sand, hold numerous rich veins ? In one locality where the ground was first broken, so recently as October last, there are now twelve hundred Chinese employed, and recent visitors state the ore to be so abundant that the miners have not yet had occasion to dig six feet below the surface. The Chinese capitalists who have farmed the right of working mines in this locality from Government, have hired a considerable number of Chinese immigrants, who lately arrived at Malacca. The energy which they are now displaying is sure to be rewarded by a handsome profit on their contract with Government. | The revenue from tin is increasing so rapidly that there is little doubt that ere long the entire loss upon the purchase of the proprietary rights of the old Dutch landholders will be made up from this source alone. What has been considered an improvident measure will probably prove the ireans of placing Malacca j in a position which she could not have attaiued ! if the avarice of numerous private local owners had been interposed between the resources and the enterprise of English capitalists. As it is, there are numerous tracts entirel.. at the disposal of Government, and the very great encouragement which they have given to the intending sugar planters, and the promptitude with which the ground applied for by the Malacca Sugar Csmpany has been examined and surveyed, afford an ample guarantee that every well considered and substantial project tending to the improvement of the country will be most favourably and liberally countenanced. If any additional motive were wanting for speedy and decided measures being taken by all who have any intention of entering on this new field, whether for the cultivation of the sugar cane, or the working of tin, it may be found in the fact that our present Governor, Colonel Butterworth, is animated by a cordial zeal for the advancement of these settlements, and would, we are sure, give the most effective support to any association of respectability that may be organized for either of these purposes. So much ignorance and misconception continue to prevail regarding these settlements, and Malacca in particular, that we shall make a few remaaks on the latter for the benefit of our English readers. Those who may be deterred from coming to Malacca from the associations connected with tropical jungles, and the difficulties and miseries of,nevr settlements, must at once rid their minds of all impressions of the kind. So far from there being any room for such ideas, we can assure them that if they will give the reins to their- imagination, and picture to themselves in the most attractive colours a tropical garden, in which plains and valleys are surrounded and intersected by hills covered with an assemblage of fruit-bearing trees, which is literally without a parallel in the world ; and in front of this, and stretched along a mediterranean sea,

a long dark green zone formed of similar trees and a vast abundauce of cocoanuts, beneath which thousands of cottages and houses are scattered , and, finally, steep the whole in a pure atmosphere, and ventilate it with refreshing and salubrious breezes, they may approach, •but cannot overstep, the reality. It is a sober scientific fact that Malacca presents within itself an assemblage of natural and acquired advantages which no other country within the tropics possesses for the European colonist. For it has not only the essential requisites of a sufficient and most desirable field, hardly occupied at all, for the investment of capital in its vegetable fertility and mineral wealth, with the adjuncts of proximity to the sea and numerous streams and rivers, but has also all the amenities and facilities, and far more than the beauty of an old European country. Six centuries have passed over Malacca since it was found a jungle by the Hindu Malay emigrants from Singapore. Malayan civilization during the succeeding two centuries and a halt' flourished and advanced under a strong government, and while the country behind gradually assumed the aspect of antiquity, the coast for many miles was converted into one continuous market-place, where a trading population of nearly 200,000 persons were established, and to which vessels resorted from India, Arabia, China, and all parts of the Indian archipelago. During the next 130 years Portugal in its palmiest time impressed an European character on Malacca, and then for a still longer period a more kindred nation, the Dutch, prepared it for the reception of English residents. This successive infusion of new ideas and new habits has given to Malacca a very peculiar and very attractive character. At this day all the races who have one after another predominated, as well as many others who without possessing authority, have played the most important parts in its history, exist no^ only distinct but commixed. Prejudices o( blood and religion have been broken down or subdued. Each tribe, rao'e or less cut off from the powerful segregating influences that reign in its native land, and subjected to the fraternizing force of common pursuits and constant intercourse, has found nature stronger than prejudice, and Christian, heathen, papist, and benetic islamite and unbeliever, men of every tongue, and race, and colour, from the Ultima Thule to the Golden Chersonese, and further still, not only live in perfect harmony, but mingle their blood without any misgivings. It would have been a sin against nature, here so gracious and so bounteous, had humanity proved more stubborn. This harmonious diversity which marks the people themselves extends to their architecture and all their habits of life. The great cause of this peculiar character of Malacca is [ the fertility and salubrity of the air. These circumstances have wedded the immigrants from different nations to the place, so that instead of hastily gathering what wealth they could (as generally happens elsewhere in the Archipelago, as at Singapore,) and returning to their naiive countries, they have found themselves unable to break their attachment to Malacca, and it has become their adopted home. The very liberality of nature has, to our utilitarian notions, had its drawbacks. Men who find that their own country possesses almost everything which they can desire, and merely to live in which is pleasure, had no adequate motive for exertion. Nature has been so kind that her children are necessarily indolent, and more prone to enjoyment than labour. Hence it happens that while, on the one band, the comforts and luxuries of civilised existence may be found in all their fulness and at a cheap cost at Malacca ; on the other hand, civilisation has left a wiiie economical field almost untouched. On the sea shore you have a mixture of the oldest European and the oldest Asiatic civilisations, with [ everything that can please the eye and satisfy the desires of man. Go a few miles into the interior, and you have backwoods rich in virgin soil, and hollows secreting valuable motals — in a word, everything that can excite the cupidity of the utilitarian sons of the West.