Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The tiger and rhinoceros are still found here, and a few years ago elephants abounded, but
they have lately all disappeared. We found some heaps of dung, which seemed to be that of
elephants, and some tracks of the rhinoceros, but saw none of the animals. We, however,
kept a fire up all night in case any of these creatures should visit us, and two of our men de-
clared that they did one day see a rhinoceros. When our rice was finished, and our boxes full
of specimens, we returned to Ayer-Panas, and a few days afterwards went on to Malacca,
and thence to Singapore. Mount Ophir has quite a reputation for fever, and all our friends
were astonished at our recklessness in staying so long at its foot; but we none of us suffered
in the least, and I shall ever look back with pleasure to my trip, as being my first introduc-
tion to mountain scenery in the Eastern tropics.
The meagreness and brevity of the sketch I have here given of my visit to Singapore and
the Malay Peninsula is due to my having trusted chiefly to some private letters and a note-
book, which were lost; and to a paper on Malacca and Mount Ophir which was sent to the
Royal Geographical Society, but which was neither read nor printed owing to press of mat-
ter at the end of a session, and the MSS. of which cannot now be found. I the less regret this,
however, as so many works have been written on these parts; and I always intended to pass
lightly over my travels in the western and better known portions of the Archipelago, in order
to devote more space to the remoter districts, about which hardly anything has been written
in the English language.
