rtnight after my visit to Tji Wangi I left Java. As the train took
us from Batavia to the port, I caught a glimpse of the sea over the
palm-trees, and I felt something of the exultation which prompted the
remnant of the ten thousand Greeks to exclaim, "The sea! the sea!" I had
tired of the steamy atmosphere of Batavia, and that line of blue seemed
full of revivifying power. Three days later we reached Singapore. Here
everything was bright and new and English--miles of wharfs crowded with
shipping, broad streets, the cathedral spire _en evidence_, tall
warehouses, and handsome Government buildings. Watering-carts replaced
the bamboo buckets in the streets, and English iron and stone work the
quaint lamps and antiquated masonry. There the Dutch lived by
themselves; the wide streets, education, Christianity, were for them
exclusively. Here it was otherwise. Even the native streets were well
drained and lighted; for the Englishman shares his civilization with the
native races. The glory of the place is its splendidly turfed and
tree-clad esplanade; and in the centre of the broad carriage-road there
stands the statue of Sir Stamford Raffles, for five years
Lieutenant-Governor of Java and the founder of Singapore.

The British occupation of Singapore arose so directly out of the cession
of Java, that a description of the circumstances which led to this event
will suitably complete my account of that country.

[Illustration: THE ESPLANADE, SINGAPORE. _Page_ 264.]

After some years' service as a clerk in the East India house in London,
Raffles was despatched in 1805, when only twenty-three years of age, to
the East, as assistant-secretary to the Government of Penang, where a
settlement was then being formed by the company. In this capacity he so
distinguished himself as to attract the notice of Lord Minto, then
Governor-General of India. In particular Raffles made himself
acquainted, as no other European had done before, with the circumstances
and character of the Malay races. Subsequently, in view of the
annexation of Holland by Napoleon, it became desirable for the Indian
Government to take some measures to prevent the establishment of the
French in the Dutch possessions in the East. When, as a means to this
end, it was determined to occupy Java, it was to Raffles that Lord Minto
applied for the necessary information upon which the operations of the
expedition could be based. The capture of Java was considered of such
impor