Singapore.

When the prosperity of the Dutch East India Company was at its
height, the city of Batavia[9] was justly entitled the "Queen of
the East." Apart from the fact that this place was the centre and
head-quarters of the company, it was the emporium through which the
whole commerce of the East passed to and from Europe. The Dutch
possessions of Ceylon, the Cape of Good Hope, and the Moluccas
depended for their supplies on Java. Not only were the European
imports, iron, broadcloth, glass-ware, velvets, wines, gold lace,
furniture, and saddlery destined for these settlements received
here in the first instance, but similar imports intended for China,
Cochin, Japan, and the Malay islands were also reshipped from this
port into the native boats which conveyed them to those several
countries. Similarly, the wealth of China and the East was first
collected upon the wharfs of Batavia before it was finally
despatched to the various ports of Europe and America.

[Footnote 9: "Not many years later (_i.e._ than 1602, the date
of Wolfert's victory over the Portuguese Admiral Mendoza), at
the distance of a dozen leagues from Bantam, a congenial swamp
was fortunately discovered in a land whose volcanic peaks rose
two miles in the air, and here a town duly laid out with canals
and bridges, and trim gardens and stagnant pools, was baptized
by the ancient and well-beloved name of Good Meadow, or Batavia,
which it bears to this day" (Motley, "United Netherlands").

Since the foundation of the town, the seashore has silted up to
such an extent that the original harbour of Batavia, in which the
Dutch East Indiamen of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries lay
at anchor, has been abandoned, and a new port has been constructed
at a point six miles to the eastward. The harbour works at Tanjong
Priok, as the present port of Batavia is called, and the railway
which connects the port and town of Batavia, are one among many
improvements set on foot in the island since the inauguration of a
public-works policy by the Colonial Government in 1875. Ocean
steamships of 4000 and 5000 tons burden can now be berthed at these
wharfs, and there is a constant and convenient service of trains
between the port and the town. Even to-day the presence of
superannuated Dutch warships and quaint craft from China and the
Malay islands relieves the monotony of the vast hulls of the
steamships of the British India, the Me