Singapore was established by the English as a competitor for the trade of the Dutch at Batavia, in the East Indian Archipelago, and being declared a free port, has accomplished the desired result to a very great degree. Numbers of prahus, that can play pirating or trading as the opportunity presents, come there, bringing their commodities, but principally that they may get powder and shot, to play Lambro with neighboring Dyaks. It was founded in 1819, and settled with the consent of the rajah of Johore, a part of whose possessions it was. This rajah still receives a large annuity from the English, and resides in the vicinity of the place. With a friend I drove out to his place. The building was a plain one, fronted with a verandah, and the entrance ornamented with two little brass howitzers. We were received by the rajah’s son, who spoke a little English. He was gaudily attired in turban made by wrapping a parti-colored kerchief about the head, from his side hung a handsomely-mounted dagger, and he also sported a fine gold watch. His features were quite handsome for a Malay. We were ushered into an upper room, at one end of which, on a sofa, with his feet drawn up under him, similarly attired with himself, sat his father the rajah, and his brother whom we understood to be a “sultan” of some neighboring province or country. On the table in front of them lay their krisses, the hilts inlaid with costly jewels. They were quite jolly-looking old fellows, and had a great many questions to ask about the mission on which our ship was bound, &c., but the defective translation of his son made the business of answering a slow one. Before leaving him he caused tea and sweetmeats to be brought in, and joined us quite sociably. The next day his son paid us a visit aboard ship. On the 29th of March, we left Singapore, and in a short time were heading our course in the China sea. On the 2d of April the heat became very oppressive. What little breeze moved on the water was aft, and the steamer moving faster than it, the windsails which led to the lower quarters of the ship afforded no comfort, and hung collapsed from their halyard. Some of our firemen; whose duties always severely onerous, but particularly so in those burning latitudes, fainted as they stood in the fire-room while feeding their furnaces. Such is the exhausting effect of the climate on those engaged by the peninsular and oriental steamers, that engineers and firemen, it is said, are rotated at intervals, with those engaged on the more healthy part of the route on the other side of the isthmus of Suez. The greatest mortality among them arises from diseases of the liver.