There are said to be about two thousand Chinese inhabiting and cultivating the soil in the interior of the island. They have neatly-constructed, although not well-furnished habitations. They offered us tea, (and it was poured out in the usual Lilliputian cups,) fruits, rice cakes, and more substantial articles of diet; indeed they always appeared ready to give us the best they had. After taking a rustic dinner, we returned to the sampan by the same route we came. On the road we observed a Malay lad collecting some plants, as he informed us, for medicine: those I examined consisted merely of several grasses. He said it was for a patient suffering under small-pox. The plants were to be boiled, mixed with rice, and employed as an external application to the body. We rejoined our sampan at the Singapore creek, and arrived at the town early in the evening. Early one morning I visited a plantation of a Chinese, (in company with Mr. Lorrain and the Rev. Mr. Darrah,) situated in the vicinity of the settlement, for the purpose of witnessing the preparation of the fibres from the leaves of the Ananas, or wild pine apple, which fibres, after being prepared by a very simple process, are exported to China, and used in the manufacture of linens, &c. The Chinese, who prepared the leaves before us, said, he got one rupee and a half the catty for the fibre; it was in texture, when manufactured, very similar to the New Zealand flax, of a fine quality, and there is also some similarity in the manner in which it is wrought. The leaves recently gathered (and the longest and oldest are those which appear to be selected for the purpose) are laid upon a board, and the epidermis is removed by a broad knife, not unlike in form to a shoemaker’s paring knife; upon its removal from the upper surface of the leaf, the long and beautiful fibres were seen lying upon the lower and denser epidermis, running in a longitudinal direction; the fasciculi of fibres were then readily detached either by the hand or by being raised with the broad knife.