Singapore ca. 1859, as seen by Colonel Henri de Ponchalon
This is a translation by Colin Dyer of a diary passage from Colonel Henri de Ponchalon’s Indo-Chine: Souvenirs de Voyage et de Campagne, 1858-60 (1896), recording his arrival in and observations of Singapore in July 1859 (p. 109).
The text documents Ponchalon’s first impressions of the harbour, the multicultural population, and the commercial character of the town. He describes the harbour’s diversity of vessels, the Malay divers, the Chinese servants at the Hope Hotel, and the ethnic quarters of the commercial district. He provides a brief account of Raffles’ founding of the free port in 1819 and its subsequent growth into the Far East’s largest entrepôt, noting the population of approximately 100,000 (65,000 Chinese, 500 Europeans) and the English practice of selling arms to pirates before hunting them (p. 110). The diary continues with visits to a Chinese pagoda, a Malay mosque, and a Hindu temple, a ride in a horse-drawn palanquin, and a visit to the residence of the wealthy Chinese merchant Whampoa, whose garden and pavilions exemplify Chinese aesthetic taste (pp. 110–111).