Middletown transcript., 1870-07-02
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SINGAPORE.

The following letter descriptive of this
famous place, is from the pen of Bishop
Kingsley, and appreared in late number
of the Christian Advocate:
On December 6, 1869, We reached Sing
apore, the most southerly portion of Asia.
The climate here is more thoroughly trop-
ical than any other portion of the country
[ have seen, being nearer the equator
only about one degree from it, The eli
mate is always warmer here than any part
of the year with us at home. There are
two summers and two winters in each year
at this place, as at all places situated on
the equator. The middle of the summers
respectively are the Goth of March and
September, and the middle of the winters
the Goth of June and December. The on
ly difference, however, in these seasons is
a little variation in the heat. The eli
mate is always moist and hot, and vegeta-
ton is always bursting with luxuriant
growth. The tropical scenery about Sing
apore, so far as vegetation is concerned, is
beautiful beyond all power of language.
Nothing short of the sight of it can con-
vey any adequate conception. The cocoa
nut palm, with many other varieties of
this beautiful tree abounds here. Here |
first saw large India-rubber trees pouring
out great quantities of milky sap, which
bardens by exposure to the air. The nut
meg, the mango, the pineapple, as also
the orange, the lemon, the lime, the ba-
mana, with a multitude of other tropical
fruits, abound here. The trees are all of
a kind never seen in the temperate zone,
and they are covered with the verdure of
perpetual spring. Great trees are cov-
cred with exquisitely beautiful flowers,
and loaded with unknown fruit, some of
it as large as our largest-sized water-mel-
ons.
Such wealth of vegetation can never
be seen outside of the tropics, nor where
the air is not always moist as well as hot
Here it rains much of the time during all
the months of the year. Singular combi-
nations, or what. seems SO to an inhabi-
tant of the temperate zones, are continual
ly meeting the eye here. A tree whose
trunk, and shape, and bark, and branches
all resemble the elm, has we'll defined pine
leaves. A kind of fruit which more re-
sembles mush-melons than anything else
grows on tree whose appearance, all but
the size, is almost exactly that of the
plant bearing the castor bean. All the
trees are evergreen, and many of them
have leaves of extraordinary beauty, ten
times as large as leaves grow in temperate
climates. Here the sensitive plant attains
size and perfection which I have not
seen elsewhere, producing beautiful glo-
bular blossom, and shrinking from the
touch like timid child.
The fan palm, so-called from its resem-
blance to an expanded fan, is tree of re-
markable beauty 1t must be remember
ed that no palm-tree has branches compos-
ed of wood, as with us at home. The
leaves are Joined to the trunk of the tree
near the top by means of long stems.
Some of these stems are as much as twelve
or fifteen inches wide where they join on
to the trunk, and have a length varying
from five to twenty feet, according to the
variety of the palm. In the fan palm
these stems and leaves, instead of coming
out all around the tree, grow on the two
opposite sides only, and thus spread out
into round, symmetrical top of extraor-
dinary beauty, and resembling, as before
remarked, an expanded fan, with this diff
ference, that tho tree Is twenty or thirty
feet wide. There is another remarkable
thing about this tree. The stem is SO
joined to the trunk Of the tree, with con-
cave surface upward, that the whole, ia.
J ken together, forms reservoir Of several