The latter are mostly gun-makers, and bore the barrels of guns by hand out of solid bars of iron.

At this tedious operation they may be seen every day, and they manage to finish off a gun with a flintlock very handsomely.

All about the streets are sellers of water, vegetables, fruit, soup, and agar-agar (a jelly made of seaweed), who have many cries as unintelligible as those of London.

Others carry a portable cooking-apparatus on a pole balanced by a table at the other end, and serve up a meal of shellfish, rice, and vegetables for two or three halfpence--while coolies and boatmen waiting to be hired are everywhere to be met with.
In the interior of the island the Chinese cut down forest trees in the jungle, and saw them up into planks; they cultivate vegetables, which they bring to market; and they grow pepper and gambir, which form important articles of export.

The French Jesuits have established missions among these inland Chinese, which seem very successful.