Although rather subject to fevers, it is not at present considered very unhealthy.
The population of Malacca consists of several races.

The ubiquitous Chinese are perhaps the most numerous, keeping up their manners, customs, and language; the indigenous Malays are next in point of numbers, and their language is the Lingua-franca of the place.

Next come the descendants of the Portuguese--a mixed, degraded, and degenerate race, but who still keep up the use of their mother tongue, though ruefully mutilated in grammar; and then there are the English rulers, and the descendants of the Dutch, who all speak English.

The Portuguese spoken at Malacca is a useful philological phenomenon.

The verbs have mostly lost their inflections, and one form does for all moods, tenses, numbers, and persons.