Isabella Lucy Bird Bishop

“ The wealth of Selangor lies in its apparently inexhaustible tin mines. The range of hills which forms the backbone of the Malay Peninsula rises in places to a height of seven thousand feet, and it is from this range that the alluvial detritus is washed down, beneath which is deposited the layer of ore or wash, which varies from four inches to ten feet in thickness. ”

“ Negri Calang, or the land of tin, was the designation of this part of the peninsula, and this depopulated region was formerly a flourishing dependency under the Malay sovereigns of Malacca. The population, such as it is, is chiefly composed of the descendants of a colony of Bugis from Goa in the Celebes, who settled in Selangor at the beginning of the eighteenth century under a Goa chief, who was succeeded by Sultan Ibrahim, an intense hater and sturdy opponent of the Dutch. ”

“ Mr. Newbold, who had charge of a military post on the Selangor frontier in 1833, witnessed many of the atrocities perpetrated by these Bugis princes, who committed piracies, robbed, plundered, and levied contributions on the wretched Malays, without hindrance. In Mr. Newbold's day the whole population of Kwala Linggi, where he was stationed, fled by night into the Malacca territory, where they afterward settled to escape from the merciless exactions to which they were subjected. ”