History
In pre-colonial times, the original inhabitants of Singapore, the aboriginal biduanda orang kallang, lived in the swamps at the mouth of the Kallang River, and fished from their boats, seldom venturing out into the open sea. At the time when Sir Stamford Raffles landed in Singapore in 1819, half of the population of 1,000 were orang kallang.
Kallang River is the place, too, where in the early days the Bugis traders from Sulawesi (Celebes) unloaded their cargoes of spices and tortoise shells, gold dust and slaves from their palari or their leteh-leteh. These sailing boats were a common sight off the sea front even up to the 1960s.
Today, this long, winding river has little or no industry except for a short distance, although a new industrial estate at Kallang Basin, near Kallang Bahru, has been built.
Read more about this topic: Kallang River
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“It’s a very delicate surgical operation—to cut out the heart without killing the patient. The history of our country, however, is a very tough old patient, and we’ll do the best we can.”
—Dudley Nichols, U.S. screenwriter. Jean Renoir. Sorel (Philip Merivale)
“History takes time.... History makes memory.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“All history and art are against us, but we still expect happiness in love.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)