PRINCE OF WALES ISLAND, the official name of the island popularly known as Penang or Pulo-Penang (i.e., Areca Nut Island), which lies 8 or 9 miles off the west coast of the Malay peninsula in 5° 20' N. lat. and 100° 20' E. long. The island is about 15 miles long by 5 broad and has an area of 107 square miles or 69,000 acres, considerably less than the Isle of Wight. When in 1785 it was ceded to the English by the rajah of Kedah in return for an annual pension of 10,000 dollars, it was almost uninhabited; at the census of 1881 its population amounted to 90,951 (comprising 612 Europeans, 21,772 Malays, 45,135 Chinese, 15,730 natives of India), and it has since been increased mainly by further Chinese and Indian immigration. The people from the east coast of India are locally known as Klings, a Malay corruption of Telinga or Telugu; and the half-breed race between Indian and Malay is distinguished as Jawi-Pekan. About two-fifths of Penang are lowland and the rest consists of hills, which towards the north reach their culminating point, 2922 feet above the sea, in the peak now utilized as a sanatorium. A considerable portion of the surface is still uncleared, and from the summit of the peak the whole island presents very much the appearance of a forest, the villages always lying in the midst of groves of the cocoa-nut palm. On the whole, however, vegetation is not so rich as on the neighbouring mainland. Apart from the cocoa-nuts and areca-nuts, the principal products are sugar, coffee, and pepper; but increasing attention is again being given to nutmegs and cloves, which can be grown on the hillsides. Of the landholders 2280 were Chinese and 1482 Malays in 1882. In the lowlands the temperature ranges from 80° to 90°, but on the peak from 60° to 75°. The rainfall in ...1882 was 126 ’ 50 inches—somewhat above the average. Georgetown or Penang, the only town on the island, lies on the east coast on a low plain stretching out into the sea; its harbour, always well filled with both European vessels and native craft, is the strait between island and mainland. Water-works were undertaken in 1865. Among the public buildings are the town-hall (1872-80), the post-office (1881), the free school with upwards of 600 pupils, the Christian Brothers’ school, several Tamil schools, the general hospital (1882), and the pauper hospital. An important leper hospital is maintained on Pulo-Jarajah, a small but lofty island in the strait opposite the town. Though Singapore has withdrawn much of the trade that formerly found its way to Penang, there has been a great increase both in exports and imports, the aggregate value for 1859-60 being £3,530,000 and for 1882 £8,855,919.
The attention of the East India Company was first called to Pulo-Penang by Captain Light in 1771, and it was under his personal command that the settlement was founded in July 1786. At his death in 1794 he left “a compact little township with fort and public buildings.” In 1798 Sir George Leith (for the purpose mainly of rooting out piracy) purchased from the rajah of Kedah for 2000 dollars the tract of land opposite Prince of Wales Island, which has since become known as Province Wellesley (area in 1885, 234 square miles). In 1806 the island was made a presidency of equal rank with Madras or Bombay; and after Singapore and Malacca were incorporated with it in 1826 it remained the seat of the general government till 1832. The commercial part of the town was destroyed by fire in 1808.
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