THE SURVIVAL

Temasek, 1885

The fleet of 3 Pinisis had left Temasek heading towards Makassar without Musa on board. They did not even bother about Musa's disappearance from their ship. They were confident that Musa will survive in any where he lived in this world because he was a though hard working boy with good visions to success in future life.

That was true indeed.

Musa was easily taken by a company in the Temasek harbor to work as its laborer. Musa has no problem to find a place to stay because he had his own saving. He was all right financially. He was being paid for jobs or works done on board of the ship from Makassar to Singapore several weeks before that. He did not choose or seek good jobs. So long as the jobs or works were paid in cash, that will do for him. In just a matter of few days in Temasek, Musa had established himself as a good servant to the company.

That Temasek was known as Singapura during Musa's ocupancy in the island. Since the date Sir Thomas Stanford Raffles opened and established Singapura as a British port in 1819, the island had vastly expanded from a dull Malay fishing village into a very important port connecting China in the east and India in the west for the East India Company.

Although in Musa's time the East India Company was no longer in existence, the port of Singapura continued to be the most important port in South East Asia. The port grew rapidly as the place of trade exchanging markets between the Pacific in the east and the Hindi in the west.

At the age of 16 in 1885, Musa had been an important person who contributed to the development of modern Singapura which was later on renowned by the world as Singapore.

Singapore today...