A view looking down from Residency Hill over a section of Taiping, with the Padang in the foreground, houses and shops beyond and hills in the distance. The photograph when compared with the preceding print, gives some indication of the prosperity brought to the town by the tin mining industry during the early years of British administration: apart from the grouth of the town, the buildings themselves are of a more substantial appearance, mostly of two storeys and roofed with corrugated iron. A description of Isabella Bird's impressions of Taiping during her visit in 1879 is found in Bird (1883, p. 280). The Governor of the Straits Settlements, Sir Frederick Weld, also noticed these recent improvements when he made a tour of the Protected Malay States in mid 1881. These are recorded in Correspondence relating to the Protected Malay States (c. 3428 of 1882 p. 2)