# Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks/Chapter 17

CHAPTER XVII
DESCRIPTION OF BATAVIA
Situation—Number of houses—Streets—Canals—Houses—Public buildings—Fortifications—Castle—Forts within the city—Soldiers—Harbour—Islands and uses to which they are put—Dutch fleet—Country round Batavia—Thunderstorms—Marshes—Unhealthiness of the climate—Fruitfulness of the soil—Cattle, sheep, etc.—Wild animals—Fish—Birds—Rice—Mountain rice—Vegetables—Fruits: detailed description, supply and consumption—Palm-wine—Odoriferous flowers—Spices—Population and nationalities—Trade—Cheating—Portuguese—Slaves—Punishment of slaves—Javans—Habits and customs—Native attention to the hair and teeth—Running amoc—Native superstitions—Crocodiles as twin brothers to men—Chinese: their habits, mode of living and burial—Government—Officials—Justice—Taxation—Money.
Batavia, the capital of the Dutch dominions in India, and generally esteemed to be by much the finest town in the possession of Europeans in these parts, is situated in a low fenny plain, where several small rivers, which take their rise in mountains called Blaen Berg, about forty miles inland, empty themselves into the sea. The Dutch (always true to their commercial interests) seemed to have pitched upon this situation entirely for the convenience of water-carriage, which indeed few, if any, towns in Europe enjoy in a higher degree. Few streets in the town are without canals of considerable breadth, running through or rather stagnating in them. These canals are continued for several miles round the town, and with five or six rivers, some of which are navigable thirty or forty or more miles inland, make the carriage of every species of produce inconceivably cheap.
It is very difficult to judge of the size of the town: the size of the houses, in general large, and the breadth of the ​streets increased by their canals, make it impossible to compare it with any English town. All I can say is that when seen from the top of a building, from whence the eye takes it in at one view, it does not look nearly so large as it seems to be when you walk about it. Valentijn, who wrote about and before the year 1726, says that in his time there were within the walls 1242 Dutch houses, and 1200 Chinese; without, 1066 Dutch and 1240 Chinese, besides twelve arrack houses. This number, however, appeared to me to be very highly exaggerated, those within the walls especially. But of all this I confess myself a very indifferent judge, having enjoyed so little health, especially towards the latter part of my stay, that I had no proper opportunity of satisfying myself in such particulars.
The streets are broad and handsome, and the banks of the canals in general planted with rows of trees. A stranger on his first arrival is very much struck with these, and often led to observe how much the heat of the climate must be tempered by the shade of the trees and coolness of the water. Indeed, as to the first, it must be convenient to those who walk on foot; but a very short residence will show him that the inconveniences of the canals far over-balance any convenience he can derive from them in any but a mercantile light. Instead of cooling the air, they contribute not a little to heat it, especially those which are stagnant, as most of them are, by reflecting back the fierce rays of the sun. In the dry season these stink most abominably, and in the wet many of them overflow their banks, filling the lower storeys of the houses near them with water. When they clean them, which is very often, as some are not more than three or four feet deep, the black mud taken out is suffered to lie upon the banks, that is, in the middle of the street, till it has acquired a sufficient hardness to be conveniently laden into boats. This mud stinks intolerably. Add to this that the running water, which is in some measure free from the former inconveniences, has every now and then a dead horse or hog stranded in the shallow parts, a nuisance which I was informed no particular person was appointed to remove. I ​am inclined to believe this, as I remember a dead buffalo lying in one of the principal thoroughfares for more than a week, until it was at last carried away by a flood.
The houses are in general large and well built, and conveniently enough contrived for the climate. The greater part of the ground-floor is always laid out in one large room with a door to the street and another to the yard, both which generally stand open. Below is the ground-plan of one. In this plan a is the front door, b, the back door, c, a room where the master of the house does his business, d, a court to give light to the rooms as well as increase the draught, and e, the stairs for going upstairs, where the rooms are generally large though few in number. Such, in general, are their town houses, differing in size very much, and sometimes in shape; the principles, however, on which they are built are universally the same, two doors opposite each other, and one or more courts between them to cause a draught, which they do in an eminent degree, as well as dividing the room into alcoves, in one of which the family dine, while the female slaves (who on no occasion sit anywhere else) work in another. Showy, however, as these large rooms are to the stranger on his first seeing them, he is soon sensible of the small amount of furniture which is universal in all of them. The same quantity of furniture is sufficient for them as is necessary for our smaller rooms in Europe, as in those we entertain fully as many guests at a time as is ever done in these; consequently the chairs, which are spread at even distances from each other, are not very easily collected into a circle if four or five visitors arrive at once.
Public buildings they have several, most of them old and executed in rather a clumsy taste. Their new church, how​ever, built with a dome (which is seen very far out at sea), is certainly far from an ugly building on the outside, though rather heavy, and in the inside is a very fine room. Its organ is well proportioned, being large enough to fill it, and it is so well supplied with chandeliers that few churches in Europe are as well lighted.
From buildings I should make an easy transition to fortifications, were it not a subject of which I must confess myself truly ignorant. I shall attempt, however, to describe what I have seen in general terms. The city of Batavia is enclosed by a stone wall of moderate height, old, and in many parts not in the best repair; besides this, a river in different places from fifty to one hundred paces broad, whose stream is rather brisk but shallow, encircles it without the walls, and within again is a canal of very variable breadth, so that in passing their gates you cross two draw-bridges. This canal, useless as it seems, has, however, this merit, that it prevents all walking on the ramparts, as is usual in fortified towns, and consequently all idle examination of the number or condition of the guns. With these they seem to be very ill provided, all that are seen being of very light metal; and the west side of the town, where alone you have an opportunity of examining them, being almost totally unprovided.
In the north-east corner of the town stands the castle or citadel, the walls of which are higher and larger than those of the town, especially near the boats' landing-place, which it completely commands, and where are mounted several very large and well-looking guns. The neighbourhood, however, of the north-east corner seems sufficiently weak on both sides, especially on the east.
Within this Castle, as it is called, are apartments for the Governor-General and all the members of the Council of India, to which they are enjoined to repair in case of a siege; here are also large storehouses, where are kept great quantities of the Company's goods, especially European goods, and where all their writers, etc., do their business. Here are also stored a large quantity of cannon, but whether to mount on the walls or furnish their shipping in case of the approach of an ​enemy, I could not learn; from their appearance I should judge them to be intended for the latter. As for powder, they are said to be well supplied with it, dispersed in various magazines on account of the frequency of lightning.
Besides the fortifications of the town, there are numerous forts up and down the country, some between twenty and thirty miles from the town. Most of these seem very poor defences, and are probably intended to do little more than keep the natives in awe. They have also a kind of house mounting about eight guns apiece, which seem to me to be the best defences against Indians I have ever seen. They are generally placed in such situations as will command three or four canals, and as many roads upon their banks. Some there are in the town itself, and one of these it was which, in the time of the Chinese rebellion (as the Dutch call it), quickly levelled all the best Chinese houses to the ground. Indeed, I was told that the natives are more afraid of these than of any other kind of defences. There are many of them in all parts of Java, and on the other islands in the possession of the Dutch. I lamented much not being able to get a drawing and plan of one, which, indeed, had I been well, I might easily have done, as I suppose they never could be jealous of a defence which one gun would destroy in half an hour.
Even if the Dutch fortifications are as weak and defenceless as I suppose, they have, nevertheless, some advantages in their situation among morasses, where the roads, which are almost always a bank thrown up between a canal and a ditch, might easily be destroyed. This would very much delay the bringing up of heavy artillery, unless this could be shipped upon some canal, and a sufficient number of proper boats secured to transport it. There are plenty of these, but they all muster every night under the guns of the Castle, from whence it would be impossible to take them. Delays, however, from whatever cause they might happen, would be inevitably fatal. In less than a week we were sensible of the unhealthiness of the climate, and in a month's time one half of the ship's company were ​unable to perform their duty; but could a very small body of men get quickly to the walls of Batavia, bringing with them a few battering cannon, the town must inevitably yield on account of the weakness of its defence.
We were told that of a hundred soldiers, who arrive here from Europe, it is a rare thing for fifty to outlive the first year; and that of those fifty half will by that time be in the hospitals, and of the other half not ten in perfect health. Whether this account may not be exaggerated I cannot say, but will venture to affirm that it seemed to me probable from the number of pale faces, and limbs hardly able to support a musket, which I saw among the few soldiers to be seen upon duty. The white inhabitants indeed are all soldiers, and those who have served five years are liable to be called out on any occasion; but as they are never exercised or made to do any kind of duty, it is impossible to expect much from men more versed in handling pens than guns. The Portuguese are generally good marksmen, as they employ themselves much in shooting wild hogs and deer; as for the Mardykers, who are certainly numerous—being Indians of all nations who are, or whose ancestors have been, freed slaves—few, either of them or of the Chinese, know the use of firearms. Their numbers, however, might be troublesome, as some of them are esteemed brave with their own weapons, lances, swords, daggers, etc.
Thus much for the land. By sea it is impossible to attack Batavia, on account of the shallowness of the water, which will scarcely suffer even a long-boat to come within cannon-shot of the walls, unless she keep a narrow channel walled in on both sides by strong piers, and running about half a mile into the harbour, which channel terminates exactly under the fire of the strongest part of the Castle. At this point there is a large wooden boom, which is shut every night at six o'clock, and not opened again till morning under any pretence. It is said that before the earthquake in [1699] ships of large burthen used to come up to this place, and be stopped by the boom, but at present only boats attempt it.
​The harbour of Batavia is generally accounted the finest in India; and indeed it answers that character, being large enough to contain any number of ships, and having such good holding ground that no ships ever think of mooring, but ride with one anchor, which always holds as long as the cable. How it is sheltered is difficult to say, the islands without it not being by any means sufficient, but so it is that there is never any sea running at all troublesome to shipping. Its greatest inconvenience is the shoal water between the ships and the mouth of Batavia river, which, when the sea breeze has blown pretty freshly, as it often does, makes a cockling sea very dangerous to boats. Our long-boat, in attempting to come off, struck two or three times and with difficulty regained the river's mouth; the same evening a Dutch boat loaded with sails and rigging for one of their Indiamen was entirely lost.
Round the outside of the harbour are many small islands, some of which the Dutch make use of; as Edam, to which they transport all Europeans who have been guilty of crimes not worthy of death. Some of these are sentenced to remain there 99, others 40, 20, 5 years, etc., according to their deserts, during which time they work as slaves, making ropes, etc. etc. At Purmerent they have a hospital in which people are said to recover much more quickly than at Batavia. On Kuyper are warehouses in which are kept many things belonging to the Company, chiefly such as are of small value, as rice, etc.; here also all foreign ships who are to be hove down at Onrust discharge their cargoes at wharves very convenient for the purpose. Here the guns, sails, etc., of the "Falmouth," a gun-ship which was condemned here on her return from Manilla, were kept, and she herself remained in the harbour with only two warrant officers on board, who had remittances most regularly from home, but no notice ever taken of the many memorials they sent, desiring to be recalled. The Dutch, however, for reasons best known to themselves, thought fit about six months before our arrival to sell her and all her stores by public auction, and send her officers home in their ships.
​The next island, which is indeed of more consequence to the Dutch than all the rest, is Onrust; here they heave down and repair all their shipping, and consequently keep a large quantity of naval stores. On this island are artificers of almost all kinds employed in the shipbuilding way, and very clever ones, so at least all our most experienced seamen allowed, who said they had seen ships hove down in most parts of the world, but never saw that business so cleverly done as here. The Dutch do not seem to think this island of so much consequence as they perhaps would do if all their naval stores were here (the greater part are at Batavia); it seems to be so ill defended, that one 60-gun ship would blow it up without a possibility of failure, as she might go alongside the wharfs as near as she pleased.
It is generally said in Europe that the Dutch keep a strong fleet in the East Indies, ready and able to cope with any European Power which might attack them there. This is true thus far and no farther: their Indiamen, which are very large ships, are pierced for 50 or 60 guns each. Should they be attacked when all these were in India, or indeed a little before the sailing of the Europe fleet, they might, if they had sufficient warning to get in their guns, etc, raise 40 or 50 sail; but how it would be possible for them to man this fleet, if they kept anybody at all on shore, is to me a mystery. Again, should they be attacked after the fleet had sailed, they have very few ships, and those terribly out of condition; for they keep no ships even in tolerable repair in India, except those employed to go to Ceylon and the coast, which places indeed are generally taken in the way to or from Europe. As for the eastern islands, no ships of any force are employed there; but all the trade is carried on in small vessels, many of which are brigs and sloops.
The country round about Batavia for some miles is one continued range of country houses and gardens, some of which are very large, and all universally planted with trees as close as they can stand by each other, so that the country enjoys little benefit from being cleared, the woods standing now nearly as thick as when they grew there originally, ​with only this difference, that they are now of useful, whereas they were formerly of useless trees. But, useful as these trees are to their respective owners, who enjoy their fruits, to the community they are certainly highly detrimental in preventing the sea breeze from penetrating into the country as it ought; or at best loading it with unwholesome vapours collected and stagnating under their branches. This, according to our modern theory, should be the reason why thunder and lightning are so frequent and mischievous here that scarcely a month passes in which either ships or houses do not feel the effects of it. While we stayed three accidents happened; the first, a few days after our arrival, dismasted a large Dutch Indiaman which lay next to us, and wounded two or three of her people: nor were we exempt from the consequences of that flash, which, according to the belief of those on board, came down the lightning chain, and certainly struck down the sentry who stood near it.
Besides these frugiferous forests, the country has all the appearance of unhealthiness imaginable. I may venture to call it for some miles round the town one universal flat, as I know few exceptions to it. This flat is intersected in many directions by rivers, in still more by canals navigable for small vessels; but worst of all are the ditches, which, as in the marshes of Lincolnshire, are the universal fences of fields and gardens, hedges being almost totally absent. Nor are filthy, fenny bogs and morasses, fresh as well as salt, wanting even in the near neighbourhood of the town to add their baneful influence to the rest, and complete the unhealthiness of the country, which, much as I have said of it, I believe I have not exaggerated. The people themselves speak of it in as strong terms as I do, while the pale faces and diseased bodies of those who are said to be inured to it, as well as the preventive medicines, etc., and the frequent attacks of disease they are subject to, abundantly testify to the truth of what they assert. The very churchyards show it by the number of graves constantly open in them, far disproportionate to the number of people. The inhabitants themselves talk of death with the same in​difference as people in a camp; it is hardly a piece of news to tell any one of the death of another, unless the dead man is of high rank, or somehow concerned in money matters with the other. If the death of any acquaintance is mentioned, it commonly produces some such reflexion as, "Well, it is very well he owed me nothing, or I should have had to get it from his executors."
So much for the neighbourhood of Batavia and as far round it as I had an opportunity of going. I saw only two exceptions to this general description, one where the General's country house is situated. This is a gradually rising hill of tolerable extent, but so little raised above the common level that you would be hardly sensible of being upon it were it not that you have left the canals, and that the ditches are replaced by bad hedges. The Governor himself has, however, strained a point so as to enclose his own garden with a ditch, to be in the fashion I suppose. The other exception is the place where a famous market called Passar Tanabank is held. Here, and here only during my whole stay, I had the satisfaction of mounting a hill of about ten yards perpendicular height, and tolerably steep. About forty miles inland, however, are some pretty high hills, where, as we were informed, the country is healthy in a high degree, and even at certain heights tolerably cool. There European vegetables flourish in great perfection, even strawberries, which bear heat very ill. The people who live there also have colour in their cheeks, a thing almost unknown at Batavia, where the milk-white faces of all the inhabitants are unstained by any colour; especially the women, who never go into the sun, and are consequently free from the tan, and have certainly the whitest skins imaginable. From what cause it proceeds is difficult to say, but in general it is observed that they keep their health much better than the men, even if they have lately arrived from Europe.
On these hills some of the principal people have country houses, which they visit once a year; the General especially has one, said to be built upon the plan of Blenheim House, near Oxford, but never finished. Physicians also often send ​people here for the recovery of their health lost in the low country, and say that the effects of such a change of air is almost miraculous, working an instant change in favour of the patient, who during his stay there remains well, but no sooner returns to his necessary occupations at Batavia than his complaints return in just the same degree as before his departure.
Few parts of the world, I believe, are better furnished with the necessaries as well as the luxuries of life, than the island of Java. The unhealthiness of the country about Batavia is in that particular rather an advantage to it; for the very cause of it, a low flat situation, is likewise the cause of a fruitfulness of soil hardly to be paralleled, which is sufficiently testified by the flourishing condition of the immense quantities of fruit-trees all round the town, as well as by the quantity and excellence of their crops of sugarcane, rice, Indian corn, etc. etc. Indeed, the whole island is allowed to be uncommonly fruitful by those who have seen it, and in general as healthy as fruitful, excepting only such low fenny spots as the neighbourhood of Batavia, far fitter to sow rice upon than to build towns.
The tame quadrupeds are horses, cattle, buffaloes, sheep, goats, and hogs. The horses are small, never exceeding in size what we call a stout Galloway, but nimble and spirited: they are said to have been found here when the Europeans first came round the Cape of Good Hope. The cattle are said to be the same as those in Europe, but differ from them in appearance so much that I am inclined to doubt. They have, however, the palearia, which naturalists make to be the distinguishing mark of our species. On the other hand, they are found wild, not only on Java, but on several of the eastern islands. The flesh of those that I ate at Batavia was rather finer-grained than European beef, but much drier, and always terribly lean. Buffaloes are very plentiful, but the Dutch are so much prejudiced against them, that they will not eat their flesh at all, nor even drink their milk, affirming that it causes fevers. The natives, however, and the Chinese do both, and have no such opinion ​concerning them. Their sheep, of that sort whose ears hang down and have hair instead of wool, are most intolerably bad, lean, and tough to the last degree. They have, however, a few Cape sheep, which are excellent, though intolerably dear. We gave £2:5s. a piece for four, which we bought for sea stock, the heaviest of which weighed only 45 lbs. Their goats are much of a par with their sheep, but their hogs are certainly excellent, especially the Chinese, which are so immensely fat that nobody thinks of buying the fat with the lean. The butcher, when you buy it, cuts off as much as you please, and sells it to his countrymen, the Chinese, who melt it down and eat it instead of butter with their rice. Notwithstanding the excellence of this pork, the Dutch are so prejudiced in favour of everything which comes from the Fatherland, that they will not eat it at all, but use entirely the Dutch breed, which are sold as much dearer than the Chinese here, as the Chinese are dearer than them in Europe.
Besides these domestic animals, their woods afford some wild horses and cattle, but only in the distant mountains, and even there they are very scarce. Buffaloes are not found wild upon Java, though they are upon Macassar, and are numerous in several of the eastern islands. The neighbourhood of Batavia, however, is pretty plentifully supplied with deer of two kinds, and wild hogs, both which are very good meat, and often shot by the Portuguese, who sell them tolerably cheap. Monkeys also there are, though but few in the neighbourhood of Batavia.
On the mountains and in the more desert part of the island are tigers, it is said, in too great abundance, and some rhinoceroses; but neither of these animals are ever heard of in the neighbourhood of Batavia, or indeed any in well-peopled part of the island.
Fish are in immense plenty; many sorts of them very excellent and inconceivably cheap; but the Dutch, true to the dictates of luxury, buy none but those which are scarce. We, who in the course of our long migration in the warm latitudes had learned the real excellence of many of the ​cheapest sorts, wondered much at seeing them the food of none but slaves. On inquiry, however, of a sensible housekeeper, he told us that he, as well as we, knew that for one shilling he could purchase a better dish of fish than he did for ten. "But," said he, "I dare not do it, for should it be known that I did so, I should be looked upon in the same light as one in Europe who covered his table with offal fit for nothing but beggars or dogs." Turtle is here also in abundance, but despised by Europeans; indeed, for what reason I know not, it is neither so sweet nor so fat as our West Indian turtle, even in England. They have also a kind of large lizard or iguana, some of which are said to be as thick as a man's thigh. I shot one about five feet long, and it proved very good meat.
Poultry is prodigiously plentiful; very large fowls, ducks, and geese are cheap; pigeons are rather dear and turkeys extravagant. In general, those we ate at Batavia were lean and dry, but this I am convinced proceeds from their being ill-fed, as I have eaten every kind there as good or better than commonly met with in Europe.
Wild fowl are in general scarce. I saw during my stay one wild duck in the fields, but never one to be sold. Snipe, however, of two kinds, one exactly the same as in Europe, and a kind of thrush, are plentifully sold every day by the Portuguese, who, for I know not what reason, seem to monopolise the wild game.
Nor is the earth less fruitful of vegetables than she is of animals. Rice, which everybody knows is to the inhabitants of these countries the common corn, serving instead of bread, is very plentiful: one kind of it is planted here, and in many of the eastern islands, which in the western parts of India is totally unknown. It is called by the natives paddy gunang, that is, mountain rice; this, unlike the other sort, which must be under water three parts of the time of its growth, is planted upon the sides of hills, where no water but rain can possibly come. They take, however, the advantage of planting it in the beginning of the rainy season, by which means they reap it in the beginning of the ​dry. How far this kind of rice might be useful in our West Indian islands, where they grow no bread corn at all, I leave to the judgment of those who know their respective interests, as also the question whether the cassava, or manioc, their substitute for bread, is not as wholesome and cheaper than anything else which could be introduced among them.
Besides rice they grow also Indian corn or maize, which they gather when young and toast in the ear. They have also a vast variety of kidney beans and lentils, called cadjang, which make a great part of the food of the common people. They have millet, yams, both wet and dry, sweet potatoes and some European potatoes, not to be despised, but dear. Their gardens produce cabbage, lettuce, cucumbers, radishes, China white radishes, which boil almost as well as turnips, carrots, parsley, celery, pigeon-pease (Cytissus cajan), kidney beans of two sorts (Dolichos chinensis and lignosus), egg plants (Solanum melongena), which eat delicately when boiled with pepper and salt, a kind of greens much like spinach (Convulvulus reptans), very small but good onions, and asparagus, scarce and very bad. They had also some strong-smelling European plants, as sage, hyssop and rue, which they thought smelt much stronger here than in their native soils, though I cannot say I was sensible of it. But the produce of the earth from which they derive the greatest advantage is sugar; of it they grow immense quantities, and with little care have vast crops of the finest, largest canes imaginable, which I am inclined to believe contain in an equal quantity a far larger proportion of sugar than our West Indian ones. White sugar is sold here for about 2¼d. a pound. The molasses makes their arrack, of which, as of rum, it is the chief ingredient; a small quantity of rice only, and some cocoanut wine, being added, which I suppose gives it its peculiar flavour. Indigo they also grow a little, but I believe no more than is necessary for their own use.
The fruits of the East Indies are in general so much cried up by those who have eaten of them, and so much preferred to our European ones, that I shall give a full list of all the sorts which were in season during our stay, and ​my judgment of each, which I confess is not so much in their favour, as is that of the generality of Europeans after their return home; though while here I did not find that they were more fond of them, or spoke more in their praise, when compared with European fruits, than I did.
(1) The pine-apples (Bromelia ananas), called here nanas, are very large, and so plentiful that in cheap times I have been told that a man who buys them first hand may get them for a farthing apiece. When we were there we could without much haggling get two or three for twopence halfpenny at the common fruit shops. In quality they are certainly good and well flavoured, as good, but not a bit better, than those which are called good in England. So luxuriant are they in their growth that most of them have two or three crowns, and a large number of suckers from the bottom of the fruit: I have counted nine. These are so forward, that they often, while still adhering to the mother, shoot out their fruit, which by the time the large one is ripe, are of a tolerable size. Of these I have seen three upon one apple, and have been told that nine have been seen; but this was esteemed so great a curiosity, that it was preserved in sugar and sent to the Prince of Orange.
(2) Oranges (Citrus aurant. sinensis) are tolerably good, but while we were here were very dear, seldom less than sixpence apiece. (3) Pumplemouses (Citrus decumanus), called in the West Indies shaddocks, were well flavoured, but had no juice in them, which we were told depended upon the season. (4) Lemons (Citrus medica) were very scarce, but the want of them was amply made up by the plenty of (5) limes, of which the best were to be bought for about twelvepence a hundred. Of Seville oranges I saw two or three only, and they were almost all peel. There are many other sorts of oranges and lemons; none of which are at all esteemed by the Europeans, or indeed by the natives themselves. (6) Mango (Mangifera indica): this fruit during our stay was so infested with maggots, which bred inside them, that scarcely four out of ten would be free; nor were those ​which were by any means so good as those of Brazil. Europeans commonly compare this fruit to a melting peach, to which in softness and sweetness it certainly approaches, but in flavour as certainly falls much short of any that can be called good. The climate, as I have been told, is here too hot and damp for them; and on the coast of India they are much better. Here are almost as many sorts of them as of apples in England; some much inferior to others; some of the worst sorts are so bad that the natives themselves can hardly eat them when ripe, but use them as an acid when just full grown. One sort, called by them mangha cowani, has so strong a smell that a European can scarce bear one in the room; these, however, the natives are fond of. The best kinds for eating are first mangha doodool, incomparably better than any other, then mangha santock and mangha gure; and besides these three I know no other which a European would be at all pleased with.
(7) Of bananas (Musa) here are likewise innumerable kinds: three only of which are good to eat as fruit, viz. pisang mas, pisang radja, and pisang ambou; all of which have a tolerably vinous taste; the rest, however, are useful in their way. Some are fried with butter, others boiled in place of bread (which is here a dearer article than meat), etc. One of the sorts, however, deserves to be taken notice of by botanists, as it is, contrary to the nature of the rest of its tribe, full of seeds, from whence it is called pisang batu or pisang bidjis. It has, however, no excellence to recommend it to the taste or any other way, unless it be, as the Malays think, good for the flux.
(8) Grapes (Vitis vinifera) are here to be had, but in no great perfection: they are, however, sufficiently dear, a bunch about the size of a fist costing about a shilling or eighteen-pence. (9) Tamarinds (Tamarindus indica) are prodigiously common and as cheap; the people, however, either do not know how to put them up, as the West Indians do, or do not practise it, but cure them with salt, by which means they become a black mass so disagreeable to the sight and taste that few Europeans choose to meddle with them. (10) ​Water melons (Cucurbita citrullus) are plentiful and good, as are also (11) pumpkins (Cucurbita pepo), which are certainly almost or quite the most useful fruit which can be carried to sea, keeping without any care for several months, and making, with sugar and lemon-juice, a pie hardly to be distinguished from apple-pie, or with pepper and salt, a substitute for turnips not to be despised. (12) Papaws (Carica papaia): this fruit when ripe is full of seeds, and almost without flavour; but while green, if pared, the core taken out, and boiled, is also as good or better than turnips. (13) Guava (Psidium pomiferum) is a fruit praised much by the inhabitants of our West Indies, who, I suppose, have a better sort than we met with here, where the smell of them alone was so abominably strong, that Dr. Solander, whose stomach is very delicate, could not bear them even in the room, nor did their taste make amends, partaking much of the goatish rankness of their smell. Baked in pies, however, they lost much of this rankness, and we, less nice, ate them very well. (14) Sweet sop (Annona squamosa), also a West Indian fruit, is nothing but a vast quantity of large kernels, from which a small proportion of very sweet pulp, almost totally devoid of flavour, may be sucked. (15) Custard apple (Annona reticulata) is likewise common to our West Indies, where it has got its name, which well enough expresses its qualities; for certainly it is as like a custard, and a good one too, as can be imagined. (16) Casshew apple (Anacardium occidentale) is seldom or never eaten on account of its astringency; the nut which grows on the top of it is well known in Europe, where it is brought from the West Indies. (17) Cocoanut (Cocos nucifera) is well known everywhere between the tropics; of it are infinite different sorts: the best we met with for drinking is called calappa edjow, and easily known by the redness of the flesh between the skin and the shell.
(18) Mangostan (Garcinia mangostana). As this, and some more, are fruits peculiar to the East Indies, I shall give short descriptions of them. This is about the size of a crab apple, and of a deep red wine colour: at the top of it is a mark ​made by five or six small triangles joined in a circle, and at the bottom several hollow green leaves, the remains of the flower. When they are to be eaten, the skin, or rather flesh, which is thick, must be taken off, under which are found six or seven white kernels placed in a circle. The pulp with which these are enveloped is what is eaten, and few things I believe are more delicious, so agreeably is acid mixed with sweet in this fruit, that without any other flavour, it competes with, if not excels, the finest flavoured fruits. So wholesome also are these mangostans, that they, as well as sweet oranges, are allowed without stint to people in the highest fevers. (19) Jambu (Eugenia malaccensis) is esteemed also a most wholesome fruit; it is deep red, of an oval shape, the largest as big as a small apple; it has not much flavour, but is certainly very pleasant on account of its coolness. There are several sorts of it, but, without much reference to kinds, the largest and reddest are always the best. (20) Jambu ayer (Eugenia). Of these are two sorts, alike in shape resembling a bell, but differing in colour, one being red and the other white; in size they a little exceed a large cherry; in taste they are totally devoid of flavour, or even sweetness, being nothing more than a little acidulated water, and yet their coolness recommends them very much. (21) Jambu ayer mauwar (Eugenia jambos) is more pleasant to the smell than the taste; in the latter resembling something the conserve of roses, as in the former, the fresh scent of those flowers. (22) Pomegranate (Punica granatum) is the same fruit as in England, and everywhere else that I have met with it, in my opinion but ill repaying any one who takes the trouble of breaking its tough hide. (23) Durian in shape resembles much a small melon, but has a skin covered over with sharp conical spines, whence its name, dure signifying in the Malay language a spine. This fruit when ripe divides itself longitudinally into seven or eight compartments, each of which contains six or seven nuts, not quite so large as chestnuts, coated over with a substance both in colour and consistence very much resembling thick cream. This is the delicate part of the fruit, which the ​natives are vastly fond of; but few Europeans, at first, however, can endure its taste, which resembles sugared cream mixed with onions. The smell also prejudices them much against it, being most like that of rotten onions. (24) Nanca (Sitodium cauliflorum), called in some parts of India jack, has like the durian a smell very disagreeable to strangers, resembling very mellow apples with a little garlic. The taste, however, in my opinion makes amends for the smell, though I must say that amongst us English I was, I believe, single in that opinion. Authors tell strange stories about the immense size to which this fruit grows in some countries which are favourable to it. Rumphius says that they are sometimes so large that a man cannot easily lift one of them: the Malays told me that at Madura they were so large that two men could but carry one of them; at Batavia, however, they never exceed the size of a large melon, which in shape they resemble, but are coated over with angular spines like the shootings of some crystals: they are, however, soft, and do not at all prick any one who handles them. (25) Tsjampada (Sitodium) differs from nanca in little else than size. (26) Rambutan is a fruit seldom mentioned by Europeans; it is in appearance much like a chestnut with the husk on, being like it covered with soft prickles, but smaller and of a deep red colour: when eaten, this skin must be cut, and under it is a fruit, the flesh of which indeed bears but a small proportion to the stone, but makes rich amends for the smallness of its quantity by the elegance of its acid, superior to any other (maybe) in the whole vegetable kingdom. (27) Jambolan (Myrtus) is in size and appearance not unlike an English damson, but has always rather too astringent a flavour to allow it to be compared even with that fruit. (28) Boa bidarra (Rhamnus jujuba) is a round yellow fruit, about the size of a musket bullet; its flavour is compared to an apple, but like the former has too much astringency to be compared with any thing but a crab. (29) Nam nam (Cynometra cauliflora) is shaped something like a kidney, very rough and rugged on ​the outside and about three inches long: it is seldom eaten raw, but when fried with butter makes very good fritters. (30) Catappa (Terminalia catappa) and (31) canari (Canarium commune) are both nuts, the kernels of which are compared to almonds, and indeed are fully as sweet, but the difficulty of getting at their kernels out of their tough rinds and hard shells is so great that they are nowhere publicly sold, nor did I taste any others than those which for curiosity's sake I gathered from the tree and had opened under it. (32) Madja (Limonia), under a hardish brittle shell, contains a slightly acid pulp, which is only eaten mixed with sugar, nor is it then to be called pleasant. (33) Sunbul (Trichilia) is by far the worst fruit of any I have to mention: it is in size and shape much like the madja, as large as a middling apple, but rounder; it has a thick hide, containing within it kernels like the mangostan; its taste is both acid and astringent, without one merit to recommend it, indeed I should not have thought it eatable, had I not seen it often publicly exposed for sale upon the fruit stalls. (34) Blimbing (Averrhoa bilimbi), (35) blimbing-bessi (Averrhoa carambola), and (36) cherrema (Averrhoa acida) are all three species of one genus, which, though they differ much in shape, agree in being equally acid, too much so to be used without dressing, except only blimbing-bessi, which is sweeter than the other two; they make, however, excellent sour sauce, and as good pickles. (37) Salack (Calamus rotang-zalacea) is the fruit of a most prickly bush; it is as big as a walnut, and covered over with scales like a lizard or snake; these scales, however, easily strip off, and leave two or three soft and yellow kernels, in flavour resembling a little, I thought, strawberries: in this, however, I was peculiar, for no one but myself liked them. In short, I believe I may say that bad as the character is that I have given of these fruits, I ate as many of them as any one, and at the time thought I spoke as well of them as the best friends they had. My opinions were then as they are now; whether my shipmates may change theirs between here and home I cannot tell.
​Besides these they have several fruits eaten only by the natives, as Kellor Guilandina, Moringa, Soccum of two or three kinds, the same as is called bread-fruit in the South Seas. All the kinds here, however, are so incomparably inferior to the South Sea ones, that were it not for the great similitude of the outward appearance of both tree and plant, they would scarcely deserve that name. There are also bilinju (Gnetum gnemon), boa bune, etc. etc., all which I shall pass over in silence as not deserving to be mentioned to any but hungry people.
They no doubt have many more which were not in season during our stay: we were told also that several kinds of European fruits, as apples, strawberries, etc., had been planted up in the mountains, where they came to great perfection; but this I can only advance upon the credit of report. Several other fruits they have also, which they preserve in sugar, as kumquit, boa, atap, etc., but these require to be prepared in that way before they are at all eatable.
Batavia consumes an almost incredible quantity of fruits, generally over-ripe, or otherwise bad, before they are sold: nor can a stranger easily get any that are good, unless he goes to a street called Passar Pisang, which lies north from the great church, and very near it. Here there live none but Chinese who sell fruit: they are in general supplied from gentlemen's gardens in the neighbourhood of the town, and consequently have the best always fresh. For this excellence of their goods, however, they are well paid, for they will not take less for any kind than three or four times as much as the market price; nor did we ever grudge to give it, as their fruit was always ten times better than any in the market. The chief supplies of Batavia come from a pretty considerable distance, where great quantities of land are cultivated merely for the sake of the fruits. The country people, to whom these lands belong, meet the town's people at two great markets; one on Mondays, called Passar Sineen, and the other on Saturdays, called Passar Tanabank, held at very different places; each however, about five miles from Batavia. Here the best of fruits may be got at the cheapest rates. The sight of these ​markets is to a European very entertaining. The immense quantities of fruit exposed is almost beyond belief: forty or fifty cart-loads of pine-apples, packed as carelessly as we do turnips in England, is nothing extraordinary; and everything else is in the same profusion. The time of holding these markets, however, is so ill-contrived, that, as all the fruit for the ensuing week, both for retailers and housekeepers, must be bought on Saturday and Monday, there is afterwards no good fruit in the hands of any but the Chinese in Passar Pisang.
Thus much for meat: in the article of drink, nature has not been quite so bounteous to the inhabitants of this island as she has to some of us, sons of the less abundant North. They are not, however, to-day devoid of strong liquors, though their religion, Mahometanism, forbids them the use of such; by this means driving them from liquid to solid intoxicants, as opium, tobacco, etc. etc.
Besides their arrack, which is too well known in Europe to need any description, they have palm wine, made from a species of palm. This liquor is extracted from the branches which should have borne flowers, but are cut by people who make it their business. Joints of bamboo cane are hung under them, into which liquor imtended by nature for the nourishment of both flowers and fruit, distils in tolerable abundance; and so true is nature to her paths, that so long as the fruit of that branch would have remained unripe, so long, but no longer, does she supply the liquor or sap. This liquor is sold in three states, the first almost as it comes from the tree, only slightly prepared by some method unknown to me, which causes it to keep thirty-six or forty-eight hours instead of only twelve: in this state it is sweet and pleasant, tasting a little of smoke, which, though at first disagreeable, becomes agreeable by use and not at all intoxicating. It is called tuackmanise, or sweet palm-wine. The other two, one of which is called tuack oras, and the other tuack cuning, are prepared by placing certain roots in them, and then fermenting; so that their taste is altered from a sweet to a rather astringent and disagreeable taste, and ​they have acquired the property of intoxicating in a pretty high degree. Besides this they have tuack from the cocoa-nut tree, but very little of this is drunk as a liquor; it being mostly used to put into the arrack, of which, when intended to be good, it is a necessary ingredient.
Next to eating and drinking, the inhabitants of this part of India seem to place their chief delight in a more delicious as well as less blameable luxury, namely, in sweet smells of burning rosins, etc., and sweet-scented woods, but more than all in sweet flowers, of which they have several sorts, very different from ours in Europe. Of these I shall give a short account, confining myself to such as were in season during our stay here.
All these were sold about the streets every night at sunset, either strung in wreaths of about two feet (a Dutch ell) long, or made up into different sorts of nosegays, either of which cost about a halfpenny apiece. (1) Champacka (Michelia champacka) grows upon a tree about as large as an apple tree, and like it spreading. The flower itself consists of fifteen longish narrow petals, which give it the appearance of being double, though in reality it is not. Its colour is yellow, much deeper than that of a jonquil, which flower, however, it somewhat resembles in scent, only is not so violently strong. (2) Cananga (Uvaria cananga) is a green flower, not at all resembling any European flower, either in its appearance, which is more like a bunch of leaves than a flower, or smell, which, however, is very agreeable. (3) Mulatti (Nyctanthes sambac) is well known in English hothouses under the name of Indian jasmine; it is here in prodigious abundance, and certainly as fragrant as any flower they have; but of this as well as all the Indian flowers it may be said that, though fully as sweet as any European, even of the same kinds, they have not that overpowering strength; in short, their smell, though very much the same, is much more delicate and elegant than any we can boast of. (4) Combang caracnassi and (5) Combang tonquin (Pergularia glabra) are much alike in shape and smell: small flowers of the dog's-bane kind, hardly to be compared to any ​in our English gardens, but like all the rest most elegant in their fragrance. (6) Sundal malam (Polianthes tuberosa), our English tuberose; this flower is considerably smaller, as well as more mildly fragrant than ours in Europe. The Malay name signifies "intriguer of the night," from a rather pretty idea. The heat of the climate here allows few or no flowers to smell in the day; and this especially from its want of smell and modest white array, seems not at all desirous of admirers; but when night comes its fragrance is diffused around and attracts the attention as well as gains the admiration of every passer-by. (7) Bonga tanjong (Mimusops elengi) is shaped exactly like a star of seven or eight rays, about half an inch in diameter; it is of a yellowish colour, and like its fellows has a modest agreeable smell; but it is chiefly used to make a contrast with the mulatti in the wreaths which the ladies here wear in their hair, and this it does very prettily.
Besides these there are in private gardens many other sweet flowers, which are not in sufficient plenty to be brought to market, as Cape jasmine, several sorts of Arabian jasmine, though none so sweet as the common, etc. etc. They also make a mixture of several of these flowers and leaves of a plant called pandang (Pandanus), chopped small, with which they fill their hair and clothes, etc. But their great luxury is in strewing their beds full of this mixture and flowers; so that you sleep in the midst of perfumes, a luxury scarcely to be expressed or even conceived in Europe.
Before I leave the productions of this country I cannot help saying a word or two about spices, though in reality none but pepper is a native of the island of Java, and but little even of that. Of pepper, however, I may say that, large as the quantities of it are that are annually imported into Europe, little or none is used in this part of the Indies. Capsicum or cayenne pepper, as it is called in Europe, has almost totally supplied its place. As for cloves and nutmegs, the monopoly of the Dutch has made them too dear to be plentifully used by the Malays, who are otherwise very fond ​of them. Cloves, though said to be originally the produce of Machian or Bachian a small island far to the eastward, and fifteen miles north of the line, from whence they were when the Dutch came here disseminated over most or all of the eastern isles, are now entirely confined to Amboyna and the neighbouring small islets; the Dutch having by different treaties of peace with the conquered kings of all the other islands, stipulated that they should have only a certain number of trees in their dominions; and in future quarrels, as a punishment, lessened their quantity, till at last they left them no right to have any. Nutmegs have been in the same manner extirpated in all the islands, except their native Banda, which easily supplies this world, and would as easily supply another, if the Dutch had but another to supply. Of nutmegs, however, there certainly are a few upon the eastern coast of New Guinea, a place on which the Dutch hardly dare set their feet, on account of the treachery and warlike disposition of the natives. There may be also both cloves and nutmegs upon the other islands far to the eastward; for those I believe neither the Dutch nor any other nation seem to think it worth while to examine at all.
The town of Batavia, though the capital of the Dutch dominions in India, is so far from being peopled with Dutchmen, that I may safely affirm that of the Europeans inhabiting it and its neighbourhood, not one-fifth part are Dutch. Besides them are Portuguese, Indians and Chinese, the two last many times exceeding the Europeans in number. Of each of these I shall speak separately, beginning with Europeans, of which there are some, especially in the troops, of almost every nation in Europe. The Germans, however, are so much the most numerous, that they two or three times exceed in number all other Europeans together. Fewer English are settled here than of any other nation, and next to them French; the politic Dutch (well knowing that the English and French, being maritime powers, must often have ships in the East Indies, and will demand and obtain from them the subjects of their ​respective kings) will not enter either English or Frenchmen into their service, unless they state that they were born in some place out of their own country. This trick, foolish as it is, was played with us in the case of an Irishman, whom we got on board, and whom they demanded as a Dane, offering to prove by their books that he was born at Elsinore; but our captain, convinced by the man's language, refused to give him up so resolutely, that they soon ceased their demands. Notwithstanding the very great number of other Europeans, the Dutch are politic enough to keep all or nearly all the great posts, as Raads of India, Governors, etc., in their own hands. Other nations may make fortunes here by traffic if they can, but not by employments. No man can come over here in any other character than that of a soldier in the Company's service; in which, before he can be accepted, he must agree to remain five years. As soon, however, as ever he arrives at Batavia, he, by applying to the Council, may be allowed to absent himself from his corps, and enter immediately into any vocation in which he has any money or credit to set up in.
Women may come out without any of these restrictions, be they of what nation they will. We were told that there were not in Batavia twenty women born in Europe; the rest of the white women, who were not very scarce, were born of white parents, possibly three or four generations distant from their European mothers. These imitate the Indians in every particular; their dress, except in form, is the same; their hair is worn in the same manner, and they chew betel as plentifully as any Indian; notwithstanding which I never saw a white man chew it during my whole stay.
Trade is carried on in an easier and more indolent way here, I believe, than in any part of the world. The Chinese carry on every manufacture of the place, and sell the produce to the resident merchants; for, indeed, they dare not sell to any foreigner. Consequently when a ship comes in, and bespeaks 100 leggers of arrack, or anything else, the seller has nothing to do but to send orders to his Chinaman to deliver them on board such a ship; which done, the ​latter brings the master of the ship's receipt for the goods to his employer, who does nothing but receive money from the stranger, and, reserving his profit, pay the Chinaman his demands. With imports, however, they must have a little more trouble; for they must examine, receive, and preserve them in their own warehouses, as other merchants do.
To give a character of them in their dealings, I need only say that the jewel known to English merchants by the name of fair dealing is totally unknown here: they have joined all the art of trade that a Dutchman is famous for to the deceit of an Indian. Cheating by false weights and measures, false samples, etc. etc., are looked upon only as arts of trade: if you do not find them out, 'tis well; if you do, "well," they say, "then we must give what is wanting," and refund without a blush or the least wrangle, as I myself have seen in matters relating to the ship. But their great forte is asking one price for their commodities and charging another; so that a man who has laid in 100 peculs of sugar, at five dollars a pecul as he thinks, will, after it has been a week or ten days on board, have a bill brought him in at seven; nor will the merchant go from his charge unless a written agreement or witnesses be brought to prove the bargain. For my own part I was fortunate enough to have heard this character of them before I came here; and wanting nothing but daily provision, agreed immediately in writing for every article at a certain price, which my landlord could consequently never depart from. I also, as long as I was well, constantly once a week, looked over my bill, and took it into my possession, never, however, without scratching out the charges of things which I had never had to a considerable amount, which was always done without a moment's hesitation.
Next to the Dutch are the Portuguese, who are called by the natives Oran Serane, that is Nazarenes, to distinguish them from the Europeans, notwithstanding which, they are included in the general name of Capir or Cajir, an opprobrious term given by the Mahometans to all those who have not entered into their faith, of whatsoever religion they may be. These, though formerly they were Portuguese, have no ​longer any pretensions to more than the name; they have all changed their religion and become Lutherans, and have no communication with or even knowledge of the country of their forefathers. They speak, indeed, a corrupt dialect of the Portuguese language, but much oftener Malay: none of them are suffered to employ themselves in any but mean occupations; many make their livelihood by hunting, taking in washing, and some by handicraft trades. Their customs are precisely the same as those of the Indians, like them they chew betel, and are only to be distinguished from them by their noses being sharper, their skins considerably blacker, and their hair dressed in a manner different from that of Indians.
The Dutch, Portuguese, and Indians here are entirely waited upon by slaves, whom they purchase from Sumatra, Malacca, and almost all their eastern islands. The natives of Java only have an exemption from slavery, enforced by strong penal laws, which, I believe, are very seldom broken. The price of these slaves is from ten to twenty pounds sterling apiece; excepting young girls, who are sold on account of their beauty; these sometimes go as high as a hundred, but I believe never higher. They are a most lazy set of people, but contented with a little; boiled rice, with a little of the cheapest fish, is the food which they prefer to all others. They differ immensely in form of body, disposition, and consequently in value, according to the countries they come from. African negroes, called here Papua, are the cheapest and worst disposed of any, being given to stealing and almost incorrigible by stripes. Next to them are the Bougis and the Macassars, both inhabitants of the island of Celebes. They are lazy and revengeful in the highest degree, easily giving up their lives to satisfy their revenge. The island of Bali sends the most honest and faithful, consequently the dearest slaves, and Nias, a small island on the coast of Sumatra, the handsomest women, but of tender, delicate constitutions, ill able to bear the umwholesome climate of Batavia. Besides these are many more sorts, whose names and qualifications I have entirely forgotten.
​The laws and customs regarding the punishment of slaves are these. A master may punish his slaves as far as he thinks proper by stripes, but should death be the consequence, he is called to a very severe account; if the fact is proved, very rarely escaping with life. There is, however, an officer in every quarter of the town called marineu, who is a kind of constable. He attends to quell all riots, takes up all people guilty of crimes, etc., but is more particularly utilised for apprehending runaway slaves, and punishing them for that or any other crime for which their master thinks they deserve a greater punishment than he chooses to inflict. These punishments are inflicted by slaves bred up to the business: on men they are inflicted before the door of their master's house: on women, for decency's sake, within it. The punishment is stripes, in number according to custom and the nature of the crime, with rods made of split rattans, which fetch blood at every stroke. Consequently they may be, and sometimes are, very severe. A common punishment costs the master of the slave a rix-dollar (4s.), and a severe one about a ducatoon (6s. 8d.) For their encouragement, however, and to prevent them from stealing, the master of every slave is obliged to give him three dubblecheys (7½d.) a week.
Extraordinary as it may seem, there are very few Javans, that is descendants of the original inhabitants of Java, who live in the neighbourhood of Batavia, but there are as many sorts of Indians as there are countries the Dutch import slaves from; either slaves made free or descendants of such. They are all called by the name of oran slam, or Isalam, a name by which they distinguish themselves from all other religions, the term signifying believers of the true faith. They are again subdivided into innumerable divisions, the people from each country keeping themselves in some degree distinct from the rest. The dispositions generally observed in the slaves are, however, visible in the freemen, who completely inherit the different vices or virtues of their respective countries.
Many of these employ themselves in cultivating gardens, ​and in selling fruit and flowers; all the betel and areca, called here siri and pinang, of which an immense quantity is chewed by Portuguese, Chinese, Slams, slaves, and freemen, is grown by them. The lime that they use here is, however, slaked, by which means their teeth are not eaten up in the same manner as those of the people of Savu who use it unslaked. They mix it also with a substance called gambir, which is brought from the continent of India, and the better sort of women use with their chew many sorts of perfumes, as cardamoms, etc., to give the breath an agreeable smell. Many also get a livelihood by fishing and carrying goods upon the water, etc. Some, however, there are who are very rich and live splendidly in their own way, which consists almost entirely in possessing a number of slaves.
In the article of food no people can be more abstemious than they are. Boiled rice is of rich, as well as of poor, the principal part of their subsistence: this with a small proportion of fish, buffalo or fowl, and sometimes dried fish and dry shrimps, brought here from China, is their chief food. Everything, however, must be highly seasoned with cayenne pepper. They have also many pastry dishes made of rice flour and other things I am totally ignorant of, which are very pleasant: fruit also they eat much of, especially plantains.
Their feasts are plentiful, and in their way magnificent, though they consist more of show than meat: artificial flowers, etc., are in profusion, and meat plentiful, though there is no great variety of dishes. Their religion of Mahometanism denies them the use of strong liquors: nor do I believe that they trespass much in that way, having always tobacco, betel, and opium wherewith to intoxicate themselves. Their weddings are carried on with vast form and show: the families concerned borrowing as many gold and silver ornaments as possible to adorn the bride and bridegroom, so that their dresses are always costly. The feasts and ceremonies relating to them last in rich men's families a fortnight or more; during all which time the man, though married on the first day, is by the women kept from his wife.
​The language spoken among them is entirely Malay, or at least so called, for I believe it is a most corrupt dialect. Notwithstanding that Java has two or three languages, and almost every little island besides its own, distinct from the rest, yet none use, or I believe remember, their own language, so that this Lingua Franca Malay is the only one spoken in this neighbourhood, and, I have been told, over a very large part of the East Indies.
Their women, and in imitation of them the Dutch also, wear as much hair as ever they can nurse up on their heads, which by the use of oils, etc, is incredibly great. It is universally black, and they wear it in a kind of circular wreath upon the tops of their heads, fastened with a bodkin, in a taste inexpressibly elegant. I have often wished that one of our ladies could see a Malay woman's head dressed in this manner, with her wreath of flowers, commonly Arabian jasmine, round that of hair; for in that method of dress there is certainly an elegant simplicity and unaffected show of the beauties of nature incomparably superior to anything I have seen in the laboured head-dresses of my fair country-women. Both sexes bathe themselves in the river constantly at least once a day, a most necessary custom in hot climates. Their teeth also, disgustful as they must appear to a European from their blackness, occasioned by their continued chewing of betel, are a great object of attention: every one must have them filed into the fashionable form, which is done with whetstones by a most troublesome and painful operation. First, both the upper and under teeth are rubbed till they are perfectly even and quite blunt,so that the two jaws lose not less than half a line each in the operation. Then a deep groove is made in the middle of the upper teeth, crossing them all, and itself cutting through at least one-fourth of the whole thickness of the teeth, so that the enamel is cut quite through, a fact which we Europeans, who are taught by our dentifricators that any damage done to the enamel is mortal to the tooth, find it difficult to believe. Yet among these people, where this custom is universal, I have scarce seen even in old people ​a rotten tooth: much may be attributed to what they chew so continually, which they themselves, and indeed every one else, agree is very beneficial to the teeth. The blackness, however, caused by this, of which they are so proud, is not a fixed stain, but may be rubbed off at pleasure, and then their teeth are as white as ivory, but very soon regain their original blackness.
No one who has ever been in these countries can be ignorant of the practice here called amoc, which means that an Indian intoxicated with opium rushes into the street with a drawn dagger in his hand, and kills everybody he meets, especially Europeans, till he is himself either killed or taken. This happened at Batavia three times while we were there to my knowledge, and much oftener I believe; for the marineu, or constable, whose business it is to apprehend such people, himself told me there was scarcely a week when either he himself or some of his brethren was not called upon to seize or kill them. So far, however, from being an accidental madness which drove them to kill whomsoever they met without distinction of persons, the three people that I knew of, and I have been told all others, had been severely injured, chiefly in love affairs, and first revenged themselves on the party who had injured them. It is true that they had made themselves drunk with opium before they committed this action; and when it was done rushed out into the streets, foaming at the mouth like mad dogs, with their drawn criss or dagger in their hands: but they never attempted to hurt any one except those who tried or appeared to them to try to stop or seize them. Whoever ran away or went on the other side of the street was safe. To prove that these people distinguish persons, mad as they are with opium, there is a famous story in Batavia of one who ran amoc on account of stripes and ill-usage which he had received from his mistress and her elder daughter, but who on the contrary had always been well used by the younger. He stabbed first the eldest daughter; the youngest hearing the bustle, ran to the assistance of her mother, and placed herself between him and her, attempting to persuade ​him from his design; but he repeatedly pushed her on one side before he could get at her mother, and when he had killed the latter, ran out as usual. These people are generally slaves, who indeed are by much the most subject to insults, which they cannot revenge. Freemen, however, sometimes do it: one of them who did it while I was there was free and of some substance. The cause was jealousy of his own brother, whom he killed, with two more that attempted to oppose him before he was taken. He, however, never came out of his house, which he attempted to defend; but so mad was he with the effects of the opium, that out of three muskets which he tried to use against the officers of justice, not one was either loaded or primed.
The marineu has also these amocs committed to his charge. If he takes them alive his reward is great: if he kills them that reward is lost; notwithstanding which three out of four are killed, so resolute and active is their resistance when attacked. They have contrivances like large tongs or pincers to catch them, and hold them till disarmed: those who are taken are generally wounded severely; for the marineu's assistants, who are all armed with hangers, know how to lame the man if once they can get within reach. The punishment of this crime is always breaking upon the wheel; nor is that ever relaxed, but so strictly adhered to, that if an amoc when taken is judged by the physician to be in danger from his wounds, he is executed the very next day, as near as possible to the place where he committed his first murder.
Among their absurd opinions proceeding from their original idolatry, which they still retain to some extent, is certainly the custom of consecrating meat, money, etc., to the devil, whom they call Satan. This is done, either in cases of dangerous sickness, when they by these means try to appease the devil, whom they believe to be the cause of all sickness, and make him spare the diseased man's life, or in consequence of dreams. If any man is restless and dreams much for two or three nights, he immediately concludes that Satan has taken that method of laying his ​commands upon him, and that if he neglects to fulfil them, he will certainly suffer sickness or death as a punishment for his inattention. Consequently he begins to labour over in his brains all the circumstances of his dream, and try his utmost to put some explanation or other upon them. In this, if he fails, he sends for the cawin or priest, who assists him to interpret them. Sometimes Satan orders him to do this thing or that, but generally he wants either meat or money, which is always sent him, and hung upon a little plate made of cocoanut leaves on the boughs of a tree, near the river. I have asked them what they thought the devil did with money, and whether or no they thought that he ate the victuals. As for the money, they said, so that the man ordered to do so did but part with it, it signified not who took it, therefore it was generally a prey to the first stranger who found it; and the meat he did not eat, but bringing his mouth near it, he at once sucked all the savour out of it, without disturbing its position in the least, but rendering it as tasteless as water.
But what is more difficult to reconcile to the rules of human reason, is the belief that these people have, that women who bring forth children sometimes bring forth at the same time young crocodiles as twins to the children. These creatures are received by the midwives most carefully, and immediately carried down to the river, where they are turned loose, but have victuals supplied them constantly from the family, especially the twin, who is obliged to go down to the river every now and then, and give meat to this sudara, as it is called. The latter, if he is deprived of such attendance, constantly afflicts his relation with sickness. The existence of an opinion so contrary to human reason, and which seemed totally unconnected with religion, was with me long a subject of doubt, but the universal testimony of every Indian I ever heard speak of it was not to be withstood. It seems to have taken its rise in the islands of Celebes and Bouton, very many of the inhabitants of which have crocodiles in their families; from thence it has spread all over the eastern islands, even to Timor and Ceram, and ​west again as far as Java and Sumatra; on which islands, however, such instances are very scarce among the natives. To show how firmly this prejudice has laid hold of the minds of ignorant people, I shall repeat one story out of the multitude I have heard, confirming it from ocular demonstration.
A slave girl who was born and bred up among the English at Bencoulen on the island of Sumatra, by which means she had learnt a little English, told me that her father when on his deathbed told her that he had a crocodile for his sudara, and charged her to give him meat, etc., after he was gone, telling her in what part of the river he was to be found. She went, she said, constantly, and calling him by his name Radja pouti (White King), he came out of the water to her, and ate what she brought. He was, she said, not like other crocodiles, but handsomer, his body being spotted, and his nose red; moreover, he had bracelets of gold on his feet, and earrings of the same metal in his ears. I heard her out patiently, without finding fault with the absurdity of her giving ears to a crocodile. While I am writing this, my servant, whom I hired at Batavia, and is a mongrel, between a Dutchman and a Java woman, tells me that he has seen at Batavia a crocodile of this kind: it was about two feet long, being very young. Many, both Malays and Dutch, saw it at the same time; it had gold bracelets on. "Ah!" said I, "why such a one at Batavia told me of one which had earrings likewise, and you know that a crocodile has no ears." "Ah! but," said he, "these sudara are different from other crocodiles, they have five toes on each foot, and a large tongue which fills the mouth, and they have ears also, but they are very small." So far will a popular error deceive people unused to examine into the truth of what they are told. The Bougis, Macassars, and Boutons, many of whom have such relations left behind in their own country, make a kind of ceremonial feast in memory of them: a large party go in a boat furnished with plenty of provisions of all kinds and music, and row about in places where crocodiles or alligators are most common, singing and ​crying by turns, each invoking his relation. In this manner they go on till they are fortunate enough to see, or fancy at least that they see, one, when their music at once stops, and they throw overboard provisions, betel, tobacco, etc., imagining, I suppose, that their civility to the species will induce their kindred at home to think well of them, though unable to pay their proper offerings.
Next come the Chinese, who in this place are very numerous, but seem to be people of small substance. Many of them live within the walls, and keep shops, some few of which are furnished with a pretty rich show of European as well as Chinese goods; but by far the greater number live in a quarter by themselves, without the walls, called Campon China. Besides these, there are others scattered everywhere about the country, where they cultivate gardens, sow rice and sugar, or keep cattle and buffaloes, whose milk they bring daily to town. Nor are the inhabitants of the town and Campon China less industrious: you see among them carpenters, joiners, smiths, tailors, slipper-makers, dyers of cottons, embroiderers, etc.; in short, the general character of industry given to them by all authors who have written on them is well exemplified here, although the more genteel of their customs cannot, on account of the want of rich and well-born people, be found among them: those can be shown in China alone; here nothing can be found but the native disposition of the lowest class of people. There is nothing, be it of what nature it will, clean or dirty, honest or dishonest (provided there is not too much danger of a halter), which a Chinese will not readily do for money. They work diligently and laboriously, and, loth to lose sight of their main point, money getting, no sooner do they leave off work than they begin to game, either with cards, dice, or some one of the thousand games they have, which are unknown to us in Europe. In this manner they spend their lives, working and gaming, scarcely allowing themselves time for the necessary refreshments of food and sleep; in short, it is as extraordinary a sight to see a Chinaman idle as it is to see a Dutchman or Indian at work.
​In manner they are always civil, or rather obsequious; in dress always neat and clean in a high degree, from the highest to the lowest. To attempt to describe either their dresses or persons would be only to repeat some of the many accounts of them that have already been published, as every one has been written by people who had much better opportunities of seeing them, and more time to examine them than I have had. Indeed, a man need go no farther to study them than the China paper, the better sorts of which represent their persons, and such of their customs, dresses, etc., as I have seen, most strikingly like, though a little in the caricatura style. Indeed, some of the plants which are common to China and Java, as bamboo, are better figured there than in the best botanical authors that I have seen. In eating, they are easily satisfied, not but that the richer have many savoury dishes. Rice, however, is the chief food of the poor, with a little fish or flesh, as they can afford it. They have a great advantage over the Malays, not being taught by their laws or religion to abstain from any food that is wholesome, so that, besides pork, dogs, cats, frogs, lizards and some kinds of snakes, as well as many sea animals looked upon by other people to be by no means eatable, are their constant food. In the vegetable way, they also eat many things which Europeans would never think of, even if starving with hunger; as the young leaves of many trees, the lump of bracteæ and flowers at the end of a bunch of plantains, the flowers of a tree called by the Malays combang ture (Aeschinomine grandiflora), the pods of kellor (Guilandina moringa), two sorts of blites (Amaranthus), all which are boiled or stewed; also the seeds of taratti (Nymphea Nelumbo), which indeed are almost as good as hazel nuts. All these, however, the Malays also eat, as well as many more whose names I had not an opportunity of learning, as my illness rendering me weak and unable to go about prevented me from mixing with these people as I should otherwise have done.
In their burials the Chinese have an extraordinary superstition, which is that they will never more open the ground ​where a man has been buried. Thus their burying-grounds in the neighbourhood of Batavia cover many hundred acres, on which account the Dutch, grudging the quantity of ground laid waste by this method, will only sell them land for it at enormous prices; notwithstanding which they will always raise money to purchase grounds, whenever they can find the Dutch in a humour to sell them; and actually had while we were there a great deal of land intended for that purpose, but not yet begun upon. Their funerals are attended with much purchased and some real lamentations; the relations of the deceased attending as well as women hired to weep. The corpse is nailed up in a large thick wooden coffin, not made of planks, but hollowed out of a trunk of a tree. This is let down into the grave and then surrounded with eight or ten inches of their mortar or chinam as it is called, which in a short time becomes as hard as a stone, so that the bones of the meanest among them are more carefully preserved from injury than those of our greatest and most respected people.
Of the Government here I can say but very little, only that a great subordination is kept up; every man who is able to keep house having a certain rank acquired by the length of his services to the Company, which ranks are distinguished by the ornaments of the coaches and dresses of the coachman; for instance, one must ride in a plain coach, another paints his coach with figures and gives his driver a laced hat, another gilds his coach, etc.
The Governor-General who resides here is superior over all the Dutch Governors and other officers in the East Indies, who, to a man, are obliged to come to him at Batavia to have their accounts passed. If they are found to have been at all negligent or faulty, it is a common practice to delay them here one, two or three years, according to the pleasure of the Governor; for no one can leave the place without his consent. Next to the Governor-General are the Raaden van Indie, or members of the Council, called here Edele Heeren, and by the corruption of the English Idoleers, in respect to whom every one who meets them in a carriage ​is obliged to drive on one side of the road, and stop there till they have passed, which distinction is expected by their wives and even children, and commonly paid to them. Nor can the hired coachman be restrained from paying this slavish mark of respect by anything but the threats of instant death, as some of our captains have experienced, who thought it beneath the dignity of the rank they held in his Britannic Majesty's service to submit to any such humiliating ceremony.
Justice is administered here by a parcel of gentlemen of the law, who have ranks and dignities among themselves as in Europe. In civil matters I know nothing of their proceedings, but in criminal they are rather severe to the natives, and too lenient to their countrymen, who, whatever crime they have committed, are always allowed to escape if they choose; and, if brought to trial, very rarely punished with death. The poor Indians, on the other hand, are flogged, hanged, broken upon the wheel, and even impaled without mercy. While we were there three remarkable crimes were committed by Christians, two duellists each killed his antagonist, and both fled; one took refuge on board our ship, bringing with him so good a character from the Batavians, that the captain gave him protection, nor was he ever demanded. The other, I suppose, went on board some other ship, as he was never taken. The third was a Portuguese, who by means of a false key had robbed an office to which he belonged of 1400 or 1500 pounds; he, however, was taken, but instead of death condemned to a public whipping, and banishment to Edam for ninety-nine years.
The Malays and Chinese have each proper offices of their own, a captain and lieutenants as they are called, who administer justice among them in civil cases, subject to an appeal to the Dutch court, which, however, rarely occurs. Before the Chinese rebellion, as the Dutch, or the massacre, as the Chinese themselves and most Europeans, call it, in 1740 (when the Dutch, upon, maybe, too slight information, massacred no man knows how many thousand unresisting Chinese, for a supposed rebellion which the latter to this ​day declare they never so much as thought of), the Chinese had two or three of their body in the Council, and had many more privileges than now. From that time to this they have by no means recovered either their former opulence or numbers. Every one now who has got anything considerable prefers to retire with it either to China or anywhere, rather than remain in the power of a people who have behaved so ill to them.
The taxes paid by these people to the Company are very considerable; among which that commonly said to be paid for the liberty of wearing their hair is not inconsiderable. It is, however, no other than a kind of head-money or poll-tax, for no Chinese can wear his hair who has ever been in China, it being a principle of their religion never to let their hair grow again when once it has been shaved off. These taxes are paid monthly, when a flag is hoisted at a house in the middle of the town appointed for that purpose.
The coins current here are ducats, worth 11s. sterling, ducatoons (6s. 8d.), Imperial rix-dollars (5s.), rupees (2s. 6d.), scellings (1s. 6d.), dubblecheys (2½d.) and doits (¼d.) Spanish dollars were when we were there at 5s. 5d., and we were told were never lower than 5s. 4d. Even at the Company's warehouse I could get no more than 19s. for English guineas, for though the Chinamen would give 20s. for some of the brightest, they would for those at all worn give no more than 17s. Strangers must, however, be cautious in receiving money, as there are several kinds, of two sorts, milled and unmilled; ducatoons, for example, when milled are worth 6s. 8d., unmilled only 6s. All accounts are kept in rix-dollars and stivers, both imaginary coins, at least here; the first worth 4s., the other 1d. It must also be remarked that this valuation of their coin is rated on the supposition of a stiver being worth a penny, while it is really more; a current rix-dollar of 48 stivers being worth 4s. 6d.
* ↑ Artocarpus integrifolia, Linn.
* ↑ Nephelium lappaceum, Linn.
* ↑ A species of rattan cane.
* ↑ Bachian, off the south-west coast of Gilolo, is really south of the equator.