Before I close my account of the vegetable productions of this part of India, I must take some notice of the spices. Java originally produced none but pepper: this is now sent from hence into Europe to a great value, but the quantity consumed here is very small. The inhabitants use Capsicum, or, as it is called in Europe, Cayenne-pepper, almost universally in its stead. Cloves and nutmegs, having been monopolised by the Dutch, are become too dear to be plentifully used by the other inhabitants of this country, who are very fond of them. Cloves, although they are said originally to have been the produce of Machian, or Bachian, a small island far to the eastward, and only fifteen miles to the northward of the line, and to have been from thence disseminated by the Dutch, at their first coming into these parts, over all the eastern islands, are now confined to Amboyna, and the small isles that lie in its neighbourhood; the Dutch having, by different treaties of peace between them and 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 for disobedience and rebellion, lessened the quantity, till at last they left them no claim to any. Nutmegs have, in a manner, been extirpated in all the islands except their first native soil, Banda, which easily supplies every nation upon earth; and would as easily supply every nation in another globe of the same dimensions, if there was any such to which the industrious Hollander could transport the commodity; it is, however, certain, that there are a few trees of this spice upon the coast of New Guinea. There may perhaps be both cloves and nutmegs upon other islands to the eastward; for those, neither the Dutch, nor any other European, seem to think it worth while to examine.

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The principal tame quadrupeds of this country are horses, cattle, buffaloes, sheep, goats, and hogs. The horses are small, never exceeding in size what we call a stout galloway; but they are nimble and spirited, and are reported to have been found here when the Europeans first came round the Cape of Good Hope. The horned cattle are said to be the same species as those in Europe; but they differ so much in appearance, that we were inclined to doubt it they have indeed the palearia or dewlap, which naturalists make the distinguishing characteristic of the European species; but they certainly are found wild, not only in Java, but several of the eastern islands. The flesh of those that we ate at Batavia had a finer grain than European beef, but it was less juicy, and miserably lean. Buffaloes are plenty, but the Dutch never eat them, nor will they drink their milk, being prepossessed with a notion that both are unwholesome, and tend to produce fevers; though the natives and Chinese eat both, without any injury to their health. The sheep are of the kind which have long ears that hang down, and hair instead of wool: the flesh of these is hard and tough, and in every respect the worst mutton we ever saw. We found here, however, a few Cape sheep, which are excellent, but so dear that we gave five-and-forty shillings a-piece for four of them, the heaviest of which weighed only five-and-forty pounds. The goats are not better than the sheep; but the hogs, especially the Chinese breed, are incomparable, and so fat, that the purchaser agrees for the lean separately. The butcher, who is always a Chinese, without the least scruple, cuts off as much of the fat as he is desired, and afterwards sells it to his countrymen, who melt it down, and eat it instead of butter with their rice: but notwithstanding the excellence of this pork, the Dutch are so strongly prejudiced in favour of everything that comes from their native country, that they eat only of the Dutch breed, which are here sold as much dearer than the Chinese as the Chinese are sold dearer than the Dutch in Europe.

Besides these animals, which are tame, they have dogs and cats; and there are among the distant mountains some wild horses and cattle. Buffaloes are not found wild in any part of Java, though they abound in Macassar, and several other eastern islands. The neighbourhood of Batavia, however, is plentifully supplied with two kinds of deer; and wild hogs, which are sold at a reasonable price by the Portuguese, who shoot them, and are very good food.

Among the mountains, and in the desert parts of the island, there are tigers, it is said, in great abundance, and some rhinoceroses. In these parts, also, there are monkeys; and there are a few of them even in the neighbourhood of Batavia.

Of fish, here is an amazing plenty; many sorts are excellent, and all are very cheap,

except the few that are scarce. It happens here, as in other places, that vanity gets the better even of appetite: the cheap fish, most of which is of the best kind, is the food only of slaves, and that which is dear, only because it is scarce, and very much inferior in every respect, is placed upon the tables of the rich. A sensible housekeeper once spoke to us freely upon the subject. I know," said he, as well as you, that I could purchase a better dish of fish for a shilling than what now costs me ten; but if I should make so good a use of my money, I should here be as much despised as you would be in Europe if you were to cover your table with offals, fit only for beggars or dogs."

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Turtle is also found here, but it is neither so sweet nor so fat as the West Indian turtle, even in London; such as it is, however, we should consider it as a dainty: but the Dutch, among other singularities, do not eat it. We saw some lizards, or Iguanas, here, of a very large size; we were told that some were as thick as a man's thigh; and Mr. Banks shot one that was five feet long: the flesh of this animal proved to be very good food.

Poultry is very good here, and in great plenty: fowls, of a very large size, ducks, and geese, are very cheap; pigeons are dear, and the price of turkeys extravagant. We sometimes found the flesh of these animals lean and dry; but this was merely the effect of their being ill fed, for those that we fed ourselves were as good as any of the same kind that we had tasted in Europe, and we sometimes thought them even better.

Wild-fowl in general is scarce. We once saw a wild-duck in the fields, but never any that were to be sold. We frequently saw snipes of two kinds, one of them exactly the same as that in Europe; and a kind of thrush was always to be had in great plenty of the Portuguese, who, for I know not what reason, seem to have monopolised the wild-fowl and game. Of snipes, it is remarkable, that they are found in more parts of the world than any other bird, being common almost all over Europe, Asia, Africa, and America.

With respect to drink, nature has not been quite so liberal to the inhabitants of Java, as to some whom she has placed in the less fruitful regions of the north. The native Javanese, and most of the other Indians who inhabit this island, are indeed Mahometans, and therefore have no reason to regret the want of wine: but, as if the prohibition of their law respected only the manner of becoming drunk, and not drunkenness itself, they chew opium, to the total subversion, not only of their understanding, but their health.

The arrack that is made here is too well known to need a description: besides which, the palm yields a wine of the same kind with that which has already been described in the account of the island of Savu; it is procured from the same tree, in the same manner, and is sold in three states. The first, in which it is called Tuac manise, differs little from that in which it comes from the tree; yet even this has received some preparation altogether unknown to us, in consequence of which it will keep eight-and-forty hours, though otherwise it would spoil in twelve in this state it has an agreeable sweetness, and will not intoxicate. In the other two states it has undergone a fermentation, and received an infusion of certain herbs and roots, by which it loses its sweetness, and acquires a taste very austere and disagreeable. In one of these states it is called Tuac cras, and in the other Tuac cuning, but the specific difference I do not know; in both, however, it intoxicates very powerfully. A liquor called Tuac is also made from the cocoa-nut tree, but this is used chiefly to put into the arrack, for in that which is good it is an essential ingredient.

CHAPTER XII.-SOME ACCOUNT OF THE INHABITANTS OF BATAVIA, AND THE ADJACENT COUNTRY, THEIR MANNERS, CUSTOMS, AND MANNER of life.

THE town of Batavia, although, as I have already observed, it is the capital of the Dutch dominions in India, is so far from being peopled with Dutchmen, that not one-fifth part, even of the European inhabitants of the town, and its environs, are natives of Holland, or of Dutch extraction: the greater part are Portuguese, and besides Europeans, there are Indians of various nations, and Chinese, besides a great number of negro slaves. In the troops, there are natives of almost every country in Europe, but the Germans are more than all the rest put together; there are some English and French, but the Dutch, though other

Europeans are permitted to get money here, keep all the power in their own hands, and consequently possess all public employments. No man, of whatever nation, can come hither to settle, in any other character than that of a soldier in the Company's service, in which, before they are accepted, they must covenant to remain five years. As soon however as this form has been complied with, they are allowed, upon application to the council, to absent themselves from their corps, and enter immediately into any branch of trade, which their money or credit will enable them to carry on; and by this means it is that all the white inhabitants of the place are soldiers.

Women, however, of all nations, are permitted to settle here, without coming under any restrictions; yet we were told that there were not, when we were at Batavia, twenty women in the place that were born in Europe, but that the white women, who were by no means scarce, were descendants from European parents of the third or fourth generation, the gleanings of many families who had successively come hither, and, in the male line, become extinct; for it is certain that, whatever be the cause, this climate is not so fatal to the ladies as to the other sex.

These women imitate the Indians in every particular; their dress is made of the same materials, their hair is worn in the same manner, and they are equally enslaved by the habit of chewing betel.

The merchants carry on their business here with less trouble perhaps than in any other part of the world: every manufacture is managed by the Chinese, who sell the produce of their labour to the merchant resident here, for they are permitted to sell it to no one else; so that when a ship comes in, and bespeaks perhaps, a hundred leagers of arrack, or any quantity of other commodities, the merchant has nothing to do but to send orders to his Chinese to see them delivered on board: he obeys the command, brings a receipt signed by the master of the ship for the goods to his employer, who receives the money, and, having deducted his profit, pays the Chinese his demand. With goods that are imported, however, the merchant has a little more trouble, for these he must examine, receive, and lay up in his warehouse, according to the practice of other countries.

The Portuguese are called by the natives Oranserane, or Nazareen men (Oran, being man in the language of the country), to distinguish them from other Europeans; yet they are included in the general appellation of Caper, or Cafir, an opprobrious term, applied by Mahometans to all who do not profess their faith. These people, however, are Portuguese only in name; they have renounced the religion of Rome, and become Lutherans: neither have they the least communication with the country of their forefathers, or even knowledge of it: they speak indeed a corrupt dialect of the Portuguese language, but much more frequently use the Malay: they are never suffered to employ themselves in any but mean occupations: many of them live by hunting, many by washing linen, and some are handicraftsmen and artificers. They have adopted all the customs of the Indians, from whom they are distinguished chiefly by their features and complexion, their skin being considerably darker, and their noses more sharp; their dress is exactly the same, except in the manner of wearing their hair.

The Indians, who are mixed with the Dutch and Portuguese in the town of Batavia, and the country adjacent, are not, as might be supposed, Javanese, the original natives of the island, but natives of the various islands from which the Dutch import slaves, and are either such as have themselves been manumised, or the descendants of those who formerly received manumission; and they are all comprehended under the general name of Oranslam, or Isalam, signifying Believers of the true Faith. The natives of every country, however, in other respects, keep themselves distinct from the rest, and are not less strongly marked than the slaves by the vices or virtues of their respective nations. Many of these employ themselves in the cultivation of gardens, and in selling fruit and flowers. The betel and areca, which are here called Siri and Pinang, and chewed by both sexes and every rank in amazing quantities, are all grown by these Indians: lime is also mixed with these roots here as it is in Savu, but it is less pernicious to the teeth, because it is first slaked, and, besides the lime, a substance called gambir, which is brought from the continent of India; the better sort of women also add cardamum, and many other aromatics, to give the breath an

agreeable smell. Some of the Indians, however, are employed in fishing, and as lightermen, to carry goods from place to place by water; and some are rich, and live with much of the splendour of their country, which chiefly consists in the number of their slaves.

In the article of food these Isalams are remarkably temperate it consists chiefly of boiled rice, with a small proportion of buffalo, fish, or fowl, and sometimes of dried fish, and dried shrimps, which are brought hither from China; every dish, however, is highly seasoned with Cayenne pepper, and they have many kinds of pastry made of rice-flour, and other things to which I am a stranger; they eat also a great deal of fruit, particularly plantains.

But notwithstanding their general temperance, their feasts are plentiful, and, according to their manner, magnificent. As they are Mahometans, wine and strong liquors professedly make no part of their entertainment, neither do they often indulge with them privately, contenting themselves with their betel and opium.

The principal solemnity among them is a wedding, upon which occasion both the families borrow as many ornaments of gold and silver as they can, to adorn the bride and bridegroom, so that their dresses are very showy and magnificent. The feasts that are given upon these occasions among the rich, last sometimes a fortnight, and sometimes longer; and during this time, the man, although married on the first day, is, by the women, kept from his wife.

The language that is spoken among all these people, from what place soever they originally came, is the Malay; at least it is a language so called, and probably it is a very corrupt dialect of that spoken at Malacca. Every little island indeed has a language of its own, and Java has two or three, but this lingua franca is the only language that is now spoken here, and, as I am told, it prevails over a great part of the East Indies. A dictionary of Malay and English was published in London by Thomas Bowrey, in the year 1701.

Their women wear as much hair as can grow upon the head, and to increase the quantity, they use oils, and other preparations of various kinds. Of this ornament nature has been very liberal; it is universally black, and is formed into a kind of circular wreath upon the top of the head, where it is fastened with a bodkin, in a taste which we thought inexpressibly elegant; the wreath of hair is surrounded by another of flowers, in which the Arabian jessamine is beautifully intermixed with the golden stars of the Bonger Tanjong.

Both sexes constantly bathe themselves in the river at least once a day, a practice which, in this hot country, is equally necessary both to personal delicacy and health. The teeth of these people also, whatever they may suffer in their colour by chewing betel, are an object of great attention: the ends of them, both in the upper and under jaw, are rubbed with a kind of whetstone, by a very troublesome and painful operation, till they are perfectly even and flat, so that they cannot lose less than half a line in their length. A deep groove is then made across the teeth of the upper jaw, parallel with the gums, and in the middle between them and the extremity of the teeth; the depth of this groove is at least equal to one-fourth of the thickness of the teeth, so that it penetrates far beyond what is called the enamel, the least injury to which, according to the dentists of Europe, is fatal; yet among these people where the practice of thus wounding the enamel is universal, we never saw a rotten tooth; nor is the blackness a stain, but a covering, which may be washed off at pleasure, and the teeth then appear as white as ivory, which however is not an excellence in the estimation of the belles and beaux of these nations.

These are the people among whom the practice that is called a mock, or running a muck, has prevailed for time immemorial. It is well known, that to run a muck, in the original sense of the word, is to get intoxicated with opium, and then rush into the street with a drawn weapon, and kill whoever comes in the way, till the party is himself either killed or taken prisoner; of this several instances happened while we were at Batavia, and one of the officers, whose business it is, among other things, to apprehend such people, told us, that there was scarcely a week in which he, or some of his brethren, were not called upon to take one of them into custody. In one of the instances that came to our knowledge, the party had been severely injured by the perfidy of women, and was mad with jealousy before he made himself drunk with opium; and we were told, that the Indian who runs a muck is

always first driven to desperation by some outrage, and always first revenges himself upon those who have done him wrong: we were also told, that though these unhappy wretches afterwards run into the street with a weapon in their hand, frantic and foaming at the mouth, yet they never kill any but those who attempt to apprehend them, or those whom they suspect of such an intention, and that whoever gives them way is safe. They are generally slaves, who indeed are most subject to insults, and least able to obtain legal redress: freemen, however, are sometimes provoked into this extravagance, and one of the persons who ran a muck while we were at Batavia, was free and in easy circumstances. He was jealous of his own brother, whom he first killed, and afterwards two others, who attempted to oppose him he did not, however, come out of his house, but endeavoured to defend himself in it, though the opium had so far deprived him of his senses, that of three muskets, which he attempted to use against the officers of justice, not one was either loaded or primed. If the officer takes one of these amocks, or mohawks, as they have been called by an easy corruption, alive, his reward is very considerable, but if he kills them, nothing is added to his usual pay; yet such is the fury of their desperation, that three out of four are of necessity destroyed in the attempt to secure them, though the officers are provided with instruments like large tongs, or pincers, to lay hold of them without coming within the reach of their weapon. Those who happen to be taken alive are generally wounded, but they are always broken alive upon the wheel; and if the physician who is appointed to examine their wounds, thinks them likely to be mortal, the punishment is inflicted immediately, and the place of execution is generally the spot where the first murder was committed.

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Among these people, there are many absurd practices and opinions which they derive from their pagan ancestors: they believe that the devil, whom they call Satan, is the cause of all sickness and adversity, and for this reason, when they are sick, or in distress, they consecrate meat, money, and other things to him, as a propitiation. If any one among them is restless, and dreams for two or three nights successively, he concludes that Satan has taken that method of laying his commands upon him, which, if he neglects to fulfil, he will certainly suffer sickness or death, though they are not revealed with sufficient perspicuity to ascertain their meaning to interpret his dream, therefore, he taxes his wits to the uttermost, and if, by taking it literally or figuratively, directly or by contraries, he can put no explanation upon it that perfectly satisfies him, he has recourse to the cawin or priest, who assists him with a comment and illustrations, and perfectly reveals the mysterious suggestions of the night. It generally appears that the devil wants victuals or money, which are always allotted him, and being placed on a little plate of cocoa-nut leaves, are hung upon the branch of a tree near the river, so that it seems not to be the opinion of these people, that, in prowling the earth, "the devil walketh through dry places." Mr. Banks once asked, whether they thought Satan spent the money, or ate the victuals; he was answered, that as to the money it was considered rather as a mulet upon an offender, than a gift to him who had enjoined it, and that therefore, if it was devoted by the dreamer, it mattered not into whose hands it came, and they supposed that it was generally the prize of some stranger who wandered that way; but as to the meat, they were clearly of opinion, that although the devil did not eat the gross parts, yet by bringing his mouth near it, he sucked out all its savour without changing its position, so that afterwards it was as tasteless as water.

water.

But they have another superstitious opinion that is still more unaccountable. They believe that women, when they are delivered of children, are frequently at the same time delivered of a young crocodile, as a twin to the infant: they believe that these creatures are received most carefully by the midwife, and immediately carried down to the river, and put into the The family in which such a birth is supposed to have happened, constantly put victuals into the river for their amphibious relation, and especially the twin, who, as long as he lives, goes down to the river at stated seasons, to fulfil this fraternal duty, for the neglect of which, it is the universal opinion that he will be visited with sickness or death. What could at first produce a notion so extravagant and absurd, it is not easy to guess, espe cially as it seems to be totally unconnected with any religious mystery, and how a fact which never happened, should be pretended to happen every day, by those who cannot be deceived into a belief of it by appearances, nor have any apparent interest in the fraud, is a problem