the capital of the Dutch settlements in the East Indies, has been already described under the article Java in the Encyclopaedia. The following account of it, however, as well as of the country around it, and the manners and customs of its various inhabitants, as they presented themselves to Sir George Staunton in March 1793, will probably prove acceptable to many of our readers.

The city of Batavia, including the suburbs, consists of near eight thousand houses, inhabited by Dutch, Chinese, and natives of Java. The houses of the Chinese are low, and crammed with people. The Dutch houses are well built, clean, and spacious, and their construction for the most part well suited to the climate. The doors and windows are wide and lofty. The ground floors are covered with flags of marble, which being sprinkled frequently with water, give a pleasant coolness to the apartment; but a considerable proportion of those was untenanted, which denoted a declining settlement. Among other circumstances which announced the same, were those of the Company's vessels lying useless in the road, for want of cargoes to fill, or men to navigate them; no ships of war to protect their commerce, even against pirates, who attacked their vessels sometimes in the sight of Batavia road; an invasion threatened from the Isle of France; the place in no condition of defence, particularly against an enemy less affected by the climate than Europeans; sometimes as many of the troops in hospitals as fit for duty; commissioners expected from Holland to reform abuses. Such a commission, implying a general suspicion, could not be welcome; nor was it quite certain whether, in some minds, its arrival or that of the enemy was deprecated the most cordially.

The fortifications of Batavia, though a place of so much importance, were not, when Sir George saw them, such as would be deemed formidable in Europe; but when the difficulties were considered of forcing the passage of the river, or of landing troops on other parts of the island, it might perhaps be thought of greater strength than it would at the first view have credit for. The defences of the river were the water fort, situated at its entrance, having mounted or dismounted fourteen guns and two howitzers. It consisted of a parapet, originally well constructed, retained The castle is built of coral rock, brought from some of the adjoining islands, composed of that material; and has the advantage of a fortification of brick, in which cannon ball is apt to bury itself without spreading splinters or shattering the wall. A part of the town wall is built of lava, which is of a dark blue colour, of a very hard dense texture, emits a metallic sound, and resembles very much some of the lava of Vesuvius. It is brought from the mountains in the centre of Java, where a crater is still smoking. No stone of any kind is to be found for many miles behind the city of Batavia. Marble and granite are brought thither from China, in vessels belonging to that country, commonly called junkis, which generally sail for Batavia from the ports of the provinces of Canton and Fokien, on the southern and south-east coasts of that empire, laden chiefly with tea, porcelain, and silks.

The chief protection of Batavia against the attacks of a foreign enemy, arises from the havoc which it is well known the climate would make amongst European troops. This was acknowledged to Lord Macartney by some of the Dutch officers themselves, and even by one of the counsellors of the Indies. Such indeed is the climate, that there have been very few examples of strangers remaining long in Batavia without being attacked by fever, which is the general denomination in that place for illness of every kind. Europeans soon after their arrival first become languid and feeble, and in a few weeks, or even in a few days, are taken seriously ill. The disorder at first is commonly a tertian ague, which after two or three paroxysms becomes a double tertian, and then a continued remittent, that frequently carries off the patient in a short time. Many fall victims to the second or third fit; but in these cases a constant delirium, and a great determination of the blood to the brain, accompany the other symptoms. In some it begins in a quotidian form, with regular intermissions for a day or two; and then becomes a continued remittent, attended with the same fatal consequences as the former. Of the Europeans of all classes who come to settle at Batavia, it is supposed that not half the number always survives the year. The place resembles in that respect a field of battle or a town besieged. The frequency of deaths renders familiar the mention of them, and little signs are thrown of emotion or irritation on hearing that the compassion of yesterday is to-day no more. It is probable, female Europeans suffer less at Batavia than the men. The former seldom expose themselves to the heat of the sun, make frequent use of the cold bath, and live more temperately than the other sex.

But it is not to those who have lately arrived from Europe that this havoc is wholly confined. The greatest number of the Dutch settlers, even those who had resided long in the country, appeared wan, weak, and languid, as if labouring with the "disease of death." Their place of residence, indeed, is situated in the midst of swamps and stagnated pools, from whence they are every morning saluted with "a congregation of foul and pestilential vapours," whenever the sea breeze sets in, and blows over this morass. The meridian sun raises from the shallow and muddy canals, with which the town is intersected, deleterious miasmas into the air; and the trees, with which the quays and streets are crowded, emit noxious exhalations in the night.

The general reputation of the unhealthiness of Batavia... via is indeed such as to deter even Dutchmen, who can reside at home with any comfort, from coming to it; notwithstanding the temptations of fortunes to be quickly amassed in it. From this circumstance it happens, that offices and professions are often necessarily entrust- ed to persons little qualified to fill them. One of the clergymen, and the principal physician of the place, were both said to have originally been barbers. The United Provinces furnish even few military recruits. The rest are chiefly Germans, many of whom are said to have been kidnapped into the service. Though nominally permitted, after a certain length of time, to return home, they are in fact compelled to enlist for a longer time, the pay being too scanty to allow them to save enough to defray the expense of their passage to Europe. The government is accused of the barbarous policy of intercepting all correspondence between those people and their mother country; by which means they are deprived of the consolation of hearing from their friends, as well as of the chance of receiving such assistance as might enable them to get home.

Difficult, however, as it is, on account of the climate, to recruit the army, fish is the desire of accumulating wealth in a foreign land, that it draws annually great numbers of Chinese as well as of Dutch to Batavia. Both indeed belong generally to the humbler classes of life, and are bred in similar habits of industry in their own country; but the different circumstances that attend them after their arrival in Batavia put an end to any further resemblance between them. The Chinese have there no way of getting forward but by the continuance of their former exertions in a place where they are more liberally rewarded, and by a strict economy in the preservation of their gains. They have no chance of advancing by favour, nor are public offices open to their ambition; but they apply to every industrious occupation, and obtain whatever either care or labour can accomplish. They become in town retailers, clerks, and agents; in the country they are farmers, and are the principal cultivators of the sugar-cane. They do at length acquire fortunes, which they value by the time and labour required to earn them. So gradual an acquisition makes no change in their disposition or mode of life. Their industry is not diminished, nor their health impaired. The Dutch, on the contrary, who are sent out by the Company to administer their affairs in Asia, become soon sensible that they have the power, wealth, and possessions of the country at their disposal. They who survive mount quickly into offices that are lucrative, and not to them laborious. They rise to the dignity of governor-general and counsellors of the Indies, as the members of the Batavian government are called. Their influence likewise enables them to speculate in trade with vast advantage. The drudgery and detail of business are readily undertaken by the Chinese; while their principals find it difficult, under such new circumstances, to retain their former habits, or to resist a propensity to indolence and voluptuousness, though often attended with the sacrifice of health, if not of life. Convivial pleasures, among others, are frequently carried to excess.

In several houses of note throughout the settlement, the table is spread in the morning at an early hour; beside tea, coffee, and chocolate, fish and flesh are served for breakfast; which is no sooner over than Madeira, claret, gin, Dutch small beer, and English porter, are laid out in the portico before the door of the great hall, and pipes and tobacco presented to every guest, and a bright bras jar placed before him to receive the phlegm which the tobacco frequently draws forth. This occupation continues sometimes with little interruption till near dinner time, which is about one o'clock in the afternoon. It is not very uncommon for one man to drink a bottle of wine in this manner before dinner; and those who have a predilection for the liquor of their own country swallow several bottles of Dutch small beer, which they are told dilutes their blood, and affords plenty of fluids for a free perspiration. Immediately before dinner, two men flaves go round with Madeira wine, of which each of the company takes a bumper as a tonic or whetter of the appetite. Then follow three females, one with a silver jar containing water, sometimes rose-water, to wash; a second with a silver basin and low cover of the same metal, pierced with holes, to receive the water after being used; and the third with towels for wiping the hands. During dinner a band of music plays at a little distance; the musicians are all flaves, and pains are taken to instruct them. A considerable number of female flaves attend at table, which is covered with a great variety of dishes; but little is received, except liquors, into stomachs already cloyed. Coffee immediately follows dinner. The 24 hours are here divided, as to the manner of living, into two days and two nights; for each person retires, soon after drinking coffee, to a bed, which consists of a mattress, bolster, pillow, and chintz counterpane, but no sheets; and puts on his night dress, or muslin cap and loose long cotton gown. If a bachelor, which is the case of much the greatest number, a female flave attends to fan him while he sleeps. About six they rise, dress, drink tea, take an airing in their carriages, and form parties to spend the evening together to a late hour. The morning meetings consist generally of men, the ladies seldom choosing to appear till evening.

Few of these are natives of Europe, but many are descended from Dutch settlers here, and are educated with some care. The features and outlines of their faces are European; but the complexion, character, and mode of life, approach more to those of the native inhabitants of Java. A pale languor overspreads the countenance, and not the least tinge of rosy is seen in any cheek. While in their own houses they dress like their slaves, with a long red checkered cotton gown descending to the ankles, with large wide sleeves. They wear no head dress, but plait their hair, and fasten it with a silver bodkin on the top of the head, like the country girls in several cantons of Switzerland. The colour of their hair is almost universally black; they anoint it with the oil of the cocoa nut, and adorn it with chaplets of flowers. When they go abroad to pay visits, or to take an airing in their carriages, and particularly when they go to their evening parties, they dress magnificently, in gold and silver spangled muslin robes, with a profusion of jewels in their hair, which, however, is worn without powder. They never attempt to mould or regulate the figure by any fancied idea of elegance, or any standard of fashion; and consequently formed a striking contrast with such few ladies as were lately arrived from Holland, who had powdered hair and fair complexions, had contracted their waists with stays, wore were large head dresses and hoops; and persevered in the early care of forcing back the elbows, chin, and shoulders. Every native lady is constantly attended by a female slave handsomely habited, who, as soon as her mistress is seated, sits at her feet before her, on the floor, holding in her hands her mistress's gold or silver box, divided into compartments, to contain areca nut, cardamom seeds, pepper, tobacco, and flaked lime; all which, mixed together in due proportions, and rolled within a leaf of betel, constitute a masticatory of a very pungent taste, and in general use. When in the public assemblies the ladies find the heat disagreeable, they retire to free themselves from their costly but inconvenient habits, and return without ceremony in a more light and loose attire, when they are scarcely recognizable by strangers. The gentlemen follow the example; and throwing off their heavy and formal dresses, appear in white jackets, sometimes indeed adorned with diamond buttons. The elderly gentlemen quit their periwigs for nightcaps. Except in these moments the members of this government have always combined their personal gratification with the Eastern policy of striking awe into vulgar minds, by the assumption of exterior and exclusive distinctions. They alone, for instance, appear abroad in crimson velvet. Their carriages are distinguished by peculiar ornaments. When met by others, the latter must stop and pay homage to the former. One of the gates of the city is opened only to let them pass. They certainly succeed in supporting absolute sway over a vast superiority in number of the descendants of the original inhabitants of the country, as well as of the slaves imported into it, and of the Chinese attracted to it by the hope of gain; those classes, though healthy, active, and as it quite at home, readily obeying a few enfeebled Europeans. Such is the consequence of dominion once acquired; the prevalence of the mind over mere bodily exertions, and the effect of the combination of power against divided strength.

The native Javanese are in general too remote from civilization to have any wants that are not easily satisfied in a warm and fertile climate. No attempt is made to enslave their persons; and they find the government of the Dutch less vexatious than that of others, who divide some share of the sovereignty of the island with them. The Sultan of Mataram rules to the east, the emperor of Java in the centre, and the king of Bantam to the west; while the coast and effective power almost entirely belong to Holland. Those other sovereigns are defended from foreigners also; being Arabians, who imported the Mahometan religion into Java, and acquired the dominion of the country; a few inhabitants in the mountains excepted, who have preserved their independence and their faith, and among other articles that of the transmigration of souls. According to the Dutch accounts, nothing can be more tyrannical than those Mahometan rulers. The emperor is said to maintain his authority by an army of many thousand men dispersed throughout his territories, beside a numerous female guard about his person. These military ladies are trained, it seems, to arms, without neglecting those accomplishments which may occasion a change in the occupation of some among them, rendering them the companions, instead of being the attendants, of his Imperial majesty. This singular institution may owe its origin to the facility of obtaining recruits, if it be true, as the same accounts pretend, that the number of Batavia, female births exceeds very considerably that of males in Java.

Most of the slaves are imported into it from Celebes and other eastern islands. They do not form a corps, or have any bond of union: war is the general conduct of their owners towards them calculated to aggravate the misfortune of being the property of others. They are not forced to excessive labour. They have sufficient sustenance; but many of the males among them, who had formerly perhaps led an independent life till made captives in their wars, have been found to take offence against their masters upon very slight occasions, and to wreak their vengeance by assassination. The apprehension of such an event is among the motives for preferring at Batavia female slaves for every use to which they can be applied; so that the number purchased of them much exceeds that of the other sex. The slaves when determined on revenge often swallow, for the purpose of acquiring artificial courage, an extraordinary dose of opium, and soon becoming frantic as well as desperate, not only stab the objects of their hate, but fall forth to attack in like manner every person they meet, till self-preservation renders it necessary to destroy them. They are said in that state to be running a risk; and instances of it are not more common among slaves than among free natives of the country, who, in the anguish for losing their money, effects, and sometimes their families, at gaming, to which they are violently addicted, or under the pressure of some other passion or misfortune, have recourse to the same remedy, with the same fatal effects.

In the country round Batavia the eye looks in vain for the common animals and vegetables which it had been daily accustomed to meet in Europe. The most familiar bird about the house of the ambassador's half was the crown bird, as it was called at Batavia, which was not, however, the ardea purpurea of Linnaeus, but the columba cristata, having nothing except its crest in common with the former. The same gentleman had also at his country house some large caiowary birds, which, though long in his possession, and having the appearance of tamedness, sometimes betrayed the fierceness of their nature, attacking with their strong bill those who approached too near them. The vegetation of the country is likewise new. Even the parterres in the gardens are bordered, instead of boxwood, by the Arabian jessamine, of which the fragrant flowers adorn the pagodas of Hindoostan. The Dutch, who are so fond of gardens in Holland, have transferred that taste, where it can certainly be cultivated with more success, and indulge it to a great extent at their houses a little way from the city of Batavia; but still within that fenny district, concerning which an intelligent gentleman upon the spot used the strong expression, that the air was pestilential, and the water poisonous. Yet the country is everywhere so verdant, gay, and fertile; it is interlaced with such magnificent houses, gardens, avenues, canals, and draw-bridges; and is so formed in every respect to please, could health be preferred in it—that a youth coming just from sea, and enraptured with the beauty of every object he saw around him, but mindful of the danger there to life, could not help exclaiming, "what an excellent habitation it would be for immortals?"

The most tolerable season here is from March or April pril to November; when the rains begin, and last the rest of the year. The sea breeze sets in about ten o'clock in the morning, and continues till four or five in the afternoon. It becomes then calm till seven or eight, when the land breeze commences, and continues at intervals till day-break, followed by a calm for the remaining hours of the 24. Fahrenheit's thermometer was, in Batavia road, during the Lion's remaining there, from 86° to 88°, and in the town from 88° to 92°; but its variations by no means corresponded to the sensations produced by the heat on the human frame; the latter being tempered by any motion of the air, which circumstance has little effect upon the thermometer. Nor are the animal sufferings here from heat to be measured by its intenseness at any given moment of the day, but by its pervading through the night; when, instead of diminishing, as it does in colder countries, sometimes 20 degrees, it keeps generally here within four or five of what it attains in the shade, when the sun is at its highest elevation.

The native Javanese derive, however, one advantage at least from an atmosphere not subject to the vicissitudes of temperature experienced in the northern parts of Europe, where diseases of the teeth are chiefly prevalent; as they are here entirely exempt from such complaints. Their habit of living chiefly on vegetable food, and of abstaining from fermented liquors, no doubt contributes to this exemption; yet such is the caprice of taste, that jet black is the favourite colour and standard of beauty for the teeth amongst them, comparing to monkeys those who keep them of the natural colour. They accordingly take care to paint, of the deepest black, all their teeth, except the two middle ones, which they cover with gold leaf. Whenever the paint or gilding is worn off, they are as attentive to replace it on the proper teeth, as the belles of Europe are to purify and whiten theirs.

We have mentioned the rich vegetation of the country and the gardens which the Dutch have planted. In these gardens or orchards they cultivate the nutmeg, the clove, the camphor, and the cinnamon trees, together with the pepper plant, which creeping like a vine, is supported on a living tree. It is a species of the pepper plant that affords the leaf called betel, chewed to universally by the southern Asiatics, and serving for the inclosure of a few slices or bits of the areca, from thence erroneously called the betel nut. The areca nut tree is among the smallest of the tribe of palms, but comes next in beauty to the mountain cabbage tree of the West Indies; the latter differing chiefly in its size and amazing height from the areca nut tree, the diameter of whose jointed trunk seldom exceeds four inches, or height 12 feet. But the symmetry of each is perfect; the columns of a temple cannot be more regular than the trunk, which rises without a branch, while the broad and spreading leaves which crown the top form the ornamented capital. The areca nut, when dried, has some similarity in form and taste to the common nutmeg, but is of a less size.

It would have been very extraordinary, and very culpable, in Sir George Staunton, and Dr Gillan physician to the embassy, if they had not, when on the spot, inquired into the truth of Foerstel's account of the poison or poison-tree of Java (see Poison Tree of Java, Encycl.) But the most minute inquiries were made respecting it; and the result of them was, that no such tree is known at Batavia, and certainly does not exist where Foerstel has planted it. It is indeed a common opinion at Batavia, that there exists in that country a vegetable poison, which, rubbed on the daggars of the Javanese, renders the slightest wounds incurable; though some European practitioners have late asserted that they had cured persons stabbed by those weapons, but not without having taken the precaution of keeping the wound long open, and procuring a suppuration. One of the keepers of the medical garden at Batavia assured Dr Gillan, that a tree distilling a poisonous juice was in that collection, but that its qualities were kept secret from most people in the settlement, lest the knowledge of them should find its way to the slaves, who might be tempted to make an ill use of it. In the same medical garden, containing it seems hurtful as well as grateful substances, is found also the plant from whence is made the celebrated gout remedy, or moxa of Japan, mentioned in the works of Sir William Temple, and described in the Encyclopedia under the titles of Artemisia and Moxa.

The whole country abounds with excellent fruits, and amongst others, with the mangoes, which is ripe in March, and is considered as the most delicious of all fruits (see Garcinia, Encycl.) Pine apples are in Java planted not in gardens, but in large fields; and are carried like turnips in heaps upon carts to market, and sold for considerably less than a penny each, where money is cheaper than in England. It was a common practice to clean swords, or other instruments of steel or iron, by running them through pine apples, as containing the strongest and cheapest acid for dissolving the rust that covered them. Sugar sold for about five-pence a pound. All sorts of provisions were cheap, and the ships crews fed on fresh meat every day.

The serpents and noxious reptiles in Java have been mentioned elsewhere; but Sir George Staunton affirms us, that not many accidents happen from them. Among the pagan Javanese, the crocodile, he says, is an object not only of fear, but also of religious veneration, to which offerings are made as to a deity. When a Javanese feels himself diseased, he will sometimes build a kind of coop, and fill it with such eatables as he thinks most agreeable to the crocodiles. He places the coop upon the bank of the river or canal, in the perfect confidence that, by the means of such offerings, he will get rid of his complaints; and persuaded, that if any person could prove so wicked as to take away those viands, such person would draw upon himself the malady for the cure of which the offering was made. According to Sir George Staunton, Batavia road lies in 6° 10' south lat. and 106° 51' east long. from Greenwich.

BEER is a liquor so palatable to the natives of Britain, and, when properly made, so wholesome, especially in long voyages at sea, that Mr Thornton of East Smithfield obtained a patent, dated April 15, 1778, for inventing a method of reducing malt and hops to an essence or extract, from which beer may be made anywhere, either at sea or in distant countries. Though we do not perceive any great degree of ingenuity displayed in this invention, yet as the account of it is short, we shall lay it before our readers.

His method then of preparing an essence or extract of malt and hops is, by the transmitted heat of com- pressed vapour of boiling water, and a proper apparatus for that purpose. This apparatus may be made of iron, tin, or copper; it consists of a boiler of any dimensions, a double vessel, and conducting tubes. The double vessel consists of one vessel placed within another, and fitted tight at their rims. The upper vessel forms the upper part of the under vessel, and contains the liquor to be evaporated. The under vessel is everywhere inclosed, except at an aperture communicating with the boiler, and at another aperture communicating with the conducting tubes; and is constructed so as not to allow any part of the vapour condensed into drops within it to escape, except back again into the boiler: it is not so extensive as to act as a common refrigeratory, and yet is capacious enough to prevent the liquor boiling over. The aperture communicating with the boiler is large enough to freely admit the vapour from the boiler into the under vessel; and the aperture communicating with the conducting tubes is of a proper size to allow of the vapour in the under vessel being compressed, to a degree capable of transmitting to the liquor to be evaporated a proper heat, and at the same time to serve as a passage for more heat than is necessary to keep up that degree of compression. The conducting tubes are to convey this superfluous heat or vapour, to be used for further purposes, or immediately out of the building.