BATAVIA—BURYING-GROUNDS—SERVANTS’ WAGES—ACADEMY OF ARTS—DEPARTURE FROM BATAVIA—ARRIVAL AT ANGIER—DEPARTURE FROM ANGIER—RED SEA—ARRIVAL AT MOCHA—TURKIE BEN AL MAS—PALACE OF MOCHA—CURRENCY AT MOCHA—TRANSPARENT STONE—COLOUR OF THE RED SEA.
BATAVIA.
I now proceed to give some account of Batavia, &c. Although this city is situated in the midst of low, marshy ground, abounding in rice-swamps, and considered as the most unhealthy spot in the world, yet it is, nevertheless, a great commercial place, and is much frequented by vessels bound to or from the China sea, Hindostan, Sumatra, Singapore, &c., &c.; and it is the only place in the world which has any trade to Japan, with the exception of China. It is most conveniently situated to obtain commercial information, and for refreshments. Before Singapore was made a free port, it was the principal mart for the country trade of the East Indies. Subsequently it has much diminished, and the very valuable trade with the Bugis, or natives of the Celebes, and other islanders of the Indian Archipelago, has been entirely diverted to Singapore, where the traders can always obtain a ready sale for their cargoes, and receive, in return, European, India, and Chinese goods, at more moderate prices, without having to pay any duties, or be subject to those inconvenient restrictions, which are so annoying in Dutch ports.
The immense ware-houses, running from street to street, situated on the great canal and river, leading into the bay, which were once burdened with merchandise, are now scantily filled, or nearly empty; and there are but few places so large as Batavia, in the present day, which show less signs of an active commerce, less bustle on the quays, or exhibit a greater degree of dulness, and want of bustle in the streets. This is owing, in part, to the belligerent attitude of Holland and Belgium; the alarming war with the Sumatrans; the establishment of a free port by the British; but more particularly, to the narrow-contracted views of the government, in regard to commerce. The Dutch government wish to drive all foreign commerce from their ports in Netherlands’ India, with the exception of the native traders of the Indian isles; and to extend, if it be possible, their unjust and iniquitous system of monopolies, and of forced cultivation, upon the natives, which have so often driven them to despair and revolt, causing whole districts, containing many thousands, to abandon their lands and their homes, and fly to the fastnesses of the mountains, or to what are called the native provinces—preferring a very precarious mode of living, to being made the worst of slaves to the worst of masters, by being forced to cultivate coffee, and then to sell it for about half its fair market value, to the Dutch company, leaving them, in fact, no means of support.
Old Batavia is but the shadow of what it was in former days. It was once called the “Queen of the East;” her merchants were “princes of the earth,” in point of wealth, and lived in a style of magnificence, which far surpassed every other to the eastward of the cape of Good Hope, with the exception, in more modern days, of Calcutta. A traveller, visiting Batavia at the present day, inquires for the splendid palaces, noble avenues of trees, and neat canals, with the gay pleasure-boats, which used to be seen sporting on their surface, accompanied with music, and graced with numberless enchanting females. He then visits the most fashionable streets of former days, and a truly painful sight is presented at every step: of choked canals covered with slime, and green stagnant pools, a resort of frogs and snakes, and other reptiles. The noble avenues of trees, which led to splendid habitations, and the heavy, massive gateways, are still seen; but the houses are either crumbling in the dust, or else a miserable palm-leaf hovel encumbers the space they once ornamented. But the gay inhabitants, who once gave life and animation to these fair scenes, where are they? Alas! fled with “the years beyond the flood.” Their bodies lie mouldering, not only in the tens of thousands, or even the hundreds of thousands, but in the millions of graves which occupy, for many miles in extent, the city and its suburbs.
They present a most painful and humiliating spectacle to every beholder, whose feelings are not wholly callous to so sad a scene. The tenantable houses which remain, are occupied by a squalid and sickly race of Chinese, Malays and Bugis, who are generally very poor, and live upon the scantiest substance, being unable to remove to a better country, away from the pestiferous air which destroys their health, occasioned by deleterious swamps, stagnant pools, and the miasma which is constantly generating from the decomposition of vegetable matter.
It may be thought that I have given an exaggerated statement of the frightful mortality which has prevailed, and frequently does prevail at Batavia—which clothes the ground with graves, and encumbers it with monuments; but the returns of the Dutch records, according to Raynal, give the deaths of eighty-seven thousand sailors and soldiers, in the hospitals, from 1714 to 1776; and upward of one million of inhabitants, in the very short space of twenty-two years, from 1730 to 1752, which can no longer leave any doubts as to its perfect correctness.
Since the walls of the city were demolished by the British, and a great number of filthy and useless canals have been filled up, the general opinion is, (and more particularly within the last half dozen years,) that the old town is rather less sickly than formerly; however, no new houses are being erected within the city proper, but are extending altogether beyond the old barrier, in a southerly and easterly direction towards the country, from two to five miles, where it has been found much more healthy.
Stately avenues of trees line the roads, and the few canals remaining are kept more clean than formerly. The modern houses are airy and spacious, generally of one story in height, and surrounded generally, with very wide piazzas. The avenues leading to the houses are kept neatly gravelled; and the grounds are adorned with trees, shrubs, and flowers: showing a correct taste which seems (to make use of a mercantile phrase) to have been imported from England, for it is quite at variance with the general style of laying out Dutch pleasure-grounds. In fact, there is an air of neatness and comfort displayed, which serves to divert the mind from dwelling too much on the fact, that you are living in the midst of this store-house of disease, where you are constantly warned by the inhabitants to keep away from every partial draft of air, for if the perspiration is checked, a fever or diarrhœa, or more fatal dysentery will ensue; and you are again warned, if the sea-breeze should set in early, before the sun has had time to absorb the exhalations, the malaria of the marshes, to keep within your room with closed doors. The night air is also highly deleterious, and the fervid rays of a noonday sun not less fatal, so that no person who is able fails to keep a carriage. Constant and profuse perspiration soon impairs the digestive organs, loss of appetite follows and debility ensues: mental and bodily exertion becomes painful, and the health is soon impaired.
These are a few among the many, many drawbacks of an unhealthy tropical climate; yet every climate is to be found in Java, from the most unhealthy to the most salubrious, from swamps teeming with exhalations in the highest degree noxious, to the pure mountain-breeze, which brings health on its wings, and is redolent with the sweets wafted from a thousand fragrant flowers.