If the Dutch fortifications here are not formidable in themselves, they become so by their situation: for they are among morasses where the roads, which are nothing more than a bank thrown up between a canal and a ditch, may easily be destroyed, and consequently the approach of heavy artillery either totally prevented or greatly retarded: for it would be exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to transport them in boats, as they all muster every night under the guns of the castle, a situation from which it would be impossible for an enemy to take them. Besides, in this country, delay is death; so that whatever retards an enemy, will destroy him. In less than a week, we were sensible of the unhealthiness of the climate; and in less than a month half the ship’s company were unable to do their duty. We were told, that of a hundred soldiers who arrive here from Europe, it was a rare thing for fifty to survive the first year; that of those fifty, half would then be in the hospital, and not ten of the rest in perfect health: possibly this account may be exaggerated; but the pale and feeble wretches whom we saw crawling about with a musket, which they were scarcely able to carry, inclined us to believe that it was true. Every white inhabitant of the town indeed is a soldier; the younger are constantly mustered, and those who have served five years are liable to be called out when their assistance is thought to be necessary; but as neither of them are ever exercised, or do any kind of duty, much cannot be expected from them. The Portuguese, indeed, are in general good marksmen, because they employ themselves much in shooting wild hogs and deer: neither the Mardykers nor the Chinese know the use of fire-arms; but as they are said to be brave, they might do much execution with their own weapons, swords, lances, and daggers. The Mardykers are Indians of all nations, who are descended from free ancestors, or have themselves been made free.
But if it is difficult to attack Batavia by land, it is utterly impossible to attack it by sea: for the water is so shallow, that it will scarcely admit a longboat to come within cannon shot of the walls, except in a narrow channel, called the river, that is walled on both sides by strong piers, and runs about half a mile into the harbour. At the other end, it terminates under the fire of the strongest part of the castle; and here its communication with the canals that intersect the town is cut off by a large wooden boom, which is shut every night at six o’clock, and upon no pretence opened till the next morning. The harbour of Batavia is accounted the finest in India, and to all appearance with good reason; it is large enough to contain any number of ships, and the ground is so good that one anchor will hold till the cable decays: it never admits any sea that is troublesome, and its only inconvenience is the shoal water between the road and the river. When the sea breeze blows fresh, it makes a cockling sea that is dangerous to boats: our longboat once struck two or three times as she was attempting to come out, and regained the river’s mouth with some difficulty. A Dutch boat, laden with sails and rigging for one of the Indiamen, was entirely lost.
Round the harbour, on the outside, lie many islands, which the Dutch have taken possession of and apply to different uses. To one of them, called Edam, they transport all Europeans who have been guilty of crimes that are not worthy of death: some are sentenced to remain there ninety-nine years, some forty, some twenty, some less, down to five, in proportion to their offence; and, during their banishment, they are employed as slaves in making ropes, and other drudgery. In another island, called Purmerent, they have an hospital, where people are said to recover much faster than at Batavia. In a third, called Kuyper, they have warehouses belonging to the Company, chiefly for rice, and other merchandise of small value; and here the foreign ships, that are to be laid down at Onrust, another of these islands, which with Kuyper has been mentioned before, discharge their cargoes at wharfs which are very convenient for the purpose. Here the guns, sails, and other stores of the Falmouth, a man of war which was condemned at this place when she was returning from Manilla, were deposited, and the ship herself remained in the harbour, with only the warrant-officers, on board for many years. Remittances were regularly made them from home; but no notice was ever taken of the many memorials they sent, desiring to be recalled. Happily for them, the Dutch thought fit, about six months before our arrival, to sell the vessel and all her stores, by public auction, and send the officers home in their own ships. At Onrust, they repair all their own shipping, and keep a large quantity of naval stores.
The country round Batavia is for some miles a continued range of country-houses and gardens.—Many of the gardens are very large, and, by some strange fatality, all are planted with trees almost as thick as they can stand; so that the country derives no advantage from its being cleared of the wood that originally covered it, except the fruit of that which has been planted in its room. These impenetrable forests stand in a dead flat, which extends some miles beyond them, and is intersected in many directions by rivers, and more still by canals, which are navigable for small vessels. Nor is this the worst, for the fence of every field and garden is a ditch; and, interspersed among the cultivated ground, there are many filthy fens, bogs, and morasses, as well fresh as salt.
It is not strange that the inhabitants of such a country should be familiar with disease and death: preventative medicines are taken almost as regularly as food; and every body expects the returns of sickness, as we do the seasons of the year. We did not see a single face in Batavia that indicated perfect health, for there is not the least tint of colour in the cheeks either of man or woman: the women indeed are most delicately fair; but with the appearance of disease there never can be perfect beauty. People talk of death with as much indifference as they do in a camp; and when an acquaintance is said to be dead, the common reply is, “Well, he owed me nothing” or, “I must get my money of his executors.”
To this description of the environs of Batavia there are but two exceptions. The Governor’s country-house is situated upon a rising ground; but its ascent is so inconsiderable, that it is known to be above the common level only by the canals being left behind, and the appearance of a few bad hedges: his Excellency, however, who is a native of this place, has, with some trouble and expense, contrived to inclose his own garden with a ditch; such is the influence of habit both upon the taste and the understanding. A famous market also, called Passar Tanabank, is held upon an eminence that rises perpendicularly about thirty feet above the plain; and except these situations, the ground, for an extent of between thirty and forty miles round Batavia, is exactly parallel to the horizon. At the distance of about forty miles inland, there are hills of a considerable height, where, as we were informed, the air is healthy, and comparatively cool. Here the vegetables of Europe flourish in great perfection, particularly strawberries, which can but ill bear heat; and the inhabitants are vigorous and ruddy. Upon these hills some of the principal people have country-houses, which they visit once a year; and one was begun for the Governor, upon the plan of Blenheim, the famous seat of the Duke of Marlborough in Oxfordshire, but it has never been finished. To these hills also people are sent by the physicians, for the recovery of their health, and the effects of the air are said to be almost miraculous: the patient grows well in a short time, but constantly relapses soon after his return to Batavia.
But the same situation and circumstances which render Batavia and the country round it unwholesome, render it the best gardener’s ground in the world. The soil is fruitful beyond imagination, and the conveniences and luxuries of life that it produces are almost without number.
Rice, which is well known to be the corn of these countries, and to serve the inhabitants instead of bread, grows in great plenty: and I must here observe, that in the hilly parts of Java, and in many of the eastern islands, a species of this grain is planted, which in the western parts of India is entirely unknown. It is called by the natives Paddy Gunung, or Mountain Rice: this, contrary to the other sort which must be under water three parts in four of the time of its growth, is planted upon the sides of hills where no water but rain can come: it is however planted at the beginning of the rainy season, and reaped in the beginning of the dry. How far this kind of rice might be useful in our West Indian islands, where no bread-corn is grown, it may perhaps be worth while to enquire.
Indian corn, or maize, is also produced here; which the inhabitants gather when young, and toast in the ear. Here is also a great variety of kidney-beans, and lentiles, which they called Cadjang, and which make a considerable part of the food of the common people; besides millet, yams both wet and dry, sweet potatoes, and European potatoes, which are very good, but not cultivated in great plenty. In the gardens, there are cabbages, lettuces, cucumbers, radishes, the white radishes of China, which boil almost as well as a turnip; carrots, parsley, celery, pigeon-peas, the egg-plant, which, broiled and eaten with pepper and salt, is very delicious; a kind of greens resembling spinnage; onions, very small, but excellent; and asparagus; besides some European plants of a strong smell, particularly sage, hyssop, and rue. Sugar is also produced here in immense quantities; very great crops of the finest and largest canes that can be imagined are produced with very little care, and yield a much larger proportion of sugar than the canes in the West Indies. White sugar is sold here at two-pence half-penny a pound; and the molasses makes the arrack, of which, as of rum, it is the chief ingredient; a small quantity of rice, and some cocoa-nut wine, being added, chiefly, I suppose, to give it flavour. A small quantity of indigo is also produced here, not as an article of trade, but merely for home-consumption.
But the most abundant article of vegetable luxury here, is the fruit; of which there is no less than six-and-thirty different kinds, and I shall give a very brief account of each.