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 turkies 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 monopolized 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 looses 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.
CHAP. 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 Dutch men, 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.