After breakfast our friends went to their rooms, and soon afterwards met on the veranda to arrange plans for seeing Batavia. Somewhat to their surprise, they learned that it was not fashionable to be seen out till three o'clock in the afternoon, and they must not call on any one during the middle of the day. The Doctor said that the Dutch and other foreign inhabitants of the city were supposed to sleep two or three hours while the sun was high in the heavens; but as they were strangers, and had little time at their disposal, they would get a carriage and take a drive.
AFTER BREAKFAST.
Neither ladies nor gentlemen are visible in Batavia between breakfast and three p.m.; or if they show themselves they are not acting according to custom. They lounge in bed or hammock, or in their bamboo arm-chairs, and try to get as much rest as possible to fit them for the fatigues of the evening. It is this habit of sleeping in the daytime that enables the fashionable Batavians to keep very late hours. They are accustomed to rise early; and by five o'clock in the morning half the people in the hotel were out of bed, and the rest of them before six.
AN EARLY CALL.
Frank and Fred were awakened on their first morning in Batavia before they thought the hour of rising had arrived. The Doctor told them they had best conform to the custom, and so they crept from their beds and prepared to dress.