"Batavia covers a great extent of ground, and is fairly entitled to be called a city of magnificent distances. The old city near the sea is rather closely built, but it is not inhabited by Europeans to any extent. The Dutch, English, and other foreign merchants transact business there during the day; but they live in the new part of Batavia, which spreads over the flat ground for several square miles. The houses are rarely of more than one story, as the country is subject to earthquakes, and nobody wants to have a flight of stairs between him and the ground when these shakings begin. Nearly every house has a campong, or yard, around it, and this yard is filled with tropical trees in considerable variety. The great streets and roads are liberally provided with shade-trees, so that Batavia can hardly be seen, owing to the impossibility of peering through the dense foliage that is before you at every step.
"A canal with several branches runs through all this level area that they call Batavia, and for miles and miles it is built up with solid stone walls. It is fed by a small river coming down from the mountains, and serves a triple purpose: boats may navigate it; people may bathe there, or wash clothes in it; and the sewage of the city is said to be drained into it. Whether the water for household use is taken from it or not, I am unable to say; but we repeatedly saw Malay servants filling buckets with it, and then walking off in the direction of the houses. Circumstantial evidence was against them; but the clerk of the hotel says the water they were carrying was to be used for washing the floors of the houses and sprinkling the gravel-walks in the court-yards. Perhaps it is the suspicion that the water may be used for drinking purposes that leads so many of the inhabitants to shun it, and take seltzer, gin, claret, and other imported liquids to quench their thirst.
"They have a street railway here, but it is patronized only by the natives, the Chinese, and the low class of foreigners. The track is good enough, but the cars are the wildest contrivances you ever saw; they are common freight-cars fitted with rush seats, and their great weight makes them difficult to move along the way. Perhaps, if they had the proper kind of cars, the Europeans would ride in them, but they could hardly expect to patronize those now in use.
"It was a funny sight, when we were driving along the streets, to see the ladies out for their morning promenade, with their hair streaming down their shoulders, their bodies enclosed only in light wrappers, with loose sacks buttoned to the throat, and with slippers, but no stockings, on their feet. Most of them wore the sarong, or native petticoat, and they generally carried parasols to keep off the sun. This is the forenoon costume of the ladies before they go to breakfast, and it strikes a foreigner as very odd.
FAMILY PARTY IN BATAVIA.
"Sometimes we saw a whole family sitting on the veranda of a house, in full view of everybody passing along the street, looking as if they had just got out of bed and were only half dressed. The men would be in dressing-gowns or pajamas, and the ladies with their hair down, as I have described, or twisted up into tight little lumps, so that the owners might appear in the afternoon with a fine stock of curls. Occasionally we saw some fat, jolly old women with their hair cut close to the head, in order to keep off as much of the heat as possible.
