177 () ROUND THE WORLD. 323 



tions ; 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 ge- 

 neration, the gleanings of many families who had 

 successively come hither, and, in the male line, be- 

 come 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 par- 

 ticular ; 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 Chi- 

 nese, 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 com- 

 mand, 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. 



The Portuguese are called by the natives Oran- 

 serane, or Nazareen men (Oran, being Man in the 

 language of the country), to distinguish them from 

 other Europeans ; yet they are included in the ge- 

 neral appellation of Caper, or Cqfir, an opprobrious 

 term, applied by Mahometans to all who do not pro- 

 fess their faith. These people, however, are Portu- 



y2 



