J52 Adventures of Naufragus. [Auo, 



limits compel us to pass it over. The story of his connexion with his false 

 friend Dennison, too, though a painful one, is very simply and unaffectedly 

 told ; as well as the incident of his seeing the " apparition " a delusion 

 not at all wonderful (even supposing the appearance not to have been 

 really the living man that it seemed to be, and no " apparition ") in the 

 then inflamed and harassed condition of his mind ; and as to which he may 

 plead, at least, that he is not the first man of creditable intellect by many, 

 who believes that he has seen a ghost; although some other men of cre- 

 ditable intellect may believe that the first believers may have been mis- 

 taken. 



From Chandernagore, we proceed to Batavia the " princely and luxu- 

 riant city," as the traveller calls it but "the most unhealthy in the uni- 

 verse." The country seats about it are "superb" the gardens "taste- 

 fully laid out" the 4< roads are on a scale to astonish an European fresh 

 from his native soil ;" but " a fever carries off a whole family in a morn- 

 ing, and they are buried in the evening." This is unlucky ; and, moreover, 

 those whom the fevers do not carry off are carried off by the tigers. In 

 this new situation, as before, the author goes on to relate all that he heard,- 

 and describe all that he saw, easily and colloquially. Quitting the ship 

 in which he sails, at the mouth of a river about two miles from the town 

 of palaces and fevers, 



" On entering the river, a Javanese on horseback, who was waiting for us on 

 its bank, threw us a rope, which being fastened to the bow of our boat, he trotted 

 off, towing us along at a rapid rate, until we reached the city. I then landed, 

 followed by a lascar, carrying my trunk, my thirty dollars being wrapped carefully 

 in paper, and placed with extraordinary precaution in my pocket. The first 

 human beings I beheld were European soldiers, and their appearance instantly 

 warned me of the unhealthiness of the spot I had landed in. They looked more 

 like skeletons than men : each the ' grim tyrant' personified ; and on the visage 

 they bore a pale yellow tinge, which, together with the lack-lustre eye' sunk deep 

 in the socket, gave them an appearance, absolutely appalling : I involuntarily 

 shuddered at the sight of them, reflecting on the probability of my soon being 

 in the same state. To these crawling emblems of death, however, 1 advanced, 

 and requested to know the direction to a tavern. The vacant stare the shrug 

 of the shoulders brought to mind the singular predicament which Goldsmith, 

 must have found himself on his arrival in Holland to teach the natives English, 

 on discovering that he must first learn to speak Dutch. 



" Onward, however, I advanced, until at length 1 beheld before me, to my infi- 

 nite delight, a sign, ' The Dutchman's Head,' suspended in front of a splendid 

 hotel ; thither I bent my steps, and, found the landlord seated in front of the 

 house, and he invited me, (to my agreeable surprise in broken English), to * volk 

 in.' My primary object was to agree for my board ; this was soon settled, at the 

 rate of three dollars per day ; a sum, however, which placed my little stock of cash 

 in jeopardy of soon disappearing altogether. Having placed my trunk in a bed- 

 room allotted to me, and discharged the lascar who carried it, I strolled into the 

 billiard-room, the dining-room, and coffee-room, all of them on a scale of splen- 

 did magnificence, and full of Dutchmen, one Englishman only, besides myself, 

 being in the hotel, and he, I understood, labouring under a derangement of intel- 

 lect. Observing a number of Dutchmen standing in an ante-room, waiting for 

 the welcome announcement of ' dinner.' I bent my steps thither, in the hope of 

 meeting with one who could speak English ; nor was I disappointed ; a middle- 

 aged military officer accosted me, and in broken English, inquired as to the then 

 state of Europe ; then spoke of Buonaparte, and informed me that he himself had 

 fought and bled on the field of > Vateiloo ;' speaking of which, he observed 

 ' De Duke of Vellin^ton's army was all in confusion : de Duke vas all in de 

 wrong ! and he vould lose de battle, if von vary clever Hollander had not come in 

 de vay, and told him vat to do ; if it vas not fur dis man dis very clever man, 



