1 82 Voyage of the Novara. 



of an evening, when the low verandahs and beautifully 

 furnished drawing-rooms of these airy, well-ventilated man- 

 sions are profusely lit up, and filled with a gaily-di*essed 

 social circle, while numbers of equipages, carrying torches, flit 

 through the wide streets, the whole scene has quite a fairy- 

 land appearance. The gloom without makes the dazzling 

 brightness within-doors still more marked, and renders the 

 law a perfect boon, by which no native, so soon as it becomes 

 dark, is permitted to walk tlu^ough the streets unless he carries 

 a lighted torch (ohor). Owing to the distance intervening be- 

 tween each house, Batavia, although numbering only 70,000 

 inhabitants, apparently covers a larger area than Paris, and 

 as the wealthy classes are concentrated in the upper quarters 

 of the town, just as they are in the West End of London, it 

 is there that one may see all that Batavia has to show of 

 luxury, comfort, and elegance. The old haughty, aristocratic 

 capital of the Netherland Indies, whose beauty once obtained 

 for her the title of '' Queen of the East," is found here in 

 more than pristine freshness, and not alone in wealth and 

 splendour, but even in social stiffaess and pedantic eti- 

 quette, vies with the most ultra-refined centres of fashion 

 in Europe. 



The Novara had long been expected in Batavia, and 

 months beforehand orders had been issued by the Governor- 

 general to all the Dutch colonies in the East Indies, for the 

 courteous reception of the Expedition, and energetically assist- 

 ing its members. A German merchant from Celebes, whom 



