190 ' Voyage of the Novara. 



savage cannibal race of the Alfuras, were pointed out to us 

 as among the most apt and docile of the scholars ! Those 

 of the students who are Christians, are clothed in the dress 

 of Europeans, the rest, chiefly Mahometans, wear Oriental 

 attire. Instruction is imparted in Malay, since as a rule not 

 one of the students on entering the college understands a 

 word of Dutch. For the same reason the books usually 

 employed in instruction cannot be made use of, while, owing 

 to the poverty of the Malay language, any translation into 

 it must be fraught with difficulty. All technical names are 

 therefore converted into Latin. The course of instruction 

 is carried on the first year in the class-room, the second 

 by the bed-side of the patient, or the dead body. After strict 

 and thorough examination each pupil receives a diploma 

 as a " Doctor — Java," besides a monthly salary of from £2 2^. 

 to £2 IO5., and an outfit of the most important drugs and 

 surgical instruments. By this system some fifty young 

 men have already returned to their homes as physicians 

 and government officials, and thus greatly contribute to the 

 extension of European civilization. 



In the chief streets of Batavia the stranger comes upon 

 some small open watch-houses, or rather huts, consisting 

 simply of four poles and a roof of palm thatch, in which is sus- 

 pended a long, slender piece of wood [Tong-tong), which is used 

 for three different objects. The Javanese who in this little hut 

 is watching over the property and personal safety of the 

 inhabitants, strikes the Tong-tong with a sort of drum-stick, in 



