g M A L A Y A N I S L E S. 



Le Brun * vifited this court in 1706, and exhibits a fine pic- 

 ture of the effeminacy of the Oriental monarch, iUuftrating it 

 with a print. All the attendants were females, even his body 

 crnards. One is feen with her mufket on her ftioulder, others 

 with lances. Dancing girls, and two diminutive dwarfs, perform- 

 ing before his majeity, fliew the feftivity of the court ; let me add 

 that one of the ladies, officers of ftate, bore the fword, another 

 the golden bowl, and fo to the number of ten, each carrying a 

 different badge of ftate. Near this city he alio faw a miracle 

 in this climate ; a lady of the age of a hundred-and-thirty. 



After pafling fome leagues to the eaft, through the group of 

 the Tboufand ifles, we arrive at the bay of Batavia, amidil: 

 others equally numerous, each named by the Dutch in memory 

 of their own country. The traveller would imagine himfelf in 

 Holland, and more fo when he enters the great and magnificent 

 Batavia.* city of Batavia, feated in a fwamp, as like as poffible to their 

 boafted capital Amjlerdmn ; but here, overhung with peftilential 

 vapors, that would foon by their fatal effedls depopulate the na- 

 tive country, did not the teeming Germany annually pour down 

 the Rhine its thoufands to fupply the lofs, in a glace fo injudici- 

 oufly fixed on through national prejudice. As to the troops, 

 they are picked out of the vagabonds of Amjlerdam, and fent to 

 certain death, for in the fpace of three years, not five furvive out 

 of a battalion of an equal number of hundreds. Let Dodlor 

 L/Wt defcribe the fatal effeas of the injudicious feleaion of 

 fituation of this proud capital, on fome of the BritiJJj fubjeds, 

 \s\\Q unfortunately put in here : « During the fickly feafon at 



• Travels, vol. ii. p. 109. t Effay on Difeafes, p. 144. 



" Batavia^ 



