3 86 DESCRIPTION OF BATAVIA CHAP, xvn 



difference as people in a camp ; it is hardly a piece of news 

 to tell any one of the death of another, unless the dead 

 man is of high rank, or somehow concerned in money 

 matters with the other. If the death of any acquaintance 

 is mentioned, it commonly produces some such reflexion as, 

 " Well, it is very well he owed me nothing, or I should 

 have had to get it from his executors." 



So much for the neighbourhood of Batavia and as far 

 round it as I had an opportunity of going. I saw only two 

 exceptions to this general description, one where the General's 

 country house is situated. This is a gradually rising hill of 

 tolerable extent, but so little raised above the common level 

 that you would be hardly sensible of being upon it were it 

 not that you have left the canals, and that the ditches are 

 replaced by bad hedges. The Governor himself has, how- 

 ever, strained a point so as to enclose his own garden with 

 a ditch, to be in the fashion I suppose. The other exception 

 is the place where a famous market called Passar Tandbank 

 is held. Here, and here only during my whole stay, I had 

 the satisfaction of mounting a hill of about ten yards 

 perpendicular height, and tolerably steep. About forty miles 

 inland, however, are some pretty high hills, where, as we 

 were informed, the country is healthy in a high degree, and 

 even at certain heights tolerably cool. There European 

 vegetables flourish in great perfection, even strawberries, 

 which bear heat very ill. The people who live there also 

 have colour in their cheeks, a thing almost unknown at 

 Batavia, where the milk-white faces of all the inhabitants 

 are unstained by any colour ; especially the women, who 

 never go into the sun, and are consequently free from the 

 tan, and have certainly the whitest skins imaginable. From 

 what cause it proceeds is difficult to say, but in general it 

 is observed that they keep their health much better than 

 the men, even if they have lately arrived from Europe. 



On these hills some of the principal people have country 

 houses, which they visit once a year ; the General especially 

 has one, said to be built upon the plan of Blenheim House, 

 near Oxford, but never finished. Physicians also often send 



