390 DESCRIPTION OF BATAVIA CHAP, xvn 



dry. How far this kind of rice might be useful in our West 

 Indian islands, where they grow no bread corn at all, I leave 

 to the judgment of those who know their respective interests, 

 as also the question whether the cassava, or manioc, their 

 substitute for bread, is not as wholesome and cheaper than 

 anything else which could be introduced among them. 



Besides rice they grow also Indian corn or maize, which 

 they gather when young and toast in the ear. They have 

 also a vast variety of kidney beans and lentils, called 

 cadjang, which make a great part of the food of the common 

 people. They have millet, yams, both wet and dry, sweet 

 potatoes and some European potatoes, not to be despised, 

 but dear. Their gardens produce cabbage, lettuce, cucumbers, 

 radishes, China white radishes, which boil almost as well as 

 turnips, carrots, parsley, celery, pigeon-pease (Cytissus cajan), 

 kidney beans of two sorts (DolicJws chinensis and lignosus), egg 

 plants (Solatium melongena), which eat delicately when boiled 

 with pepper and salt, a kind of greens much like spinach (Con- 

 vulvulus reptans), very small but good onions, and asparagus, 

 scarce and very bad. They had also some strong-smelling 

 European plants, as sage, hyssop and rue, which they thought 

 smelt much stronger here than in their native soils, though 

 I cannot say I was sensible of it. But the produce of the 

 earth from which they derive the greatest advantage is 

 sugar ; of it they grow immense quantities, and with little 

 care have vast crops of the finest, largest canes imaginable, 

 which I am inclined to believe contain in an equal quantity 

 a far larger proportion of sugar than our West Indian ones. 

 White sugar is sold here for about 2|-d. a pound. The 

 molasses makes their arrack, of which, as of rum, it is the 

 chief ingredient; a small quantity of rice only, and some 

 cocoanut wine, being added, which I suppose gives it its 

 peculiar flavour. Indigo they also grow a little, but I 

 believe no more than is necessary for their own use. 



The fruits of the East Indies are in general so much 

 cried up by those who have eaten of them, and so much 

 preferred to our European ones, that I shall give a full list 

 of all the sorts which were in season during our stay, and 





