1 697-] SUBURBS AND GARDENS. 225 



the Holland Liturgy. This Church is large, and has a very 

 numerous Congregation. The Romari Catholicks have also 

 Liberty of Conscience, and do what they please in their own 

 Houses, without the Magistrates intermedling, but they are 

 to have the exercise of no Publick Worship. 



The City is surrounded with an universal Suburh which 

 extends above half a League into the Country, and which 

 forming a second City much larger than the first contains 

 likewise a greater number of Inhabitants. It is here the 

 Chineses live, on account of their Burial-Places and Pagodes. 

 They have also a Eesidence in the City and even an Hos- 

 pital. The Suburbs have likewise Canals of divers sizes, 

 with double rows of Trees. Besides the great Canal in the 

 middle, there are two smaller on each side, about fifteen or 

 twenty foot broad, which wash the Foundations of the 

 Houses, insomuch that you can't enter them but over a 

 Draw-Bridge : Behind are large Gardens and Orchards, 

 which furnish Batavia with Pulse and Fruits. The Gardens 

 of the City are small and few in number. The Houses of 

 Gardiners, and other such like mean People in the Suburbs, 

 are for the most part built with Bamboos, which are a sort 

 of hollow, light, and very hard Canes as large as one's Thigh, 

 and commonly forty or fifty foot long. These Bamboos are 

 very beneficially made use of. divers other ways, because 

 they for a long time resist the injuries of the Air. They 

 have here likewise divers other sorts of Canes : 'Tis very 

 common to find a-top of these Canes large Ant-Nests, made 

 of a fat Earth, which these Animals^ carry up in the inside 

 of the Canes. In these Nests every Ant has its little Cell 

 apart, not unlike those the Bees make. 'Tis here they have 

 their Residence, during the violent and frequent Rains which 

 over-flow the Country for four or five Months in the year, 

 and which would certainly drown them, if they had not this 

 Secret to preserve themselves from Danger. 



' Termites or white ants. 



Q 



