88 CAPTAIN COOK 



to remain longer than was absolutely necessary 

 for them to revictual, Cook set sail, and on Octo- 

 ber I St arrived in sight of the island of Java, 

 where two Dutch vessels anchored off Anger 

 Point informed him that Captain Carteret's 

 Swallow had been at Batavia two years earlier. 



On October loth the Endeavour entered Ba- 

 tavia roadstead, and two days later, having ob- 

 tained the necessary permission, Cook and his 

 companions landed, and the repairs to the ship 

 were taken in hand. 



Batavia, a cosmopolitan port built on a low 

 and marshy plain, possessed fine and spacious 

 streets and canals edged with trees, which gave 

 it a very pleasant appearance. Unfortunately 

 the canals exhaled a horrible and unhealthy 

 stench, so that the sanitary condition of this mag- 

 nificent town was deplorable. Malaria and 

 dysentery were endemic. The pallor of the 

 Dutch and Portuguese who formed the Euro- 

 pean population struck Cook and his compan- 

 ions. The habit of chewing betel, very widely 

 spread throughout Java, contributed to the 

 physical debility of the people. The teeming 

 population of Malays, Chinese and negro slaves 

 which thronged the streets of Batavia, filled with 

 delight Tupia, to whom it was extraordinary, 

 and even in his dying state he felt a new life 

 coursing through his veins, and was inspired 



