b TEESDAIE PLACE-NAMES. 



There exists however a better, indeed the best, explanation 

 of the name Batavia. 



The Eev. Isaac Taylor (Words and Places, new edit. p. 55) 

 thus interprets the component parts of the word. £et-au, the 

 good land. " Bet is the obsolete positive degree of better and 

 best ; the second syllable au, land, is seen in the word fallow, 

 the bad or failing land." 



Ihre, on the words let and letter, says, " Bsettre, melior, 

 melius, comparativus ab inusitato las vel lat, bonus." Bat-au 

 or Bat-av seems to be a trifle better than Mr. Taylor's Bet-cm, 

 as it gives the ipsissimse literse of Batavia, except the terminal 

 ia, and is from an old and reliable authority. 



Bet is frequently used by Chaucer for letter, e. g. — 



" Wei bet is roten appel out of herd, 

 Than that 11 rote alle the remenant." 



The Cokes Tale. 



*' Bet is to dien than have indigence." 



The Man of Lawes Tale. 



Bet or Bett, is an A.-S. word — meaning better. 



My friend E. Gr. sends me the following extract from Motley's 

 Eise of the Dutch Republic, Yol. 1, p. 5. 



" When the Cimbri and their associates, about a century 

 before our era, made their memorable onslaught upon Borne, 

 the early inhabitants of the Bhine island of Batavia, who were 

 probably Celts, joined in the expedition. A recent and tremen- 

 dous inundation had swept away their miserable houses and 

 even the trees of their forests, and had thus rendered them still 

 more dissatisfied with their gloomy abodes.- The island was 

 deserted by its population. At about the same period a civil 

 dissension among the Chatti — a powerful German race within 

 the Hercynian forest — resulted in the expatriation of a portion 

 of the people. The exiles sought a new home in the empty 

 Bhine island, called it ' Bet-auw,' or good meadows, and were 

 themselves called thenceforward Batavi or Batavians." 



A considerable time must have elapsed and favourable climatic 

 and other conditions prevailed, to have allowed this name to be 

 conferred on the previously desolated island- 



