368 BATAVIA CHAP. XVI 
our dinners and suppers consisted of one course each, the 
one of fifteen, the other of thirteen dishes, of which, when 
you came to examine them, seldom less than nine or ten 
were of bad poultry, roasted, boiled, fried, stewed, etc. etc. 
So little conscience had they in serving up dishes over and 
over again, that I have seen the same identical duck appear 
upon the table three times as roasted duck, before he found 
his way into the fricassee, from whence he was again to pass 
into forcemeat. 
This treatment, however, was not without remedy; we 
found that it was the constant custom of the house to supply 
strangers at their first arrival with every article as bad as 
possible ; if through good nature or indolence they put up 
with it, it was so much the better for the house, if not 
it was easy to mend their treatment by degrees, till they 
were satisfied. On this discovery we made frequent remon- 
strances, and mended our fare considerably, so much so that 
had we had any one among us who understood this kind of 
wrangling, I am convinced we might have lived as well as 
we could have desired. 
Being now a little settled, I hired a small house next 
door to the hotel, for which I payed 10 rix? (£2) a month. 
Here our books, etc., were lodged, but here we were far from 
private, almost every Dutchman that came by running in 
and asking what we had to sell; for it seems that hardly 
any individual had ever been at Batavia before who had not 
something or other to sell. I also hired two carriages, which 
are a kind of open chaise made to hold two people and 
driven by a man on a coach-box. For each of these I paid 
2 rix! (8s.) a day, by the month. We sent for Tupia, who 
had till now remained on board on account of his illness, 
which was of the bilious kind, and for which he had all 
along refused to take any medicine. On his arrival, his 
spirits, which had long been very low, were instantly raised 
by the sights which he saw, and his boy Tayeto, who had 
always been perfectly well, was almost ready to run mad; 
houses, carriages, streets, and everything, were to him sights 
which he had often heard described but never well under- 
