386 DESCRIPTION OF BATAVIA CHAP. XVII 
difference as people in a camp; it is hardly a piece of news 
to tell any one of the death of another, unless the dead 
man is of high rank, or somehow concerned in money 
matters with the other. If the death of any acquaintance 
is mentioned, it commonly produces some such reflexion as, 
“Well, it is very well he owed me nothing, or I should 
have had to get it from his executors.” 
So much for the neighbourhood of Batavia and as far 
round it as I had an opportunity of going. I saw only two 
exceptions to this general description, one where the General’s 
country house is situated. This is a gradually rising hill of 
tolerable extent, but so little raised above the common level 
that you would be hardly sensible of being upon it were it 
not that you have left the canals, and that the ditches are 
replaced by bad hedges. The Governor himself has, how- 
ever, strained a point so as to enclose his own garden with 
a ditch, to be in the fashion I suppose. The other exception 
is the place where a famous market called Passar Tanabank 
is held. Here, and here only during my whole stay, I had 
the satisfaction of mounting a hill of about ten yards 
perpendicular height, and tolerably steep. About forty miles 
inland, however, are some pretty high hills, where, as we 
were informed, the country is healthy in a high degree, and 
even at certain heights tolerably cool. There European 
vegetables flourish in great perfection, even strawberries, 
which bear heat very ill. The people who live there also 
have colour in their cheeks, a thing almost unknown at 
Batavia, where the milk-white faces of all the inhabitants 
are unstained by any colour; especially the women, who 
never go into the sun, and are consequently free from the 
tan, and have certainly the whitest skins imaginable. From 
what cause it proceeds is difficult to say, but in general it 
is observed that they keep their health much better than 
the men, even if they have lately arrived from Europe. 
On these hills some of the principal people have country 
houses, which they visit once a year; the General especially 
has one, said to be built upon the plan of Blenheim House, 
near Oxford, but never finished. Physicians also often send 
