/ 
THE ISLAND OF JAVA. 171 
dred yards in the short space of time which the Dutch have 
held the settlement. To prevent inundations, and to keep 
open a free communication with the bay, they found it ne- 
cessary to run out two stone piers five hundred yards in 
length ; and the land has now advanced nearly to their ex- 
treme points ; so that it may again be expedient, before the 
expiration of half a century to come, to extend the work still 
farther into the bay. The Water Castle with its four bas- 
tions, so called from its being once insulated, has long been 
left on the western bank of the river, in seamen's language, 
high and dry ; where, however, it still appears to be no less 
useful than before, as a work of defence to the entrance of 
the river. 
In making choice of the present site of the city of Batavia, 
the predilection of the Dutch for a low swampy situation 
evidently got the better of their prudence ; and the fatal con- 
sequences that have invariably attended this choice, from its 
first establishment to the present period, irrefragably demon- 
strated by the many thousands who have fallen a sacrifice to 
it, have nevertheless been hitherto unavailing to induce the 
government either altogether to abandon the spot for another 
more healthy, or to remove the local and immediate causes 
of a more than ordinary mortality. Never were national pre- 
judices and national taste so injudiciously misapplied, as in 
the attempt to assimilate those of Holland to the climate and 
the soil of Batavia. Yet such has been the aim of the set- 
tlers, which they have endeavoured to accomj^lish with inde- 
fatigable industry. An extended plain of rich alluvions land, 
z 2 
