172 THE ISLAND OF JAVA. 
with a copious river serpeiitizing through it, in a stream of so , 
easy and gentle a current that the water ^Yith great facihty 
was capable of being conducted at pleasure ; a tract of 
country holding out such easy means of being intersected by 
canals and ditches, and embelhshed with fish ponds ; of being 
com^erted into gardens and A^llas, Avhere draw-bridges for 
ornament and trek-schuyts for pleasure and convenience could 
be adopted, presented temptations too strong for Dutch taste 
to resist. Nothing, however, can possibly be more, gratify- 
ing to the eye than the general appearance of the country 
Avhich svuTOunds Batavia. Here no aridity, no sterility, no 
nakedness even partially intervene between the plantations 
of coffee, sugar, pepper, rice, and other valuable products, 
which are enclosed and divided by trees of the choicest 
fruits. In the immediate vicinity of the city, the extensive 
gardens of the Dutch, embellished with villas in the Oriental 
style, furnished with every convenience that a luxurious and 
voluptuous taste can suggest, are charming to behold from a 
little distance, but do not improve b}^ a nearer acquaintance. 
The vitiated taste of Holland, delighting in straight avenues, 
trimmed hedges, myrtles and other evergreens cut into the 
walls of Troy, and flower-beds laid out in circles, squares, 
and polygons, are no less offensive to the eye than the nu- 
merous ditches and fish-ponds, from their stench and exhala- 
tions, are injurious to the health, besides being the nurseries 
of an innumerable host of frogs and mosquitoes. 
In carrying into execution the plari of their new city, the 
first operation of the Dutch was to divide the river into two 
