i8o THE ISLAND OF JAVA. 
Exclusive of the military, seamen, and slave children 
who are not reoistered. So that the effects of the cli- 
mate, or, perhaps more strictly speaking, the circumstances 
under which the different descriptions of people live in 
this climate, are most destructive to the European settlers 
and their families, and to their slaves— to those who arc 
most intemperate in their livdng, and to those who are at 
the complete mercy of the intemperate. The degree of heat 
is not, indeed, by any means so high as might be expected 
in a lar^e tract of land so little removed from under -the 
equinoctial line, and in a portion of it- at a considerable dis- 
tance from mountains or high grounds. The usual tempera- 
ture, in the middle of the da}^, is from 84° to 86° ; but it 
tiuctuates from 76° to 96°. During night the thermometer sel- 
dom sinks below 72°, or rises higher than 76°. It is not, there- 
fore, the great heat to which must be ascribed the destructive 
effects to the human race, so much as other circumstances 
connected \Vith the local situation and the imprudent manner 
of living. Batavia is built on the midst of a swampy plain, 
out of which is constantly engendered a foul and contami- 
nated atmosphere, stagnating over it in calm weather, and 
circulating through it from Avhatever quarter the wind may 
happen to blow. On that side of the city which is inland 
the industrious Chinese carry on their vai ious manufactures, 
such as tanning leather, burning shells into lime, baking 
earthen ware, boiling sugar, and distilling arrack. Their 
rice grounds, their sugar plantations, and their gardens well 
stocked with ail kinds of vegetables, surround the city. In 
these gardens, as in their own country, they sink large tubs 
or earthen vessels, into which are collected all sorts of animal 
and vegetable matte, to be converted by putrefactive fer- 
