I 
BAT A VI A. 209 
in a long narrow room plainly furnished, he will then have a 
tolerably correct notion of the appearance of the Governor's 
ball-room at Batavia. But here, out of tenderness to the 
Eastern beauties, I ought perhaps to stop short as, b}'' en- 
tering into a more detailed description, I shall be compelled 
to throw a shade on the brilliant scene. Their dingy com'- 
plexions sufficiently indicated their kindred connexion to 
some of the Oriental nations. Like those of the Chinese and 
Malays, theij* black shining locks, glistening with n profusion 
of cocoa nut oil, were smoothed up all round, and fixed in a. 
knot by golden bodkins on the crown of the head. Like the 
Malays, also, the greater part of these dingy beauties were in 
the delicate habit of chewing the areca nut and betel, the ne- 
cessary consequence of which soon discovered the mistake we 
had committed -with regard to the Roman candlesticks : they 
were, in fact, the ladies' spitting-boxes, to which the genteel 
part of the Dutch give the name of Quispedoors, (probably 
from the Spanish word Escupedero, a spitting-dish ;) but the 
delicate name in vulgar use among the Dutch is Speuw-potjies. 
Whatever real or pretended advantages the Batavian fair may 
derive from the use of her favourite masticatory, the appear- 
ance of her mouth, and the effect it produces, are to a stranger 
shocking and nauseous, and, one would suppose, an invincible 
antidote against inspiring the tender passion. 
The pearls and the diamonds, spread in profusion over the 
black shining locks of the ladies, appeared to great advantage 
on such a ground ; and those whose circumstances did not allow 
of so grand a display of jewels as their wealthier neighbours, 
contrived, however, to make amends by the less glittering, 
but not the less agreeable, ornament of chaplets of fragrant 
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