1832.] 
ISLAND OF JAVA. 
303 
From the city, many of them dispersed over the whole island, 
which possibly now contains more than one hundred and fifty 
thousand of them. Many return to China annually in the junks, 
but comparatively a small proportion. There are at least sixteen 
thousand of this class in Batavia, who live in a separate compong, 
under a chief of their own nation. They are among the most 
useful and industrious of the inhabitants ; indefatigable in their 
pursuits, and eagerly bent on making money. In their hands are 
all the manufactures, and nearly all the retail trade of the city, 
or of every other place where they are located ; and their labours 
contribute largely to the prosperity of the island. They are 
hated by the Javans and Malays, because they are constantly 
overreaching their less industrious and unsuspecting neighbours ; 
and hence it is not to be wondered at that these tribes should 
seize every opportunity to inflict wrong and even outrage upon 
them. From the Dutch they have suffered many unjust exac- 
tions and cruel oppressions, which have more than once goaded 
them into acts of insurrection and rebelHon, for which they were 
dreadfully punished. Witness the massacre of seventeen hundred 
and forty. 
The Chinese compOng comprises the whole of the southwest- 
ern suburbs, and is very extensive. Among them, every house 
is a shop, and the streets exhibit a constant scene of noise and 
bustle. Their captain, or hingho, has a number of lieutenants 
under him, who assist in regulating the police of this numerous 
population. As the emigration of Chinese females is expressly 
prohibited by the government, they either marry among the na- 
tives, or purchase slaves for their wives. They are called great 
cheats by the natives, although in their intercourse with foreigners 
they are polite and wellbred. Among the colonists they are not 
usually employed as servants. They are distinct from the natives ; 
and are, in a high degree, more intelligent, more industrious, more 
enterprising, and much more luxurious than the Javans or Malays, 
They are, in fact, refined epicures in their way ; and their tables, 
three times in a day, are loaded with rice, curry, fish, pork, fowls, 
ducks, together with all kinds of vegetables. The higher orders, 
especially, indulge in every luxury, and spare no expense in pro- 
curing any thing calculated to please the palate. Edible birds'- 
nests, biche de mer, and other luxuries, however costly, are always 
