JAVA. 
275 
The house which they occupied was the ordinary residence of Mr. 
Fendall, confined at the time by illness to his country seat. It was 
situated on the western side of a large plain, opposite to an immense 
massy unfinished stone building, begun by General Dandals, and 
intended as a residence for the Dutch governor. A few hundred 
yards to the left, on the opposite side of the road, and on the 
northern side of the plain, was the house of the Commander-in- 
chief of the British forces, before which the English flag was still 
hoisted. On the right and on the southern side of the plain were 
stone barracks, occupied on our arrival by part of a British regiment 
still remaining on the island, but which gave place to the shipwreck- 
ed crew of the Alceste. The road passing in front of our quarters 
led to the intrenched camp of Cornelis, and beyond to Buitenzorg, 
the country-seat of the Dutch Governor. By crossing the road and 
the plain, we reached a bazaar, or market, and through it a second 
road parallel to the other, also terminating in one of the streets of 
Batavia. The bazaar was composed of two lines of shops extending 
about four hundred yards, and occupied by natives and Chinese. The 
former were chiefly venders of fruits and vegetables ; the latter of 
manufactured articles, both domestic and foreign. 
Visiting Batavia by the way of the bazaar was my frequent exercise 
early in the morning, when the fresh land-breezes gave rather the 
coolness of a temperate than the heat of a torrid zone. I usually 
reached it when the natives were bringing their vegetables to the 
market, and witnessed that abundance and variety of delicious 
fruit which form such a peculiar and attractive character of many 
countries bordering on the equator, but more especially of Java : 
the stranger, in purchasing fruits in this island, finds no coin too 
insignificant to obtain them in abundance. Their kinds were too 
numerous and too novel to admit their recognition then, and 
still less their enumeration now; but I may notice a few of the 
principal. 
First in beauty and flavour was the celebrated Mangostan. This 
fruit, which has been so often eulogized by different travellers, cer- 
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