CHILDREN — THE CHINESE. 
15 
II. ’s, who was lying there. Coming back we 
generally met the children going to school, — 
little bands of them, with faces about as white 
as their garments. Girls wear simply a pina- 
fore, or chemise if you will, of white starched 
muslin, over rather long drawers, white stock- 
ings, and long black boots. The effect is 
rather odd, and my impression on first seeing 
them w r as that a number were setting off to 
bathe still half-dressed, I was also much in- 
terested in watching the gay and busy scene 
on the canal near our hotel tiny barges, busy 
washers, and black bathers enlivening it from 
daybreak to sunset. 
Batavia contains many thousands of Chinese 
inhabitants. Without this element, indeed, she 
might almost close her warehouses and send the 
fleet that studs her roads to ride in other har- 
bours, for in every branch of trade the Chinaman 
is absolutely indispensable. Many of them pos- 
sess large and elegantly fitted - up shops, filled 
with European, Chinese, and Japanese stores. 
Their workmanship is generally quite equal to 
European, and in every case they can far un- 
dersell their Western rivals. Numbers of a 
« 
poorer class go about as peddlers, carrying all 
sorts of wares, from a silk dress to a linen 
