208 COOK’S VOYAGE, 
by the phyficians, for the recovery of their health, and the 
effedts of the air are faid to be almoft miraculous : the patient 
groves well in a fnort time, but conftantly relapfes foon after 
his return to Batavia. 
But the fame fuuation and circumftances which render Ba- 
tavia and the country round it unwholefome, render it the belt 
gardener’s ground in the world. The foil is fruitful beyond 
imagination, and the conveniencies and luxuries of life that 
at produces are almoft without number. 
Rice, which is well known to be the corn of thefe coun- 
tries, and to ferve the inhabitants inftead of bread, grows in 
great plenty : and I muft here obferve, that in the hilly parts 
of Java, and in many of the eaftem illands, a fpecies of this 
grain is planted, which in the weftern parts o India is intire- 
ly unknown. It is called by the natives Paddy Gununc, 
or Mountain rice ; this, contrary to the other fort which muft 
be under water three parts in four of the time of its growth, is 
planted upon the lides of hills, where no water but rain can 
come : it is however planted at the beginning of the rainy fea- 
fon, and reaped in the beginning of ihe dry. How far this 
kind of rice might beufeful in our Weft Indian illands, where 
no bread corn is grown, it may perhaps be worth while to en- 
quire. 
Indian corn, or maize, is alfo produced here, which the 
inhabitants gather when young, and toaft in the ear. Here 
is aifo a great variety of kidney beans, and lentiles, which 
they call Cadjang, and which make a confiderable part of 
the food of the common people ; befldes millet, yams both 
wet and dry, fweet potatoes, and European potatoes, which 
are very good, but not cultivated in great plenty. In the 
gardens, there are cabbages, lettuces, cucumbers, rhadifhes, 
the white rhadillies of China, which boil almoft as well as a 
turnep ; carrots, parlley, celery, pigeon peas, the egg plant, 
which broiled, and eaten with pepper and fait, is very deli- 
cious; a kind of greens refemblmg fpinage ; onions, very 
fmall, but excellent ; and afparagus : befldes fome European 
plants of a ftrong fmell, particularly fage, hyfop, and rue. 
S U o-ar is alfo produced here in immenfe quantities : very gieat 
crops of the fineft and largeft canes that can be imagined are 
produced with very little care, and yield a much larger pro- 
portion of fugar than the canes of the Weft Indies. Vv hi te 
iugar is fold here at two pence half-penny a pound ; and the 
molafles makes the arrack, of which, as or rum, it is the chiei 
ingredient; a fmall quantity of rice, and fome cocoa-nut 
wine being added, chiefly, I fuppofe, to give it flavour. A 
fmall quantity of indigo is alfo produced here, not as an ar- 
ticle of trade, but merely for home coniumption. 
But the moll; abundant article of vegetable luxury here, is 
