Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/426

368 our dinners and suppers consisted of one course each, the one of fifteen, the other of thirteen dishes, of which, when you came to examine them, seldom less than nine or ten were of bad poultry, roasted, boiled, fried, stewed, etc. etc. So little conscience had they in serving up dishes over and over again, that I have seen the same identical duck appear upon the table three times as roasted duck, before he found his way into the fricassee, from whence he was again to pass into forcemeat.

This treatment, however, was not without remedy; we found that it was the constant custom of the house to supply strangers at their first arrival with every article as bad as possible; if through good nature or indolence they put up with it, it was so much the better for the house, if not it was easy to mend their treatment by degrees, till they were satisfied. On this discovery we made frequent remonstrances, and mended our fare considerably, so much so that had we had any one among us who understood this kind of wrangling, I am convinced we might have lived as well as we could have desired.

Being now a little settled, I hired a small house next door to the hotel, for which I payed 10 rixʳ (£2) a month. Here our books, etc., were lodged, but here we were far from private, almost every Dutchman that came by running in and asking what we had to sell; for it seems that hardly any individual had ever been at Batavia before who had not something or other to sell. I also hired two carriages, which are a kind of open chaise made to hold two people and driven by a man on a coach-box. For each of these I paid 2 rixʳ (8s.) a day, by the month. We sent for Tupia, who had till now remained on board on account of his illness, which was of the bilious kind, and for which he had all along refused to take any medicine. On his arrival, his spirits, which had long been very low, were instantly raised by the sights which he saw, and his boy Tayeto, who had always been perfectly well, was almost ready to run mad; houses, carriages, streets, and everything, were to him sights which he had often heard described but never well under-