Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/439

1770 enemy, I could not learn; from their appearance I should judge them to be intended for the latter. As for powder, they are said to be well supplied with it, dispersed in various magazines on account of the frequency of lightning.

Besides the fortifications of the town, there are numerous forts up and down the country, some between twenty and thirty miles from the town. Most of these seem very poor defences, and are probably intended to do little more than keep the natives in awe. They have also a kind of house mounting about eight guns apiece, which seem to me to be the best defences against Indians I have ever seen. They are generally placed in such situations as will command three or four canals, and as many roads upon their banks. Some there are in the town itself, and one of these it was which, in the time of the Chinese rebellion (as the Dutch call it), quickly levelled all the best Chinese houses to the ground. Indeed, I was told that the natives are more afraid of these than of any other kind of defences. There are many of them in all parts of Java, and on the other islands in the possession of the Dutch. I lamented much not being able to get a drawing and plan of one, which, indeed, had I been well, I might easily have done, as I suppose they never could be jealous of a defence which one gun would destroy in half an hour.

Even if the Dutch fortifications are as weak and defenceless as I suppose, they have, nevertheless, some advantages in their situation among morasses, where the roads, which are almost always a bank thrown up between a canal and a ditch, might easily be destroyed. This would very much delay the bringing up of heavy artillery, unless this could be shipped upon some canal, and a sufficient number of proper boats secured to transport it. There are plenty of these, but they all muster every night under the guns of the Castle, from whence it would be impossible to take them. Delays, however, from whatever cause they might happen, would be inevitably fatal. In less than a week we were sensible of the unhealthiness of the climate, and in a month's time one half of the ship's company were