Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/444

386 difference as people in a camp; it is hardly a piece of news to tell any one of the death of another, unless the dead man is of high rank, or somehow concerned in money matters with the other. If the death of any acquaintance is mentioned, it commonly produces some such reflexion as, "Well, it is very well he owed me nothing, or I should have had to get it from his executors."

So much for the neighbourhood of Batavia and as far round it as I had an opportunity of going. I saw only two exceptions to this general description, one where the General's country house is situated. This is a gradually rising hill of tolerable extent, but so little raised above the common level that you would be hardly sensible of being upon it were it not that you have left the canals, and that the ditches are replaced by bad hedges. The Governor himself has, however, strained a point so as to enclose his own garden with a ditch, to be in the fashion I suppose. The other exception is the place where a famous market called Passar Tanabank is held. Here, and here only during my whole stay, I had the satisfaction of mounting a hill of about ten yards perpendicular height, and tolerably steep. About forty miles inland, however, are some pretty high hills, where, as we were informed, the country is healthy in a high degree, and even at certain heights tolerably cool. There European vegetables flourish in great perfection, even strawberries, which bear heat very ill. The people who live there also have colour in their cheeks, a thing almost unknown at Batavia, where the milk-white faces of all the inhabitants are unstained by any colour; especially the women, who never go into the sun, and are consequently free from the tan, and have certainly the whitest skins imaginable. From what cause it proceeds is difficult to say, but in general it is observed that they keep their health much better than the men, even if they have lately arrived from Europe.

On these hills some of the principal people have country houses, which they visit once a year; the General especially has one, said to be built upon the plan of Blenheim House, near Oxford, but never finished. Physicians also often send