Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/445

1770 people here for the recovery of their health lost in the low country, and say that the effects of such a change of air is almost miraculous, working an instant change in favour of the patient, who during his stay there remains well, but no sooner returns to his necessary occupations at Batavia than his complaints return in just the same degree as before his departure.

Few parts of the world, I believe, are better furnished with the necessaries as well as the luxuries of life, than the island of Java. The unhealthiness of the country about Batavia is in that particular rather an advantage to it; for the very cause of it, a low flat situation, is likewise the cause of a fruitfulness of soil hardly to be paralleled, which is sufficiently testified by the flourishing condition of the immense quantities of fruit-trees all round the town, as well as by the quantity and excellence of their crops of sugarcane, rice, Indian corn, etc. etc. Indeed, the whole island is allowed to be uncommonly fruitful by those who have seen it, and in general as healthy as fruitful, excepting only such low fenny spots as the neighbourhood of Batavia, far fitter to sow rice upon than to build towns.

The tame quadrupeds are horses, cattle, buffaloes, sheep, goats, and hogs. The horses are small, never exceeding in size what we call a stout Galloway, but nimble and spirited: they are said to have been found here when the Europeans first came round the Cape of Good Hope. The cattle are said to be the same as those in Europe, but differ from them in appearance so much that I am inclined to doubt. They have, however, the palearia, which naturalists make to be the distinguishing mark of our species. On the other hand, they are found wild, not only on Java, but on several of the eastern islands. The flesh of those that I ate at Batavia was rather finer-grained than European beef, but much drier, and always terribly lean. Buffaloes are very plentiful, but the Dutch are so much prejudiced against them, that they will not eat their flesh at all, nor even drink their milk, affirming that it causes fevers. The natives, however, and the Chinese do both, and have no such opinion