A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 by Robert Kerr

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As soon as he was settled in his new habitation, he sent for Tupia, who,
till now, had continued on board upon account of his illness, which was
of the bilious kind, and for which he had obstinately refused to take
any medicine. He soon came ashore, with his boy Tayeto, and though while
he was on board, and after he came into the boat, he was exceedingly
listless and dejected, he no sooner entered the town than he seemed to
be animated with a new soul. The houses, carriages, streets, people, and
a multiplicity of other objects, all new, which rushed upon him at once,
produced an effect like the sudden and secret power that is imagined of
fascination. Tayeto expressed his wonder and delight with still less
restraint, and danced along the street in a kind of extasy, examining
every object with a restless and eager curiosity, which was every moment
excited and gratified. One of the first things that Tupia remarked, was
the various dresses of the passing multitude, concerning which he made
many enquiries; and when he was told that in this place, where people of
many different nations were assembled, every one wore the habit of his
country, he desired that he might conform to the custom, and appear in
that of Otaheite. South-Sea cloth was therefore sent for from the ship,
and he equipped himself with great expedition and dexterity. The people
who had seen Otouron, the Indian, who had been brought hither by M.
Bougainville, enquired whether Tupia was not the same person: From these
enquiries, we learnt who it was that we had supposed to be Spaniards,
from the accounts that had been given of two ships by the
islanders.[121]

[Footnote 121: Should our limits allow it, an abstract of Bougainville's
voyage will be given as an appendix, in which mention will be made of
the Indian here alluded to.--E.]

In the mean time, I procured an order to the superintendant of the
Island of Onrust, where the ship was to be repaired, to receive her
there; and sent by one of the ships that sailed for Holland, an account
of our arrival here, to Mr Stephens, the secretary to the Admiralty.

The expences that would be incurred by repairing and refitting the ship,
rendered it necessary for me to take up money in this place, which I
imagined might be done without difficulty, but I found myself mistaken;
for after the most diligent enquiry, I could not find any private person
that had ability and inclination to advance the sum that I wanted. In
this difficulty I applied to the governor himself, by a written request,
in consequence of which, the shebander had orders to supply me with what
money I should require, out of the Company's treasury.

On the 18th, as soon as it was light, having by several accidents and
mistakes suffered a delay of many days, I took up the anchor, and ran
down to Onrust: A few days afterwards we went alongside of the wharf, on
Cooper's Island, which lies close to Onrust, in order to take out our
stores.

By this time, having been here only three days, we began to feel the
fatal effects of the climate and situation. Tupia, after the flow of
spirits which the novelties of the place produced upon his first
landing, sank on a sadden, and grew every day worse and worse. Tayeto
was seized with an inflammation upon his lungs, Mr Banks's two servants
became very ill, and himself and Dr Solander were attacked by fevers; in
a few days, almost every person both on board and ashore were sick;
affected, no doubt, by the low swampy situation of the place, and the
numberless dirty canals which intersect the town in all directions. On
the 26th, I set up the tent for the reception of the ship's company, of
whom there was but a small number able to do duty. Poor Tupia, of whose
life we now began to despair, and who till this time had continued
ashore with Mr Banks, desired to be removed to the ship, where, he said,
he should breathe a freer air than among the numerous houses which
obstructed it ashore: On board the ship, however, he could not go, for
she was unrigged, and preparing to be laid down at the careening-place;
but on the 28th, Mr Banks went with him to Cooper's Island, or, as it is
called here, Kuypor, where she lay, and as he seemed pleased with the
spot, a tent was there pitched for him: At this place both the
sea-breeze and the land-breeze blew directly over him, and he expressed
great satisfaction in his situation. Mr Banks, whose humanity kept him
two days with this poor Indian, returned to the town on the 30th, and
the fits of his intermittent, which was now become a regular tertian,
were so violent as to deprive him of his senses while they lasted, and
leave him so weak that he was scarcely able to crawl down stairs: At
this time, Dr Solander's disorder also increased, and Mr Monkhouse, the
surgeon, was confined to his bed.

On the 5th of November, after many delays in consequence of the Dutch
ships coming alongside the wharfs to load pepper, the ship was laid
down, and the same day, Mr Monkhouse, our surgeon, a sensible skilful
man, fell the first sacrifice to this fatal country, a loss which was
greatly aggravated by our situation. Dr Solander was just able to attend
his funeral, but Mr Banks was confined to his bed. Our distress was now
very great, and the prospect before us discouraging in the highest
degree: Our danger was not such as we could surmount by any efforts of
our own; courage, skill, and diligence were all equally ineffectual, and
death was every day making advances upon us, where we could neither
resist nor fly. Malay servants were hired to attend the sick, but they
had so little sense either of duty or humanity, that they could not be
kept within call, and the patient was frequently obliged to get out of
bed to seek them.[122] On the 9th, we lost our poor Indian boy, Tayeto,
and Tupia was so much affected, that it was doubted whether he would
survive till the next day.

[Footnote 122: The Malays are not indebted to the representations of any
author who has ever been at the pains to paint their character. What
every body says, is at least likely to be true; and if so, they are a
compound of every thing that is terrific in the rudest of the species,
and of every thing that is odious in human nature, when corrupted to the
extreme. Desperadoes in courage, and gluttons in revenge, they have also
the low cunning and the treacherous plausibility with all the licentious
propensities of the most designing and profligate of mankind. Their
advancement in the arts which render life comfortable, and sometimes,
too, embellish even vice, cannot in any measure redeem them into
favourable estimation. They are in most points inferior (perhaps in
every respect, save navigation,) to all the nations that inhabit the
vast peninsula of Eastern India.--E.]

In the mean time, the bottom of the ship being examined, was found to be
in a worse condition than we apprehended: The false keel was all gone to
within twenty feet of the stern-post; the main keel was considerably
injured in many places; and a great quantity of the sheathing was torn
off, and several planks were much damaged; two of them, and the half of
a third, under the main channel near the keel, were, for the length of
six feet, so worn, that they were not above an eighth part of an inch
thick, and here the worms had made their way quite into the timbers; yet
in this condition she had sailed many hundred leagues, where navigation
is as dangerous as in any part of the world: How much misery did we
escape by being ignorant that so considerable a part of the bottom of
the vessel was thinner than the sole of a shoe, and that every life on
board depended upon so slight and fragile a barrier between us and the
unfathomable ocean! It seemed, however, that we had been preserved only
to perish here; Mr Banks and Dr Solander were so bad that the physician
declared they had no chance for recovery but by removing into the
country; a house was therefore hired for them at the distance of about
two miles from the town, which belonged to the master of the hotel, who
engaged to furnish them with provisions, and the use of slaves. As they
had already experienced their want of influence over slaves that had
other masters, and the unfeeling inattention of these fellows to the
sick, they bought each of them a Malay woman, which removed both the
causes of their being so ill served; the women were their own property,
and the tenderness of the sex, even here, made them good nurses.[123]
While these preparations were making, they received an account of the
death of Tupia, who sunk at once after the loss of the boy, whom he
loved with the tenderness of a parent.[124]

[Footnote 123: Dr Hawkesworth seems to have forgotten here the
superiority of a simple diet over the tribe of nurses; it would seem,
too, as if nature did not possess in this climate any considerable
skill in surgery or medicine.--E.]

[Footnote 124: Tupia merited some eulogium; and it is singular that Dr
Hawkesworth did not bestow it. This, however, has been done by Mr
Forster, in his account of Cook's second voyage.--E.]

By the 14th, the bottom of the ship was thoroughly repaired, and very
much to my satisfaction: It would, indeed, be injustice to the officers
and workmen of this yard, not to declare, that, in my opinion, there is
not a marine yard in the world where a ship can be laid down with more
convenience, safety, and dispatch, nor repaired with more diligence and
skill. At this place they heave down by two masts, a method which we do
not now practise; it is, however, unquestionably more safe and
expeditious to heave down with two masts than one, and he must have a
good share of bigotry to old customs, and an equal want of common sense,
who will not allow this, after seeing with what facility the Dutch heave
down their largest ships at this place.

Mr Banks and Dr Solander recovered slowly at their country-house, which
was not only open to the sea breeze, but situated upon a running stream,
which greatly contributed to the circulation of the air: But I was now
taken ill myself; Mr Sporing, and a seaman who had attended Mr Banks,
were also seized with intermittents; and, indeed, there were not more
than ten of the whole ship's company that were able to do duty.

We proceeded however in rigging the ship, and getting water and stores
aboard: The water we were obliged to procure from Batavia, at the rate
of six shillings and eight-pence a leager, or one hundred and fifty
gallons.

About the 26th, the westerly monsoon set in, which generally blows here
in the night from the S.W., and in the day from the N.W. or N. For some
nights before this, we had very heavy rain, with much thunder; and in
the night between the 25th and 26th, such rain as we had seldom seen,
for near four hours without intermission. Mr Banks's house admitted the
water in every part like a sieve, and it ran through the lower rooms in
a stream that would have turned a mill: He was by this time sufficiently
recovered to go out, and upon his entering Batavia the next morning, he
was much surprised to see the bedding every where hung out to dry.

The wet season was now set in, though we had some intervals of fair
weather.[125] The frogs in the ditches, which croak ten times loader
than any frogs in Europe, gave notice of rain by an incessant noise
that was almost intolerable, and the gnats and musquitos, which had been
very troublesome even during the dry weather, were now become
innumerable, swarming from every plash of water like bees from a hive;
they did not, however, much incommode us in the day, and the stings,
however troublesome at first, never continued to itch above half an
hour, so that none of us felt in the day the effects of the wounds they
had received in the night.

[Footnote 125: They reckon two seasons or monsoons in this climate. The
east, or good one, begins about the end of April, and continues till
about the beginning of October. During this, the trade-winds usually
blow from the south-east and east-south-east, and there is fine weather,
with a clear sky. The west, or bad monsoon, begins about the end of
November, or commencement of December, and continues till towards the
end of February, during which the winds are mostly from the west. This
is the most unhealthy season. It has been remarked, but not explained,
that the periods of the monsoons are not so regular as they once were,
so that neither their beginning nor end can be so confidently depended
on. The months not included in either of the monsoons are called
shifting-months.--E.]

On the 8th of December, the ship being perfectly refitted, and having
taken in most of her water and stores, and received the sick on board,
we ran up to Batavia Road, and anchored in four fathom and a half of
water.[126]

[Footnote 126: Batavia Road is reckoned one of the best in the world for
size, safety, and goodness of anchorage. It is open indeed from the
north-west to east north-east and east; nevertheless, ships lie quite
secure in it, as there are several islands on that side which break the
force of the waves. There is no occasion for mooring stern and stern in
it.--E.]

From this time, to the 24th, we were employed in getting on board the
remainder of our water and provisions, with some new pumps, and in
several other operations that were necessary to fit the ship for the
sea, all which would have been effected much sooner, if sickness and
death had not disabled or carried off a great number of our men.

While we lay here, the Earl of Elgin, Captain Cook, a ship belonging to
the English East India Company, came to anchor in the road. She was
bound from Madras to China, but having lost her passage, put in here to
wait for the next season. The Phoenix, Captain Black, an English country
ship, from Bencoolen, also came to an anchor at this place.

In the afternoon of Christmas-eve, the 24th, I took leave of the
governor, and several of the principal gentlemen of the place, with whom
I had formed connexions, and from whom I received every possible
civility and assistance; but in the mean time an accident happened which
might have produced disagreeable consequences. A seaman had run away
from one of the Dutch ships in the road, and entered on board of mine:
The captain had applied to the governor to reclaim him as a subject of
Holland, and an order for that purpose was procured: This order was
brought to me soon after I returned from my last visit, and I said, that
if the man appeared to be a Dutchman, he should certainly be delivered
up. Mr Hicks commanded on board, and I gave the Dutch officer an order
to him to deliver the man up under that condition. I slept myself this
night on shore, and in the morning the captain of the Dutch commodore
came and told me that he had carried my order on board, but that the
officer had refused to deliver up the man, alleging not only that he was
not a Dutchman, but that he was a subject of Great Britain, born in
Ireland; I replied, that the officer had perfectly executed my orders,
and that if the man was an English subject, it could not be expected
that I should deliver him up. The captain then said, that he was just
come from the governor to demand the man of me in his name, as a subject
of Denmark, alleging that he stood in the ship's books as born at
Elsineur. The claim of this man as a subject of Holland being now given
up, I observed to the captain that there appeared to be some mistake in
the general's message, for that he would certainly never demand a Danish
seaman from me who had committed no other crime than preferring the
service of the English to that of the Dutch. I added, however, to
convince him of my sincere desire to avoid disputes, that if the man was
a Dane, he should be delivered up as a courtesy, though he could not be
demanded as a right; but that if I found he was an English subject, I
would keep him at all events. Upon these terms we parted, and soon after
I received a letter from Mr Hicks, containing indubitable proof that the
seaman in question was a subject of his Britannic majesty. This letter I
immediately carried to the shebander, with a request that it might be
shewn to the governor, and that his excellency might at the same time be
told I would not upon any terms part with the man. This had the desired
effect, and I heard no more of the affair.[127]

[Footnote 127: Whatever may be thought of the advantage of such policy,
it is certain that Cook acted here in the full spirit of a British
officer and _minister_. Every reader must be aware how materially the
same determination on the part of our government has tended to embroil
us with the Americans, betwixt whom and us, the question of fact, as to
country, is often much more difficult of solution than it can well be
where any other people oppose our claims.--E.]

In the evening I went on board, accompanied by Mr Banks, and the rest of
the gentlemen who had constantly resided on shore, and who, though
better, were not yet perfectly recovered.

At six in the morning of the 26th, we weighed and set sail, with a light
breeze at S.W. The Elgin Indiaman saluted us with three cheers and
thirteen guns, and the garrison with fourteen; both which, with the help
of our swivels, we returned, and soon after the sea-breeze set in at N.
by W. which obliged us to anchor just without the ships in the road.

At this time the number of sick on board amounted to forty, and the rest
of the ship's company were in a very feeble condition. Every individual
had been sick except the sail-maker, an old man between seventy and
eighty years of age; and it is very remarkable, that this old man,
during our stay at this place, was constantly drunk every day:[128] We
had buried seven, the surgeon, three seamen, Mr Green's servant, Tupia,
and Tayeto, his boy. All but Tupia fell a sacrifice to the unwholesome,
stagnant, putrid air of the country, and he who, from his birth, had
been used to subsist chiefly upon vegetable food, particularly ripe
fruit, soon contracted all the disorders that are incident to a sea
life, and would probably have sunk under them before we could have
completed our voyage, if we had not been obliged to go to Batavia to
refit.

[Footnote 128: Cases similar to this are of constant occurrence, and are
familiarly known to medical men who have a principle to account for it.
The _continual_ operation of exciting causes so as to produce a certain
degree of action of the system, will prevent, as well as remedy,
diseases of debility. The plague has been kept off by a like treatment
on the same principle, and so has the ague, an intermitting fever so
formidable in some countries. Giving over or abating of this stimulating
treatment, however, if other circumstances remain the same, will, of
course, render the person as obnoxious as ever to attack, or rather more
so. It is evident that at times this cure is as bad as the disease; for
scarcely any state of health is more deplorably fatal than constant
drunkenness.--E.]

SECTION XXXVIII.

_Some Account of Batavia, and the adjacent Country; with their Fruits,
Flowers, and other Productions_.

Batavia, the capital of the Dutch dominions in India, and generally
supposed to have no equal among all the possessions of the Europeans in
Asia, is situated on the north side of the island of Java, in a low
fenny plain, where several small rivers, which take their rise in the
mountains called Blaeuwen Berg, about forty miles up the country, empty
themselves into the sea, and where the coast forms a large bay, called
the Bay of Batavia, at the distance of about eight leagues from the
streight of Sunda. It lies in latitude 6 deg. 10' S., and longitude 106 deg. 50'
E. from the meridian of Greenwich, as appears from astronomical
observations made upon the spot, by the Rev. Mr Mohr, who has built an
elegant observatory, which is as well furnished with instruments as most
in Europe.[129]

[Footnote 129: Batavia, called by some writers, the Queen of the East,
on account of its wealth and the beauty of its buildings, is situate
very near the sea, in a fertile plain, watered by the river Jaccatra,
which divides the town. The sea-shore is on the north of the city; and
on the south the land rises with a very gentle slope to the mountains,
which are about fifteen leagues inland. One of these is of great height,
and is called the Blue Mountain. The early history of this city is given
in the tenth volume of the Modern Universal History, to which the reader
is referred for information which it would perhaps be tedious to detail
in this place. Batavia, the reader will easily imagine, has been much
impaired by the calamities of her European parent; but, indeed, for some
considerable time before they commenced, she had very materially
declined in consequence and power.--E.]

The Dutch seem to have pitched upon this spot for the convenience of
water-carriage, and in that it is indeed a second Holland, and superior
to every other place in the world. There are very few streets that have
not a canal of considerable breadth running through them, or rather
stagnating in them, and continued for several miles in almost every
direction beyond the town, which is also intersected by five or six
rivers, some of which are navigable thirty or forty miles up the
country.[130] As the houses are large, and the streets wide, it takes up
a much greater extent, in proportion to the number of houses it
contains, than any city in Europe. Valentyn, who wrote an account of it
about the year 1726, says, that in his time there were, within the
walls, 1242 Dutch houses, and 1200 Chinese; and without the walls, 1066
Dutch, and 1240 Chinese, besides 12 arrack houses, making in all 4760:
But this account appeared to us to be greatly exaggerated, especially
with respect to the number of houses within the walls.

[Footnote 130: The river Jaccatra, as has been mentioned, runs through
the city, viz. from south to north, and having three bridges, one near
the castle, at the lower end, another at the upper end, and the third
about the centre of the town. It is from 160 to 180 feet broad, within
the city, and is fortified, though indifferently, at its mouth, which,
however, is of less importance, as a continually increasing bar renders
access to the city by it impracticable for large vessels.--E.]

The streets are spacious and handsome, and the banks of the canals are
planted with rows of trees, that make a very pleasing appearance; but
the trees concur with the canals to make the situation unwholesome.[131]
The stagnant canals in the dry season exhale an intolerable stench, and
the trees impede the course of the air, by which, in some degree, the
putrid effluvia would be dissipated. In the wet season the inconvenience
is equal, for then these reservoirs of corrupted water overflow their
banks in the lower part of the town, especially in the neighbourhood of
the hotel, and fill the lower stories of the houses, where they leave
behind them an inconceivable quantity of slime and filth: Yet these
canals are sometimes cleaned; but the cleaning them is so managed as to
become as great a nuisance as the foulness of the water; for the black
mud that is taken from the bottom is suffered to lie upon the banks,
that is, in the middle of the street, till it has acquired a sufficient
degree of hardness to be made the lading of a boat, and carried away. As
this mud consists chiefly of human ordure, which is regularly thrown
into the canals every morning, there not being a necessary-house in the
whole town, it poisons the air while it is drying, to a considerable
extent. Even the running streams become nuisances in their turn, by the
nastiness or negligence of the people; for every now and then a dead
hog, or a dead horse, is stranded upon the shallow parts, and it being
the business of no particular person to remove the nuisance, it is
negligently left to time and accident. While we were here, a dead
buffalo lay upon the shoal of a river that ran through one of the
principal streets, above a week, and at last was carried away by a
flood.[132]

[Footnote 131: Some of the streets are paved, but they consist of a hard
clay which allows of being made plain and smooth; and within the city
there are stone foot paths along their sides.--E.]

[Footnote 132: Five roads lead from the city into the country, all of
which are finely planted with trees, and have very agreeable gardens on
both sides. These roads run along the course of the rivulets or canals
which form so remarkable a feature in the history and appearance of this
city. The environs of Batavia have always been highly commended for
their beauty and the fertility of the soil; the consequence, no doubt,
of the extraordinary care taken to have them well watered--E.]

The houses are in general well adapted to the climate; they consist of
one very large room, or hall, on the ground floor, with a door at each
end, both which generally stand open: At one end a room is taken off by
a partition, where the master of the house transacts his business; and
in the middle, between each end, there is a court, which gives light to
the hall, and at the same time increases the draught of air. From one
corner of the hall the stairs go up to the floor above, where also the
rooms are spacious and airy. In the alcove, which is formed by the
court, the family dine; and at other times it is occupied by the female
slaves, who are not allowed to sit down any where else.[133]