It is not strange that the inhabitants of such a country should be familiar with disease and death:  Preventative medicines are taken almost as regularly as food; and every body expects the returns of sickness, as we do the seasons of the year.  We did not see a single face in Batavia that indicated perfect health, for there is not the least tint of colour in the cheeks either of man or woman:  The women indeed are toast delicately fair; but with the appearance of disease there never can be perfect beauty.  People talk of death with as much indifference as they do in a camp; and when an acquaintance is said to be dead, the common reply is, “Well, he owed me nothing;” or, “I must get my money of his executors."[144]

[Footnote 144:  Those parts of the city are said to be most healthy which are farthest off from the sea; and the reason given for the difference is, that a great deal of mud, filth, blubber, &c. is thrown up by the tide close to the other parts, and soon putrifying from the extreme beat, adds materially to the influence of the generally operating nuisances.  But it seems pretty plain that the difference can be but small, as the contaminated air must rapidly defuse itself throughout the neighbourhood.  Admitting it, however, to be appreciable, the inference is very obvious as to what ought to be done for the bettering of Batavia, considered as a receptacle of human beings, and not as a putrid ditch from which gold is to be raked at the certain expense of life.—­E.]

To this description of the environs of Batavia there are but two exceptions.  The governor’s country house is situated upon a rising ground; but its ascent is so inconsiderable, that it is known to be above the common level only by the canals being left behind, and the appearance of a few bad hedges:  His excellency, however, who is a native of this place, has, with some trouble and expence, contrived to inclose his own garden with a ditch; such is the influence of habit both upon the taste and the understanding.  A famous market also, called Passar Tanabank, is held upon an eminency that rises perpendicularly about thirty feet above the plain; and except these situations, the ground, for an extent of between thirty and forty miles round Batavia, is exactly parallel to the horizon.  At the distance of about forty miles inland, there are hills of a considerable height, where, as we were informed, the air is healthy, and comparatively cool.  Here the vegetables of Europe flourish in great perfection, particularly strawberries, which, can but ill bear heat, and the inhabitants are vigorous and ruddy.  Upon these hills some of the principal people have country houses, which they visit once a-year; and one was begun for the governor, upon the plan of Blenheim, the famous seat of the Duke of Marlborough in Oxfordshire, but it has never been finished.  To these hills also people are sent by the physicians for the recovery of their health, and the effects of the air are said to be almost miraculous:  The patient grows well in a short time, but constantly relapses soon after his return to Batavia.[145]