The funerals of the Chinese are very singular, as well as very rich and pompous, forming grand and solemn processions, in which sometimes at least 500 persons of both sexes assist, the women being all cloathed in white.  At these funerals they employ music to heighten the shew, together with coloured umbrellas and canopies, carrying their principal idol, which they call Joostie de Batavia, under one of their canopies.  Their tombs are some of them very magnificent.  They follow the idolatrous religion of their native country, and have a pagoda, or idol temple, about the distance of a league from the city, where they assemble for worship.  They are perhaps the grossest idolaters, and the most ridiculous in their opinions, of all the pagans of the east, as they openly profess to worship and adore the devil.  This does not proceed from their ignorance or unbelief in a God, but rather from mistaken notions in their belief concerning him.  They say that God is infinitely good and merciful, giving to man every thing he possesses, and never doing any hurt; and therefore that there is no need to worship him.  But with the devil, the author of all ill, they are desirous to live upon good terms, and to omit nothing that can entitle them to his good graces.  It is the devil therefore whom they represent by the idol above mentioned, and in whose honour they have frequently great feasts and rejoicings.

Like the Javans, the Chinese are extravagantly addicted to gaming and laying wagers; and this humour, especially at cock-fights and the new-year’s feasts, drives them sometimes into downright madness.  They will not only stake and lose their money, goods, and houses, but sometimes their wives and children; and when these are all lost, will stake their beards, nails, and winds; that is, they bind themselves not to shave their beards, pare their nails, or go on board ship to trade, till they have paid their game debts.  When reduced to this condition, they are forced to hire themselves as the bond slaves of some other Chinese.  Under such misfortunes their only resource is, that some relative, either at Batavia or China, pays their debts out of compassion, and by that means reinstates them in their property and freedom.

The Malays who live at Batavia usually employ themselves in fishing, having very neat and shewy vessels, the sails of which are most ingeniously constructed of straw.  These are a most wicked and profligate people, who often commit atrocious murders for very trifling gain.  They profess the Mahomedan religion, but are so absolutely devoid of moral principle, that they even make a boast and merit of cheating Christians.  Their last chief was publicly whipped and branded for his frauds and villainies, his goods confiscated, and he himself banished to Ceylon; since when they have been ashamed to elect another chief.  Their habits are of silk or cotton, the men wearing a piece of cotton round their heads, and their black hair tied into a knot behind.