Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Chinese. It had all the virtues of a well-laid-out modern city and
all the vices of a cosmopolitan seaport. Broad tree-lined avenues
shaded elegant houses. Company merchants, officials and even
tradesmen lived in luxury. Byron noted that if a tailor paid a pro-
fessional call he would do so in his own carriage, accompanied by
two servants. No European, he observed, would so demean himself
as to be seen
walking.
Batavia boasted a magnificent hotel which had
'more the appearance of a palace than a tavern'. It was very expens-
ive and was owned by a Frenchman who, it seems, was operating a
lucrative racket with the Dutch governor general. The latter levied a
fine of five hundred dollars on any Batavian resident who received
a guest in his own home. Visitors, therefore, had no option but to
pay
monsieur le patron'
s high prices which doubtless included the
governor general's commission. Batavia was a place of bustling mar-
kets, brothels, cheap arrack - and death. Because of the swampland
on which it was built it teemed with mosquitoes and other disease-
bearing insects. Byron noted that Europeans died there 'like rotten
sheep'. He lost four of his own men from fevers contracted in this de-
lusory paradise. He, therefore, kept his stay as short as possible and
on 10 December he weighed anchor.
