The bay of Batavia is circumscribed on the south by the
coast of Java, and by fifteen or sixteen small islands interspersed
in every direction from the east round by the north
to the west. Its capacity is perhaps sufficiently great to
contain the whole navy of England ; it is perfectly secure at
all seasons, and the water is rarely disturbed in any violent
degree by the winds. The principal islands that surround it
are those which bear the names of Onrust, Purmerent, Kuiper,
and Edam. On the first is the naval arsenal, store-houses,
saw-mills, and work-shops of the artificers. I t is encompassed
with batteries, à Jleur d’eau, which, however, afford only a
feeble protection to the island, and none to the shipping in
the bay, nor indeed to any of the passages leading into it.
On Purmerent, which appears to be a very pleasant island, is
situated an extensive naval hospital.
The coast of Java, on this side of the island, is so very flat,
and so thickly covered with tamarind, cocoa nut, canary, and a
variety of other trees, that no part of the city of Batavia, except
the cupola of the great church, is visible from the ships in the
bay, although the distance is little more than an English mile.
The great plain on which this city stands seems indeed to be
of alluvious production, and appears to be extending in such
rapid progression that, with thè assistance of the coral-making
insects, it may not require the lapse of many centuries before
the whole bay, together with the sweep of islands that encompass
it, will become united with the Java continent.
The mouth of the river, which empties its waters into the
bay, has obviously travelled downwards more than a hundred
yards in the short space of time which the Dutch have
held the settlement. To prevent inundations, and to keep
open a free communication with the bay, they found it necessary
to run out two stone piers five hundred yards in
length ; and the land has now advanced nearly to their extreme
points ; so that it may again be expedient, before the
expiration of half a century to come, to extend the work still
farther into the bay. The Water Castle with its four bastions,
so called from its being once insulated, has long been
left on thè western bank of the river, in seamen s language,
high and dry ; where, lioweyer, it still appears to be no less
useful than before, as a work of defence to the entrance of
the river.
In making choice of the present site of the city of Batavia,
the predilection of the Dutch -for a low swampy situation
evidently got the better of their prudence ; and the fatal consequences
that have invariably attended this choice, from its
first establishment to the present period, irrefragably demonstrated
by the many thousands who have fallen a sacrifice tó
it, have nevertheless been hitherto unavailing to induce the
government either altogether to abandon the spot for another
more healthy, or to remove the local and immediate causes
of a more than ordinary mortality. Never were national prejudices
and national taste so injudiciously misapplied, as in
the attempt to assimilate those of Holland to the climate and
the soil of Batavia. Yèt such has been the aim of the settlers,
which they have endeavoured to accomplish with indefatigable
industry. An extended plain of rich alluvious land,
z 2!