garrison. In front of the house a long row of booths was
erected, in which were exhibited the humours of a Dutch
fa ir; and, what to, us was, then more interesting, among these
booths were two or three temporary theatres, on which
Chinese comedians were entertaining the crowd on our first
arrival* and they continued to act without intermission the
whole night.
Having satisfied our curiosity as to the fair and the fireworks,
we repaired to the ball room, where the ladies were
already assembled ; and here we were struck with a very unusual
display of finery, the singularity of which at least, if
not the beauty, very forcibly attracted our attention. Let
the reader imagine to himself about eighty or ninety ladies
seated round the sides of a long narrow room, superbly
dressed in the finest muslins that India affords, spangled with
gold and, silver, and glittering with rubies and diamonds—Let
him figure to himself an equal number of little female slaves,
each sitting at the feet of her mistress, and, except as to the
ornamental parts, nearly as well dressed as herself—Let him
imagine about half as many, as there were ladies, of tall,
bright, brazen candlesticks, like those that are sometimes
seen on the altars of Romish churches, arranged in a row on
the floor immediately before these splendid beauties, and
reflecting, like so many mirrors, the brilliant objects to
which they were opposed—Let him, moreover, figure to himself
at least an equal number of gentlemen, all full dressed
in coats of cut. velvet, shag breeches, bag wigs, and long
swords, besides the British officers both naval and military
in their respective uniforms, to say nothing of the Corps
diplomatiques—And having disposed this assemblage of objects
7
in a long narrow room plainly furnished, he will then have a
tolerably correct notion of the appearance of the Governor’s
ball-room at Batavia. But here, out of tenderness to the
Eastern beauties, I ought perhaps to stop short as, by entering
into a more detailed description, I shall be compelled
to throw a shade on the brilliant scene. Their dingy complexions
sufficiently indicated their kindred connexion to
some of the Oriental nations. Like those of the Chinese and
Malays, their black shining locks, glistening with a profusion
of cocoa nut oil, were smoothed up all round, and fixed in a
knot by golden bodkins on the crown of the head. Like the
Malays, also, the greater part of these dingy beauties were in
the delicate habit of chewing the areca nut and betel, the necessary
consequence of which soon discovered the mistake we
had committed with regard to the Roman candlesticks: they
were, in fact, the ladies’ spitting-boxes, to which the genteel
part of the Dutch give the name of Quispedoors, (probably
from the Spanish word Escupedero, a spitting-dish;) but the
delicate name in vulgar use among the Dutch is Speuw-potjies.
Whatever real or pretended advantages the Batavian fair may
derive from the use of her favourite masticatory, the appearance
of her mouth, and the effect it produces, are to a stranger
shocking and nauseous, and, one would suppose, an invincible
antidote against inspiring the tender passion.
The pearls and the diamonds, spread in profusion over the
black shining locks of the ladies, appeared to great advantage
on shell a ground ; and those whose circumstances did not allow
of so grand a display of jewels as their wealthier neighbours,
contrived, however, to make amends by the less glittering,
but not the less agreeable, ornament of chaplets of fragrant
E E