employed as domestic servants, but slaves have
been brought from the coast of Bengal, Malabar, Sumatra, and other
parts, as well as from Celebes, and often become very accomplished
servants. They are generally well-treated, and behave well; but their
great vice is gaming, to which they are tempted by the Chinese, who keep
the gaming-houses, and are much too cunning to allow the poor slaves to
regain what they may have lost. This vice, as is the case elsewhere,
tempts them to rob their masters and to commit many other crimes, for
the sake of supplying themselves with money to continue the practice, or
to recover what they have lost.

There are said to be a hundred thousand Chinese in and about Batavia,
the whole population amounting only to a hundred and sixty thousand,
made up of natives, Armenians, Persians, Arabs, Malays, Negroes, and
Europeans. We were witnesses of a curious spectacle one day, when the
Chinese assembled from far and near to visit the tombs of their
ancestors at Jacatra, near the site of the capital of that ancient
kingdom. The road from Batavia to Jacatra is a very fine one. On
either side it is adorned with magnificent palaces, occupied by the
councillors of the Indies, the principal persons in the Company's
service, and the richest merchants. In front of these palaces, parallel
to the causeway, is a navigable canal crossed by bridges very
ingeniously constructed of bamboo. On the opposite banks are numerous
native villages, which are seen peeping through the cocoa, banana,
papaya, and other bushy shrubs, with which every hut is surrounded.
Near the ancient capital is the fortress to which the unhappy Prince of
Genea withdrew when the Dutch conquered the kingdom, and where he lost
his life fighting desperately.

In the Chinese burying-place are great numbers of tombs, with
inscriptions specifying the time of the death, age, name, and virtues of
those whose remains are within. The tombs are much ornamented, and
surrounded with cypresses; and on either side are benches on which the
relatives and friends may rest when they come to perform their funeral
duties. On the present occasion the tombs were ornamented with wreaths
of paper or silk of different colours, and three wax tapers were burning
on each. Provisions, also, were either sent or brought, and placed as
offerings on the tombs. The most opulent were distinguished from the
rest by the richness of their viands--fish, fruit, sweetmeat