They Are Of Dark Complexions, With Flat Faces, Thin, Short,
Black Hair, Large Eyebrows, And Prominent Cheeks.
The men are
strong-limbed, but the women small.
The men wear a calico wrapper, three
or four times folded round their bodies; and the women are clothed from
their arm-pits to their knees. They usually have two or three wives,
besides concubines; and the Dutch say that they are much addicted to
lying and stealing. The Javans who inhabit the coast are mostly
Mahometans; but those living in the interior are still pagans. The women
are not so tawny as the men, and many of them are handsome; but they are
generally amorous, and unfaithful to their husbands, and are apt to deal
in poisoning, which they manage with much art.
Batavia is very populous, but not above a sixth part of the inhabitants
are Dutch. The Chinese here are very numerous; and the Dutch acknowledge
that they are more industrious and acute traders than themselves. They
are much, encouraged, because of the great trade carried on by them, and
the great rents they pay for their shops, besides large taxes, and from
sixteen to thirty per cent. interest for money, which they frequently
borrow from the Dutch. I was told, that there were about 80,000 Chinese
in and about Batavia, who pay a capitation-tax of a dollar each per
month for liberty to wear their hair, which is not permitted in their
own country ever since the Tartar conquest.
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