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their own hands: other nations may make fortunes here by trafick if they can, but not by employments. No man can come over here in any other character than that of a soldier in the Companies service, in which before they can be accepted they must agree to remain 5 years; as soon however as ever they arrive at Batavia, they by applying to the counsel [may?] be allowd to Absent themselves from their Core, and enter immediately into any vocation in which they have any money or credit to set them up in.
Women may come out without any of these restrictions, or indeed any others, be they of what nation they will. We were told that there were not in Batavia 20 women born in Europe, the rest of the white women, who were not very scarce, were born of white parents, possibly through three or four families, as many generations distant from their European mothers. These imitate the Indian in every particular: their dress except in form is the same, their hair is worn in the same manner, and they chew Betele as plentifully as any Indians, notwithstanding which I never saw a white
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Voyaging Accounts |  |
© Derived from State Library of NSW Transcription of Banks's Journal page (vol. 2) 483, February 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/-banks_remarks-409.html