Page 431 |
Joseph Banks's Descriptions of Places |
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Batavia (continued) as hazel nuts. All these however the Malays also Eat, as well as many more whose names I had not an opportunity of Learning, as my Ilness rendering me weak and unable to go about, prevented me from mixing with these people as I should otherwise have done. In their Buryings the Chinese have an extrordinary superstition, which is that they will never more open the ground in the place where a man has been buried, by which means it happens that their burying grounds in the neigbourhood of Batavia cover many hundred acres; on which account the Dutch, grudging the quantity of ground laid waste by this method, will not sell them ground for it but at enormous prizes, notwithstanding which they will always raise money to purchase Grounds whenever they can find the Duch in a Humour to sell it, and actualy had while we were there a great deal of land intended for that purpose but not yet began upon. Their funerals are attended with much purchasd and some real lamentations, the relations of the
© Derived from State Library of NSW Transcription of Banks's Journal page (vol. 2) 505, February 2004 Published by kind permission of the Library To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/-banks_remarks-431.html |