nals are
planted with rows of trees, that make a very pleasing appearance; but
the trees concur with the canals to make the situation unwholesome.[131]
The stagnant canals in the dry season exhale an intolerable stench, and
the trees impede the course of the air, by which, in some degree, the
putrid effluvia would be dissipated. In the wet season the inconvenience
is equal, for then these reservoirs of corrupted water overflow their
banks in the lower part of the town, especially in the neighbourhood of
the hotel, and fill the lower stories of the houses, where they leave
behind them an inconceivable quantity of slime and filth: Yet these
canals are sometimes cleaned; but the cleaning them is so managed as to
become as great a nuisance as the foulness of the water; for the black
mud that is taken from the bottom is suffered to lie upon the banks,
that is, in the middle of the street, till it has acquired a sufficient
degree of hardness to be made the lading of a boat, and carried away. As
this mud consists chiefly of human ordure, which is regularly thrown
into the canals every morning, there not being a necessary-house in the
whole town, it poisons the air while it is drying, to a considerable
extent. Even the running streams become nuisances in their turn, by the
nastiness or negligence of the people; for every now and then a dead
hog, or a dead horse, is stranded upon the shallow parts, and it being
the business of no particular person to remove the nuisance, it is
negligently left to time and accident. While we were here, a dead
buffalo lay upon the shoal of a river that ran through one of the
principal streets, above a week, and at last was carried away by a
flood.[132]

[Footnote 131: Some of the streets are paved, but they consist of a hard
clay which allows of being made plain and smooth; and within the city
there are stone foot paths along their sides.--E.]

[Footnote 132: Five roads lead from the city into the country, all of
which are finely planted with trees, and have very agreeable gardens on
both sides. These roads run along the course of the rivulets or canals
which form so remarkable a feature in the history and appearance of this
city. The environs of Batavia have always been highly commended for
their beauty and the fertility of the soil; the consequence, no doubt,
of the extraordinary care taken to have them well watered--E.]

The houses are in general well adapted to the climate; they consist of