The ordinary habitations of the Europeans are of brick, run up in a light airy manner, and stuccoed on the outside. They have sash-windows. The interiors are all on the same plan. The fronts are in general narrow, and the houses extend back a long way from the street. Fronting the entrance, a narrow passage, with a parlour on one side, leads to a large long room, lighted from an inner court, into which it opens. This apartment is called the "gallery," and here the family live and dine. The floors are of large, square, dark-red stones. No hangings are to be seen, but the walls are neatly stuccoed and whitened. The furniture consists of some arm-chairs and two or three sofas. On the walls are numerous looking-glasses, and chandeliers or lamps are hung in a row along the ceiling of the gallery, and are lighted up in the evening. The stairs leading to the upper rooms are generally at the end of the gallery. The upper parts of the houses are divided much as below. They are generally but scantily provided with furniture; indeed, from the heat of the climate but little is required. Behind the gallery are the lodgings for the slaves, the kitchen, and the out-houses. Instead of being glazed, the windows are often closed with a lath-work of rattans. Few of those in the city have gardens. In the country, on the contrary, the greatest attention is paid to them, many of which are very beautiful, though laid out in the formal Dutch style, as they are full of the choicest flowers and shrubs. Newman was especially struck with them. "Ah, this would indeed be a beautiful country to live in, if people could but manage not to die!" he exclaimed. Unhealthy as the country undoubtedly is, the city itself is far worse, so that, as a place of residence, it is almost abandoned by the more wealthy merchants, who only visit it as a place of business--their fine mansions being turned into stores or counting-houses. Europeans at Batavia, of whatever nation, live much in the same way. They rise at daybreak, and sit for some time cooling themselves in the thinnest dress in which they have passed the night; then they dress, and breakfast on coffee or tea, and are at their offices at eight. They work till nearly noon, when they dine, and take a nap till four, when they again attend to business till six. Afterwards they drive out, or mix in social intercourse in an informal way till nine, when they sup, and retire to bed at eleven. Newman, whose means of observation were greater than mine, told me that the men had their parties together, and the ladies theirs, which I should consider a very bad arrangement. The men of higher rank--the upper merchants--are each attended by a slave, holding an umbrella behind him; but a junior merchant must carry his umbrella himself.