Series 03: Joseph Banks - Endeavour journal, 25 August 1768 - 12 July 1771 (vol. 2) - No. 0606
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[Page 606]
502.
Some account of Batavia
these there are others scatterd every where about the Countrey, where they cultivate gardens, sow rice & sugar, or keep Cattle & buffaloes whose milk they bring daily to town
Nor are the inhabitants of the town &Campon China less industrious, you see among them Carpenters, Joiners, smiths, Taylors, Shoemakers Slipper makers & dyers of Lennens Cottons, Embroiderers &c. in short the general character of Industry given to them by all authors who have wrote upon them is well exemplified here, tho the more genteel parts of their customs cannot be, on account of the want of rich & well born people be found among them, those China alone can shew, here nothing can be sought for but the native disposition of the lower Class of people
There is nothing be it of what nature it will clean or dirty, honest or dishonest (provided there is not too much danger of a halter) which a Chinese will not readily do for money, they work diligently & laboriously, & loth to lose sight of their main point money getting, no sooner do they leave of work, that they begin to game either at Cards dice or some one of the thousand games they