A Javanese girl floats around on her inflated sarong. A clever trick of the Bataviangirls is to make their wet sarongs into water-wings, and float about the canal before starting in on the day’s washing.
This girl has finished her bath and hasn’t yet started on the wash. Washing times are: 6 a.m. till midday; 5 p.m till dark. The brown, muddy waters of the Molenvliet Canal in Batavia, Java’s capital, serve both as swimming-bath and town laundry to the Javanese. Every day is a washday in Batavia, the capital of Java. Every morning between 6 o’clock and midday, every afternoon between 5"o’clock and dusk, a lively, chattering crowd of Javanese gathers along the banks of the Molenvliet Canal, which connects the shopping district of Central Batavia with the down-town business section of Old Batavia. Here, while cyclists speed by on the concrete pavement a few yards away; women and girls sit in a long line-one leg dangling in the water and one stretched out along the water’s edge-and do the household washing. When the wash is over, many of the younger ones slide into the water for a bath among crowds of laughing, splashing children, and when the bath is over, stop at small, improvised street cafes for something to eat and drink on the way home. |
It is said that, in 22 years, from 1730 to 1752, no fewer than 1;100,000 deaths were recorded. Batavia. In 1811 a British force was sent against the Dutch settlements in Java, which had been taken over by the French. Batavia surrendered, and was only returned to the Dutch by the Treaty of 1814. |
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