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One old Malay women came aboard with four large bird cages, and Dr. Coenraad promptly went to investigate. As they were yellow-headed bulbuls (or which we already have ten) she was allowed to keep her pets.

April 4 - Batavia

Landed early in the morning, and went to the Hotel des Indes. The city proper is about seven miles from Tanjong Priok, the port, and the road followed a canal all the way. In the old days river steamers used the canal, coming up to Batavia, but now an occasional canal boat, covered over, on which a native family lives, is all the traffic there is by water. Brahminy kites, bright brown with white, aquiline heads, flew over the water in great flocks. 

We spent an hour and a half with Walter Foote, the American Consul General, discussing possibilities of having our permit extended a little. He promised to do everything he could for us. 
     
Then we went out to see the Zoo, which is a combination zoological garden and childrens' playground. In Java there has been a great deal of intermarrying between the Dutch and the natives, and we saw many dark mothers with blond children, or Nordic fathers with dusky youngsters. Merry-go-rounds, pushed by a Malay boy, were popular, as were sand piles, swings and [[strikethrough]] teeter-totters [[/strikethrough]] ^[[see-saws]]. As for the animals, there were some beautiful silver gibbons, a nice male orang-utan, tree kangaroos, a fossa cat from Madagascar, four anoas, two uncomfortable polar bears, a baby Sumatran elephant with long hair, hornbills, fairy bluebirds, and others.
     
We were astonished to find Batavia had almost as many animal collectors in town as animals. On the boat in the morning we had met Danesch, collecting for Amazonica in New York. In the Zoo we learned that Meems, of Ward and Meems, and Kreth, of Ruhe, were here ,too.  We got in touch with Meems and Kreth, and they spent the rest of the day with us. 
     
At the Hotel des Indes we had our first reistafel, that famous dish of the Dutch East Indies. Twenty boys served us, passing various victuals in what appeared for some moments to be an endless chain. A big soup bowl was placed in front of us, with an extra side plate for the overflow. The first offering was boiled rice, served from a big silver bowl. Onto the rice went curried chicken, steak, baked fish, spaghetti, fried coconut, cucumbers (boiled, pickled, and fresh), peanuts, red peppers, fried bananas, chutney, onions, fried nut cakes, shrimps, fried egg, salted hard-boiled duck egg, and various complicated gravies and sauces. I had heard so much about the reistafel that I probably expected too much in the way of gastronomical delight: the general effect was slightly messy, and by the time one was served with all the dishes, the original rice, and most of the things that went on it, were cold.
     
In the afternoon we went to the bird market, an interesting crowded street market, where many of the East Indian birds were to be had. Fairy bluebirds, lovely little finches, parrots of all colors, mynahs, and quantities of doves, as well as a baby musang and a baby Felis minuta, were on sale. We looked the supply over, but did not buy anything. We shall stop here again