MEM.--The Population of the principal European capitals included in the above, is estimated as follows:--
Batavia and its immediate Suburbs 60,000 Semárang 20,000 Surabáya 25,000
The population of _Súra-kérta_, the principal Native capital, is estimated at 105,000.
By the last table, it appears that in some districts the population is in the ratio of two hundred and eighty-one to a square mile, while in others it is not more than twenty-four and three quarters: in the districts of _Banyuwángí_ it is even as low as seven. The soil in the eastern districts is generally considered superior to that in the western, and this circumstance, added to the superior facilities which they afford to commerce, may serve to account for their original selection as the chief seat of the native government, and consequently for their denser population at an early period.
This disproportion was also promoted by the policy of the Dutch Company. The Dutch first established themselves in the western division, and having no confidence in the natives, endeavoured to drive them from the vicinity of Batavia, with the view of establishing round their metropolis an extensive and desert barrier. The forced services and forced deliveries, which extended wherever Dutch influence could be felt, and of which more will be said hereafter, contributed to impoverish, and thereby to depopulate the country. The drain also of the surrounding districts, to supply the place of the multitudes who perished by the unhealthy climate of Batavia, must have been enormous; and if to these we add the checks to population, which were created over Bantam, the _Priáng'en_ Regencies, and Chéribon, in the pepper and coffee cultivation, of the nature of which an account will be given when treating of the agriculture of the country, we need go no further to account for the existing disproportion. It was only about sixty years ago that the Dutch government first obtained a decided influence in the eastern districts, and from that moment, the provinces subjected to its authority ceased to improve, and extensive emigrations took place into the dominions of the native princes. Such were the effects of this desolating system, that the population of the province of _Banyuwángi_, which in 1750 is said to have amounted to upwards of eighty thousand souls, was in 1811 reduced to eight thousand.