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With the exception of the short run from Tandjong Priok, it was our first acquaintance with the railway service, and when we saw the crowd awaiting to entrain at Weltervreden Station we decided to travel first-class, contrary to the advice of our friends.
A course was set for a rendezvous off the coast of Borneo, and on August 4, 1811, a landing was effected at Chillingching, a village about ten miles east of Batavia. To the astonishment of the British Commander, his landing was not opposed, the defending force being concentrated in the neighbourhood of Weltervreden and Meister Cornelius, to-day the thriving residential suburbs of Batavia.
Then there is the residential town, Weltervreden with its broad tree-lined avenues and palatial pavilion hotels and private villa establishments. In style, the European houses are quite unlike those erected by the Spaniards in the Philippine Islands, or the British in the Malay Peninsula. They are not raised to any great height from the ground.
Weltervreden may be compared with a gigantic park, and there are residences sufficiently imposing to please the lover of architectural beauty, even if there is no assertive Clock Tower to emphasise by contrast the hovels of Singapore's region of slums. The idea of keeping the various races to their Kampongs may be contrary to British ideas, but in Java it appears to work satisfactorily enough.
General Janssens rejected Lord Minto's summons to surrender. On August 10, Batavia was in the hands of the British troops, and on that day, after two hours of hard fighting, Weltervreden was captured, the 78th Highlanders having a heavy casualty list amongst their officers.
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