3 2 TRAVELS IN THE EAST INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO.
part of the world, though I must add, that I soon
became quite partial to many of their dishes, which
are especially adapted for that climate. The kitchen
is not provided with stoves or cooking-ranges, as in
the Western world, but on one side of the room there
is a raised platform, and on this is a series of small
arches, which answer the same purpose. Fires are
made in these arches with small pieces of wood, and
the food is therefore more commonly fried or boiled,
than baked. There, is no chimney, and the smoke,
after filling the room, finally escapes through a place
in the roof which is slightly raised above the parts
around it.
As I am often questioned about the mode of
living in the East, I may add that always once a
day, and generally for dinner, rice and curry appear,
and to these are added, for dinner, potatoes, Med and
boiled; steak, Med and broiled; fried bananas
(the choicest of all delicacies), various kinds, of
greens, and many sorts of pickles and sarnbal, or
vegetables mixed with red peppers. The next
course is salad, and then are brought on bananas
of three or four kinds, at all seasons; and, at certain
times, oranges, pumpelmuses, mangoes, mangostins,
and rambutans; and as this is but such a bill of
;fare as every man of moderate means expects to provide,
the people of the West can see that their
Mends in the East, as well as themselves, believe in
the motto, “ Carpe diem.” A cigar, or pipe, and a
small 'glass of gin, are generally regarded as indispensable
things to perfect happiness by my good
Dutch Mends, and they all seemed to wonder that