3 i6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The housekeeping leaves much to be desired. One of the promi- 

 nent characteristics of the people is to build and not keep up. This 

 applies to their monuments, their houses, their boats, and their objects 

 of art. But they do some cleaning, and use in it brooms made of the 

 median nerves of palm-leaves and of cocoanut-fibers. They do very 

 little in the evening. Their labors are performed during the day, 

 which in that latitude is of nearly even length the year round. But 

 if a man wishes to light his house or travel by night, he can use vari- 

 ous torches, the most common of which is made of dried palm-leaves, 

 tied together and steeped in resin. They are good enough to go 

 around by, and are identical with the torches used by the natives of 

 the Malabar coast. When they want a more steady light in the house 

 they make little candles by dipping a cotton wick in melted wax and 

 working it in the hand. This is really an article of luxury and is 

 usually employed only before the altars in ancestral worship. 



The Cambodian lives on rice and fish, and drinks water. Every 

 other article of food or drink is to him only an accessory. Cambodian 

 rice is one of the poorest kinds, being small and generally mixed with 

 hard grains. It is thrashed out roughly, and is decorticated only as it 

 is used. Fish is eaten fresh or salted, and, as the fishing-season is 

 constant, there is always plenty of it, with a considerable surplus for 

 exportation. The "extras" are chickens, eggs, pork, vegetables, and 

 fruits, the chief of which is the banana. Tea is rarely taken at meals, 

 but is served during the day, and offered to visitors. But little use is 

 made of fermented liquors, and drunkenness is very rare. The liquor 

 met most frequently is an alcohol of rice perfumed with essence of 

 roses, which is known as chum-chum. 



Their cookery is so strongly spiced that it is repulsive to Euro- 

 peans. The Cambodian addresses himself by turns to pepper, ginger, 

 mace, and various spices ; but it costs the foreigner a long exercise to 

 endure them. These, however, are condiments to which we are ac- 

 customed, and the only difference between our habits and theirs is in 

 the quantity. But it is a different affair when we come to a product 

 which the Cambodian likes well enough to set everywhere — the nuoc- 

 man, or oil of fermented fish. The Annamites use this, too, but they 

 refine it. The Cambodian prefers for his sauce to have it of the most 

 pronounced flavor, without its having undergone any filtration or 

 other process to attenuate its taste or odor. Offensive as it is at the 

 first interview, I have known Europeans to learn to like it and to eat 

 it with relish. 



Instead of fireplace and chimney, the Cambodians use ingeniously 

 constructed portable furnaces of terra-cotta. I find in this another 

 illustration of the fact I have already referred to, that the inundation, 

 by compelling the Cambodian to be a water-man for a part of the year, 

 has given a special direction to his industry, the characteristic feature 

 of which is the invention of portable utensils equally adapted to fjervice 



