THE RIJST-TAFEL 7 



visitor to Java notices, are worth recording because they 

 show the survival of a spirit that has ahnost completely 

 disappeared from our own dominions. When a European 

 walks, or as is more usual, drives along the country 

 roads, the natives whom he meets remove their hats 

 from their heads and their loads from their shoulders and 

 crouch humbly by the roadside. Again, on the railways 

 the ticket examiner approaches with a suppliant air 

 and begs to see your ticket, while he holds out his right 

 hand for it grasping his right wrist with his left hand. 

 In former times when a man held out his right hand to 

 give or take something from you his left hand was free 

 to stab you with his kris. Nowadays only a very few 

 privileged natives in Java are allowed to carry the 

 kris. 



Another very noticeable feature of life in the Dutch 

 East Indies, which immediately attracts the attention of 

 a stranger, is the astonishing number of excessively 

 corpulent Europeans. If you travel in the morning in 

 the steam tramcar which runs from the residential part 

 of Batavia to the business quarter of the town, you will 

 see as many noticeably stout men as you will see in 

 the City of London in a year, or, as I was credibly 

 informed, as you will see in the city of Amsterdam in a 

 month. It is fairly certain that this unhealthy state of 

 body of a large number of Europeans may be attributed 

 to the institution of the Rijst-tafel, the midday meal 

 of a large majority of the Dutchmen in the East. 



This custom is so remarkable that it is w^orth while 

 to give a description of it. The foundation of the meal, 

 as its name implies, is rice. You sit at table with a 



