32 TRAVELS IN THE EAST INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO. 



pai-t of the world, tliougli 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 pro\dded 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, fried and 

 boiled ; steak, fried and broiled ; fried bananas 

 (the choicest of all delicacies), various kinds of 

 greens, and many sorts of pickles and sambal, 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 pro- 

 vide, the people of the West can see that their 

 friends in the East, as well as themselves, believe in 

 the motto, " Carpe diem." A cigar, or j)ipe, and a 

 small glass of gin, are generally regarded as indis- 

 pensable things to perfect happiness by my good 

 Dutch friends, and they all seemed to wonder that 



