A PILGBIMAGE 63 



when a bright red juice began to run from the 

 corners of his mouth his tongue was loosed again. 

 Occasionally, while he talked, an attendant at his 

 left held up for contribution a silver cuspidor- 

 looking affair ; and Earn was a liberal contributor. 

 Betel-nut chewing is the national diversion of 

 the Siamese. Every one, from high to low, is ad- 

 dicted to the habit, and preparation of the quid for 

 those too poor to own ingredients and boxes is, in 

 every town, quite a business of itself; in the 

 smallest settlements one sees peddlers squatting 

 before their trays of little boxes holding lime and 

 seeds and tobacco, and packages of syrah, or green 

 betel leaves. The betel tree is among the most 

 common in Siam, sending up a trunk sometimes 

 full sixty feet, always, like the cocoanut, limbless 

 except for its bush of a top where, again like the 

 cocoa, the nuts grow in closely attached bunches, to 

 harden and redden before gathered. Adding the 

 cardamon-seed, or clove, to the preparation, is an 

 extra of the well-to-do, and especially of the 

 women ; the common habit among men of the coun- 

 try being to add a pinch of tobacco after first rub- 

 bing it over their gums. The bright red saliva 

 from chewing is, in the town house, carefully de- 

 posited in a handsome silver receptacle ; in the up- 

 country house spaces between the open bamboo 

 flooring obviate the necessity for such niceties. 



