XVI 



THE BETEL NUT 



One half the world does not know how the other 

 half lives. Noticing a pot of areca nut tooth- 

 paste on a chemist's counter, I asked him what 

 the peculiar properties of the areca nut were — in 

 short, what was it good for. He replied that it was 

 an astringent and acted beneficially on the gums, 

 but he had never heard that it was used for any other 

 purpose than the manufacture of an elegant denti- 

 frice. I felt inclined to question him about the 

 camel in order to see whether he would tell me that 

 it was a tropical animal, chiefly noted for the fine 

 quality of its hair, from which artist's brushes were 

 made. Here was a man whose special business it is 

 to know the properties and uses of all drugs and 

 their action on the human system, and he had not 

 the faintest notion that there are nearly 300 

 millions of His Majesty's subjects, and many 

 millions more beyond his empire, who could scarcely 

 think of life as a thing to be desired if they were 

 obliged to go through it without the areca nut. 

 For the areca nut is the betel nut. 



In the Canarese language and the kindred dialects 



164 



