INDISPENSABLE 167 



penetrating odour of the betel nut are alike insuffer- 

 able, and there is no instance on record, as far as I 

 know, of an Englishman becoming a betel nut chewer. 

 But wherever Hindu blood circulates, not in India 

 only, but all through the islands of the Malay Archi- 

 pelago, as far as the Philippines, the betel nut 

 is an indispensable ingredient of any life that is 

 worth living. Mohammedanism forbids spirits and 

 Brahminism condemns all things that intoxicate 

 or stupefy, but the betel nut is like the cup that 

 cheers yet not inebriates. No religion speaks dis- 

 respectfully of it. It flourishes, blessed by all, and 

 takes its place among the institutions of civilisation. 

 Indeed it is the chief cement of social intercourse 

 in a country where all ordinary conviviality between 

 man and man is almost strangled by the quarantine 

 enforced against ceremonial defilement. Friend 

 offers friend the betel nut box just as Scotsmen 

 offered the snuff-box in the hearty old days that are 

 passing away. And all visits of ceremony, durbars, 

 receptions, leave-takings, and public functions of the 

 like kind are brought to an august close by the 

 distribution of fan sup an . To go through this rite 

 without visible repugnance is part of the training 

 of our young Civil Servants. When the interview or 

 ceremony has lasted as long as it was intended to 

 last, there enter, with due pomp, bearers of heavy- 

 scented garlands, woven of jasmine and marigold, 

 and in form like the muffs and boas that ladies wear 

 in winter. These are put upon the necks and 

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