406 DESCRIPTION OF BATAVIA CHAP, XVII 
and in selling fruit and flowers; all the betel and areca, 
called here sir and pinang, of which an immense quantity is 
chewed by Portuguese, Chinese, Slams, slaves, and freemen, 
is grown by them. The lime that they use here is, however, 
slaked, by which means their teeth are not eaten up in the 
same manner as those of the people of Savu who use it 
unslaked. They mix it also with a substance called gambir, 
which is brought from the continent of India, and the better 
sort of women use with their chew many sorts of perfumes, 
as cardamoms, etc. to give the breath an agreeable smell. 
Many also get a livelihood by fishing and carrying goods 
upon the water, etc. Some, however, there are who are very 
rich and live splendidly in their own way, which consists 
almost entirely in possessing a number of slaves. 
In the article of food no people can be more abstemious 
than they are. Boiled rice is of rich, as well as of poor, the 
principal part of their subsistence: this with a small pro- 
portion of fish, buffalo or fowl, and sometimes dried fish and 
dry shrimps, brought here from China, is their chief food. 
Everything, however, must be highly seasoned with cayenne 
pepper. They have also many pastry dishes made of rice 
flour and other things I am totally ignorant of, which are 
very pleasant: fruit also they eat much of, especially 
plantains. 
_ Their feasts are plentiful, and in their way magnificent, 
though they consist more of show than meat: artificial 
flowers, etc., are in profusion, and meat plentiful, though 
there is no great variety of dishes. Their religion of Ma- 
hometanism denies them the use of strong liquors: nor do I 
believe that they trespass much in that way, having always 
tobacco, betel, and opium wherewith to intoxicate themselves. 
Their weddings are carried on with vast form and show: 
the families concerned borrowing as many gold .and silver 
ornaments as possible to adorn the bride and bridegroom, so 
that their dresses are always costly. The feasts and cere- 
monies relating to them last in rich men’s families a fort- 
night or more ; during all which time the man, though married 
on the first day, is by the women kept from his wife. 
