GO A NATURALIST'S WANDEBINGS 



large copper jars for the preparation of rice, beat out of sheet 

 copper by native smiths, and shallow iron basins (of Singapore 

 make) for the daily extraction of the oil of the cocoa-nut 

 palm, without which and its twin brother the bamboo, native 

 prosperity and happiness would cease. There were besides 

 piles of various species of dry-salted river fishes, chiefly Gabus 

 (Ophiocephalus striatus), Soro and Eegis {Barbus duronensis 

 and B. emarginatus), and Gurame [Ophromenus olfax), the 

 most prized of them all, in which a large and profitable trade 

 is carried on with distant parts of the Archipelago. Many of 

 these fishes are carefully preserved in the larger wet rice fields, 

 where during the rainy season, having abundance of food, they 

 multiply with great rapidity. During the hot season, when 

 the sawahs have become, except in the centre, dry fields, the 

 fishes are captured in immense numbers. Fried in fresh oil 

 they form an excellent dish, and are the staple flesh-food of 

 the natives. 



A vile odour which permeates the whole air within a wide 

 area of the market-place, is apt to be attributed to these piles 

 of fish ; but it really proceeds from another compound sold in 

 round black balls, called trassi. My acquaintance with it was 

 among my earliest experiences of house-keeping at Genteng. 

 Having got up rather late one Sunday morning — an opportu- 

 nity taken by one of my boys to go unknown to me to the 

 market, which I had not then visited — I was discomfited by 

 the terrific and unwonted odour of decomposition : — " My 

 birds have begun to stink, confound it ! " I exclaimed to 

 myself. Hastily fetching down the box in which they were 

 stored, 1 minutely examined and sniffed over every skin, 

 giving myself in the process inflammation of the nostrils and 

 eyes for a week after, from the amount of arsenical soap I 

 inhaled ; but all of them seemed in perfect condition. In the 

 neighbouring jungle, though I diligently searched half the 

 morning, I could find no dead carcase, and nothing in the 

 " kitchen-midden," where somehow I seemed nearer the source ; 

 but at last in the kitchen itself I ran it to ground in a compact 

 parcel done up in a banana leaf. 



" What on the face of creation is this ? " I said to the cook, 

 touching it gingerly. 



" Oh ! master, that is trassi." 



