3i6 COCHINCHINA, 
healtliy ; and till the age of seven or eight years were entirely 
naked. Their food seemed to consist chiefly of rice, sugar- 
cane, and water melons. The mass of people in Cochinchina,- 
hke the common Chinese, have but two meals in the day, one 
about nine or ten in the morning, the other about sunset ; 
and these are usually taken, in the dry season, before the 
doors of their cottages, on mats spread in the open air.. 
Where all fare alike, none feels ashamed to expose his 
humble meaL 
In the neighbourhood of Turon we observed several planta- 
tions of sugar-canes and tobacco. The juice of the former, 
having undergone a pailial refinement, is exported to the 
China market in cakes, which in colour, thickness and 
porosity resemble the honeycomb ; the latter is consumed in 
the country, as all degrees of every age and sex indulge in 
the habit of smoking.. The face of the country exhibited, 
however, but feeble marks of tillage; and arts and manufac- 
tures were evidently in a lans;uishin2: state. The cottao-es 
contained little furniture, and that little was rude in its 
construction and as if intended only for temporary use. 
The matting which covered the floors was ingeniously 
woven in different colours ; but the art of makins; mats is so 
common in ail the nations of the East, that the most beauti- 
ful are scarcely subjects of admiration among, themselves. 
Their domestic utensils consisted chiefly of an earthen stove, 
an iron pot to boil their rice, a pan of the shape of a watch 
glass to fry their vegetables in oil, and a few porcelain cups or 
bowls. Tlieir vessels of cast iron were equal in quality to those 
of the Chinese, but their earthen ware was very inferior. 
