A NATIVE MEAL, 
173 
With kindly manner they would accede to 
my wish to taste of the liquid they had just 
brought down. Seeing I shrank from drinking 
from the rather dirty bamboo, and objected to 
the insects which had dropped into it, the gal- 
lant would make me a cup of a fresh green leaf, 
and with a tiny bundle of dry grass form a 
strainer. The young men then join the elders, 
when they repair in companies— whether com- 
posed of relations or merely on the ground of 
friendship I cannot say — to large sheds in or 
near the village, to partake of the chief meal of 
the day. They remain here cooking, eating, 
and sleeping for many hours. The older men 
seldom end this meal sober, and cease only when 
fairly incapable of further imbibition : not only 
do they drink the very slightly fermented tuak 
just brought from the trees, but also a distilla- 
tion of it, made with a. most primitive contriv- 
ance of a bamboo and a gourd over a slow fire. 
Therefore when they emerge from these huts 
towards sundown they are querulous, and pug- 
nacious and boisterous talking is occasionally 
heard in the village. The young men, if they 
taste the tuak, do not take enough to be in- 
toxicated, and come forth after their slumbers 
through the heat of the day with all their 
