ABDI AND ABDULLAH 
345 
move stones and cut prunes small. Dissolve one- 
half ounce gelatin and add to one-quarter pound 
sugar, prunes, and kernels. Pour into wetted mold 
to cool, first adding one-half glass of sherry. Must 
be served with banana cream (the Newland). 
The third occasion made memorable by a deli¬ 
cious epoch-making dish I shall not specify, as we 
have dined with many friends during the last nine 
months. Let it be sufficient if I say that it was at 
one of these dinners or luncheons. 
In our varied gastronomical experiences we 
found that the cooking on the English ships was 
usually bad, while that on the German ships was 
good, excepting the ship that took us from Naples 
to Mombasa. The Dutch ships were the best of 
all and the Dutch hotels in Java were the best we 
struck outside of Paris and London. In compari¬ 
son with the Hotel des Indes, in Batavia, all the 
rest of the hotels of the Orient can be mentioned 
only in a furtive way. It was a revelation of excel¬ 
lence, in perfect keeping with the charm and beauty 
of Java as a whole. 
But we were speaking of things to eat. 
At the Hotel des Indes they served us a modest 
little dish called rice tafel, or “rijs-tafel.” You 
have to go to luncheon early in order to eat it be¬ 
fore dinner time. It was served by twenty-four 
waiters, marching in single file, the line extending 
from the kitchen to the table and then returning by 
