e particular uses of these different
apartments, our short stay would not permit us to learn, except that the
close room in the centre was appropriated to the women.

The food of these people consists of every tame animal in the country,
of which the hog holds the first place in their estimation, and the
horse the second; next to the horse is the buffalo, next to the buffalo
their poultry, and they prefer dogs and cats to sheep and goats. They
are not fond of fish, and, I believe, it is never eaten but by the poor
people, nor by them except when their duty or business requires them to
be upon the beach, and then every man is furnished with a light
casting-net, which is girt round him, and makes part of his dress; and
with this he takes any small fish which happen to come in his way.

The esculent vegetables and fruits have been mentioned already, but the
fan-palm requires more particular notice, for at certain times it is a
succedaneum for all other food both to man and beast. A kind of wine,
called toddy, is procured from this tree, by cutting the buds which are
to produce flowers, soon after their appearance, and tying under them
small baskets, made of the leaves, which are so close as to hold liquids
without leaking. The juice which trickles into these vessels is
collected by persons who climb the trees for that purpose, morning and
evening, and is the common drink of every individual upon the island;
yet a much greater quantity is drawn off than is consumed in this use,
and of the surplus they make both a syrup and coarse sugar. The liquor
is called _dua_, or _duac_, and both the syrup and sugar, _gula_. The
syrup is prepared by boiling the liquor down in pots of earthen-ware,
till it is sufficiently inspissated; it is not unlike treacle in
appearance, but is somewhat thicker, and has a much more agreeable
taste: The sugar is of a reddish brown, perhaps the same with the Jugata
sugar upon the continent of India, and it was more agreeable to our
palates than any cane-sugar, unrefined, that we had ever tasted. We were
at first afraid that the syrup, of which some of our people eat very
great quantities, would have brought on fluxes, but its aperient quality
was so very slight, that what effect it produced was rather salutary
than hurtful. I have already observed, that it is given with the husks
of rice to the hogs, and that they grow enormously fat without taking
any other food: We were told also, that this syrup is u