in the act of swallowing the second; and, in
less than no time the whole of the fruit had passed from the dish into
his digestive organs, and he was intently gathering up, with the tips of
his licked fingers, the few grains of sugar left at the bottom of the
dish.

"I was unwell and had no appetite to-day," he then innocently remarked,
as he lifted up his head.

"Oh, I hope you will come again when you are quite well," said I, "but
you must promise not to eat the table, because it does not belong to me."

A good deal of the native voracity is due, however, not to this
insatiable appetite and gluttony alone, but also to Corean etiquette,
according to which it shows a want of respect to the host and is a mark
of great rudeness not to eat all that is placed before one. If all is not
eaten they argue that you do not like it and consider it to be badly
cooked or inferior to what you have at home. The notion of a normal
capacity is strange to them, and never even enters their mind. They are
trained from childhood to eat huge quantities of food, and to take
heartily all that they can get. I have seen children with thin little
bellies so extended after a meal, in the course of which they had been
stuffed with rice and barley, that they could hardly walk or even
breathe. I recollect on one occasion remarking to a mother, who was
beamingly showing me her child in a similar condition: "Are you not
afraid that his skin will give way?" "Oh no! Look!" Upon which she
stuffed down his little throat three or four more spoonfuls of rice. I
have been thankful ever since that I was not born a Corean child.

When the Coreans eat in their own houses, the men of the family take
their meals first, being waited on by their wives and servants; after
which the females have their repast in a separate room. The women seldom
drink intoxicants, and have to be satisfied with water and rice-wash.

It is the duty of the wife to look after the welfare of her husband, and
when she has fed him, and he has drowsily laid himself down on the
ground, or on his little mattress, as the case may be, she retires, and
after having had her food either goes to see her friends or to wash her
master's clothes, or else goes to sleep.

The people of Cho-sen are fond of keeping late hours; and yet I believe
there are no people in the world who are more fond of sleep. So far as my
observations go, the richer people spend their lives entirely in eating
and sleeping.