offee drinking, except that in the
18th century the tea-cups imported from China had no handles, and were
generally thinner than the coffee cups. In Japan there is a ceremonious
way of drinking tea, known as _Cha no yu_. Here powdered green tea is
used; the party assembles in a small pavilion in a garden, and the tea
is made in accordance with a rigid etiquette. The infusion is stirred
with a whisk in a rudely fashioned bowl, holding about a pint, and
passed from one guest to another. The bowls are of very thick pottery,
never of porcelain, and the most valued kind is that made in Korea. In
the drinking of rice spirit (sake) in Japan small wide shallow cups are
used, made generally of porcelain, but sometimes of finely lacquered
wood. Both kinds are usually ornamented with elaborate and sometimes
allusive designs.

Savage utensils.

Among savage races the most peculiar drinking ceremony is that of kava
drinking in Polynesia, principally in the Fijian, Tongan and Samoan
groups. The best description of the process is given in Mariner's
_Tonga_. The principal vessel is usually a large bowl, sometimes
measuring 2 or 3 ft. in diameter, cut from a solid block of wood. It has
four short legs and an ear at one side to which a rope of coco-nut fibre
is generally attached. The liquid is prepared in this bowl and ladled
out in small cups often made of coco-nut shells, and these are handed
round with great ceremony. Both the bowl and the cups become coated in
the inside with a highly polished layer, pale blue in colour; but this
beautiful tint fades when the vessel is out of use, and it is therefore
very rarely seen in specimens in Europe. The kava itself is prepared
from the root of a tree of the pepper family (_Piper methysticum_); the
root is cut into pieces of a convenient size, and these are given to
young men and women of the company, who masticate them, and the lumps
thus shredded are placed in the large bowl, water is poured over them,
and the mass is strained with great care by wringing it in strips of the
inner bark of the _hibiscus_. The liquor is slightly intoxicating.

If the Polynesian method of preparing kava as a drink is distasteful to
our ideas, the favourite drinking bowl of the old Tibetans is even more
so. Friar Odoric (14th century), quoted by Yule, describes how the
Tibetan youth "takes his father's head and straightway cooks and eats
it, and of the skull he makes a goblet from which he and all his fami