Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 30.djvu/331

 it furnishes a sufficient bed, and is easily packed with the baggage. The necessity of making frequent removals has also inspired the Cambodian mattress. The mat is not thick, and furnishes a comfortable relief; but the Cambodian sybarites have sought for something better, and found it. They have invented a mattress as soft as our own and much more convenient for journeys; it can be folded up into so compact a space as to take up very little room, and it is made in such a way that, however thick it may be, it can always be done up so exactly that every part shall be sure to fit into the smallest possible space. These luxurious bed-clothes are, of course, only found among the better-off Cambodians. The poorer ones have to content themselves with a common mat, or a board, or the ground itself.

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The spittoon is in universal use. It varies in size and material, but not in shape. It is swelled out at the base, narrowly contracted above, and flares out into a funnel at the top—the whole giving it a shape well adapted to its use. The Cambodian is a constant betel-chewer; he has to be spitting all the time, and is under the necessity of having a dish always at hand to receive the blood-red saliva that escapes from his lips. The poor use an earthen spittoon. The rich man uses porcelain, and King Norodom has a spittoon of massive gold, carved and dressed with great taste.