Page:Siam and Laos, as seen by our American missionaries (1884).pdf/186

 the corner of the room, there to drip and dry till the next time it is needed.

They eat with their fingers, very few having even so much as a spoon, and they do not use the wafer-like bread so common in the Levant, which the Syrians double into a kind of three-cornered spoon, and, dipping up some kibby, or camel-stew, or rice, eat down spoon and all.

The kitchen floors are nearly all made of split bamboo, with great cracks between, through which they pour all the slops and push the scraps and bones, so that sweeping is unnecessary. Near the door are several large earthen jars for water, which are filled from the river by the women or servants. Here they wash their feet before they enter the house, and their hands and mouths before and after they eat, dipping the water with a gourd or cocoanut-shell. They use brass basins and trays a great deal, but for lack of scouring they are discolored and green with verdigris; and I cannot help thinking that the use of such vessels is one of the fruitful sources of the fearful sores and eruptions with which the whole nation is afflicted.

There are no washing- or ironing-days. Many wear no upper garment, only a waist-cloth, which they keep on when they go to bathe, and when they come up out of the water they change it for a dry one. It is then rubbed a little in the water, wrung out and spread in the sun to dry. If it is