Page:Siam and Laos, as seen by our American missionaries (1884).pdf/189

 curtains to hang for years without ever being changed or washed. The beds and mats are filthy and swarming with bugs, which also infest the curtains, the coverings, the cracks in the floor and the wall, the boxes, and indeed all the rubbish in the room. I have seen them creeping over the people, and no one seems to mind them or think of being ashamed.

These rooms are never cleared out or swept or scrubbed. The cobwebs of succeeding years tangle and entangle themselves in the corners, drape the rafters and the windows, and indeed every place where the busy spinners can do their work. There is seldom more than one window in a bed-*room, and at night it is carefully closed, and if it were not for the cracks in the floor and walls the miserable inmates would surely smother. They do not bring their cattle into the house, for it is very frail and set upon poles about six feet from the ground, but they do keep them under the house, so that they can hear if thieves come to steal them.

They never give any dinner- or tea-parties or visit each other, as we do at home. There is an occasional feast, as at a wedding, a funeral or a hair-cutting, and sometimes neighbor girls will sit together under the trees to sew, or by the same lamp at night to economize oil and to chat and gossip. A great place for the latter pastime is at the temples when they go to hear the Buddh