Page:Siam and Laos, as seen by our American missionaries (1884).pdf/192



HEN the Siamese young folks get up in the morning they do not go to the washstand to wash their faces, for the simple reason that Siamese houses can boast no such article of furniture. The cooking utensils and the mats which serve for beds, with the pillows of gayly-painted bamboo or of tightly-stuffed cotton, make up the entire furnishing of a Siamese home. The houses of the poor people are simple bamboo huts of one or two rooms, while their richer neighbors have teak-wood houses, with an extra room perhaps; but all are alike simple in their furniture.

Our little Siamese friend just runs down to the foot of the ladder—for the house is built on posts—to a large jar of water with a cocoanut-shell dipper. There she washes her face—not in the dipper, but by throwing the water over her hands and rubbing them over her face. She needs no towel, for the water is left to dry. She does not brush her teeth, for they are stained black by chewing the betel-nut and seri-leaf. Her hair does not require combing either, for it