Page:Siam and Laos, as seen by our American missionaries (1884).pdf/491

 this veranda you would enter the front room or open court, where the daughter of the house spreads a clean mat on the floor for you and gives you a large three-cornered pillow on which you may rest one of your elbows. As a mark of hospitality a tray or box of betel-nut and seri-leaf will be set before you, and the invitation given to help yourself. Though you decline, you will be interested in watching those who may be seated beside you preparing their quid. The seri- or betel-leaf is taken first, and its tip overlaid with a minute quantity of slaked lime; then a pinch of finely-cut tobacco, a piece of cutch the size of a pea and the fourth of a dried areca-nut are wrapped in the seri-leaf, completing the mixture, which is chewed with evident enjoyment. To foreigners this is a very offensive custom, but so universal is it among both old and young that a box of these ingredients is carried with them in a bag suspended from the shoulders.

Should a member of the family be sick, you might be invited nominally to see her, but you may be assured that you would have more occasion to use your ears than your eyes, for the only window in the room is a round hole about three inches in diameter and several feet from the floor. The mattress is placed on the floor and surrounded by thick mosquito-netting, through which you would think it scarcely possible to breathe.