Manchurian Books

They strew the leaf with a small
quantity of the mussel-powder, to which they add a very small piece
of the nut, and make the whole into a little packet, which they put
into their mouth. When they chew tobacco at the same time, the
saliva becomes as red as blood, and their mouths, when open, look
like little furnaces, especially if, as is frequently the case with
the Chinese, the person has his teeth dyed and filed. The first
time I saw a case of the kind I was very frightened: I thought the
poor fellow had sustained some serious injury, and that his mouth
was full of blood.
I also visited a sago manufactory. The unprepared sago is imported
from the neighbouring island of Borromeo, and consists of the pith
of a short, thick kind of palm. The tree is cut down when it is
seven years old, split up from top to bottom, and the pith, of which
there is always a large quantity, extracted; it is then freed from
the fibres, pressed in large frames, and dried at the fire or in the
sun. At this period it has still a yellowish tinge.


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