Manchurian Books

The left hand is not used during
the whole meal time.
This mode of eating appears, indeed, very uninviting; but it is, in
fact, not at all so; the hand is washed, and does not touch anything
but the food. It is the same in drinking; the vessel is not put to
the lips, but the liquid is very cleverly poured into the open
mouth. Before the children have acquired this dexterity in eating
and drinking, they are not permitted, even when they wear the
girdle, to come to the table of the adults.
The most common drink in Bombay is called sud or toddy, a kind of
light spirituous beverage which is made from the cocoa and date-
palm. The taxes upon these trees are very high; the latter are, as
in Egypt, numbered and separately assessed. A tree which is only
cultivated for fruit, pays from a quarter to half a rupee (6d. to
1s.); those from which toddy is extracted, from three-quarters to
one rupee each. The people here do not climb the palm-trees by
means of rope-ladders, but they cut notches in the tree, in which
they set their feet.


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