Identifier: travelsincentral01mouh (find matches)
Title: Travels in the central parts of Indo-China (Siam), Cambodia, and Laos : during the years 1858, 1859, and 1860
Year: 1864 (1860s)
Authors: Mouhot, Henri, 1826-1861 Mouhot, Charles
Subjects: Mouhot, Henri, 1826-1861
Publisher: London : John Murray
Contributing Library: University of Connecticut Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Library Consortium Member Libraries

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
d in the middleof the field that, by pulling a rope made of rattan, theyare made to strike against each other, and the noise scaresaway the birds, which without some such contrivancewould eat up all the seed. The harvest is reaped at theend of October. Generally, two months previously povertyand famine begin to make themselves felt. As long asprovisions last they feast without ever thinking of themorrow; when they are exhausted they are reduced toeat serpents, toads, and bats, which last are found in greatnumbers in the hollows of the old bamboos. Often theyhave even to content themselves with the seeds of themaize, young bamboo-shoots, wild roots, and other spon-taneous productions of the ground. All the domestic animals of the neighbouring countries,such as oxen, pigs, fowls, and ducks, are found here, butin small numbers. Elephants are scarce; but farthernorth, among the tribe of the Benams, it is said that novillage is without them. When the harvest has been gathered in the Stiens
Text Appearing After Image:
Chap. X. MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 249 commence a series of festivities. The rice having beenpiled up in oblong stacks, they take from these everymorning as much as suffices for the days consumption.One community sends invitations to another, and theinhabitants of a wealthy village will often kill as many asten oxen for the entertainment; all must be consumedbefore they separate, and day and night they eat anddrink to the accompaniment of the Chinese tam-tam andtambom-ine. This excess, after a long period of privation,brings on illness, commonly the itch and other cutaneousdisorders. Much of this, however, also proceeds from thewant of salt, which they cannot always procure. Forall internal complaints, the general remedy here, as inCambodia, is an iron heated in the fire and applied to thepit of the stomach, and there are few men without scarson this part of the body. They are acquainted with many of the remedies drawnfrom simples; they never cover up a wound or sore, butleave it exposed t

Note About Images