Chinese, rice is the "staff of life," but all kinds of animal food are eagerly devoured; and pedlars offering for sale rats, cats, and dogs, may be seen in the streets of Chinese towns. It is uncertain whether a depraved taste or lack of superior animal food, induces a really civilized people to devour such flesh. Weak tea, without sugar, or milk, is the common beverage of the Chinese; in the use of ardent spirits they are moderate. The
Peguese, worshipping crocodiles, will drink no water but from the ditches wherein those creatures abound, and consequently are frequently devoured by them. The
Siamese, besides a variety of superior food, eat rats, lizards, and some kinds of insects. The
Battas of Sumatra, prefer
human flesh to all other, and speak with rapture of the soles of the feet and palms of the hands. Warm water is the usual beverage of the
Manilla islanders. The
Japanese, amongst other things, drink a kind of beer distilled from rice, and called
sacki; it is kept constantly warm, and drunk after every morsel they eat. Cocoa-nut milk and water, is the common beverage of the natives of the
New Hebrides. In
New Caledonia so great is the scarcity of food, that the natives make constant war for the sake of eating their prisoners, and sometimes, to assuage the cravings of hunger, they bind ligatures tightly round their bodies and swallow oleaginous earth. The
New Zealanders are cannibals sometimes in a dearth, and to gratify a spirit of vengeance against their enemies. The
New Hollanders, near the sea, subsist on fish eaten raw, or nearly so; should a whale be cast ashore, it is never abandoned until its bones are picked; their substitute for bread, and that which forms their chief subsistence, is a species of fern roasted, pounded between stones, and mixed with fish. The general beverage of the negro tribes is palm-wine. No disgust is evinced by the
Bosjesman Hottentots at the most nauseous food, and having shot an animal with a poisoned arrow, their only precaution, previous to tearing it in pieces and devouring it raw, is to cut out the envenomed part. Half a dozen Bosjesmans, will eat a fat sheep in an hour; they use no salt, and seldom drink anything, probably from the succulent nature of their food. The
Caffres live chiefly on milk; they have no poultry, nor do they eat eggs. When flesh is boiled, each member of a family helps himself from the kettle with a pointed stick, and eats it in his hand. Their substitute for bread, which is made of Caffre-corn, a sort of millet, is the pith of a palm, indigenous to the country.
