or centre, is enclosed by a partition of four sides, reaching about six feet above the floor, and one or two small rooms are also sometimes taken off from the sides, the rest of the space under the roof is open, so as freely to admit the air and the light:  The particular uses of these different apartments, our short stay would not permit us to learn, except that the close room in the centre was appropriated to the women.

The food of these people consists of every tame animal in the country, of which the hog holds the first place in their estimation, and the horse the second; next to the horse is the buffalo, next to the buffalo their poultry, and they prefer dogs and cats to sheep and goats.  They are not fond of fish, and, I believe, it is never eaten but by the poor people, nor by them except when their duty or business requires them to be upon the beach, and then every man is furnished with a light casting-net, which is girt round him, and makes part of his dress; and with this he takes any small fish which happen to come in his way.

The esculent vegetables and fruits have been mentioned already, but the fan-palm requires more particular notice, for at certain times it is a succedaneum for all other food both to man and beast.  A kind of wine, called toddy, is procured from this tree, by cutting the buds which are to produce flowers, soon after their appearance, and tying under them small baskets, made of the leaves, which are so close as to hold liquids without leaking.  The juice which trickles into these vessels is collected by persons who climb the trees for that purpose, morning and evening, and is the common drink of every individual upon the island; yet a much greater quantity is drawn off than is consumed in this use, and of the surplus they make both a syrup and coarse sugar.  The liquor is called dua, or duac, and both the syrup and sugar, gula.  The syrup is prepared by boiling the liquor down in pots of earthen-ware, till it is sufficiently inspissated; it is not unlike treacle in appearance, but is somewhat thicker, and has a much more agreeable taste:  The sugar is of a reddish brown, perhaps the same with the Jugata sugar upon the continent of India, and it was more agreeable to our palates than any cane-sugar, unrefined, that we had ever tasted.  We were at first afraid that the syrup, of which some of our people eat very great quantities, would have brought on fluxes, but its aperient quality was so very slight, that what effect it produced was rather salutary than hurtful.  I have already observed, that it is given with the husks of rice to the hogs, and that they grow enormously fat without taking any other food:  We were told also, that this syrup is used to fatten their dogs and their fowls, and that the inhabitants themselves have subsisted upon this alone for several months, when other crops have failed, and animal food has been scarce.[108] The leaves of this tree are also put to various uses, they thatch houses, and make baskets,