od this beautiful island perhaps before the Pyramids or the Sphinx
existed.

At Singapore, Penang, and Colombo it was observed that the common
classes were incessantly chewing the betel-nut, which gives to their
teeth and lips a color as if bathed in fresh blood. It is a well-known
and long-established practice. The men carry the means about them at all
times, and taking a piece of the nut, enclose it in a leaf of the same
tree, adding a small quantity of quicklime; folding these together they
chow them vigorously, one quid lasting for twenty-five minutes or half
an hour, being at times permitted to rest between the gum and the cheek,
as seamen masticate a quid of tobacco. The nut is known to be a powerful
tonic, but only a small portion of the juice is swallowed. The habit is
universal among the lower classes of Asiatics. In the southern districts
of India, pepper and cardamom seeds are added to the quid, and it is
then considered to be a partial preventive against malarial influences.
Unless it produced some agreeable stimulating effect its use would not
be so common. Wherever we go, among civilized or savage races, upon
islands or upon continents, in the chilly North, or the languid, melting
South, we find man resorting to some stimulant other than natural food
and drink. It seems to be an instinctive craving exhibited and satisfied
as surely in the wilds of Africa, or the South Sea Islands, as by the
opium-consuming Chinese, or the brandy-drinking Anglo-Saxons.

CHAPTER VI.

Arrival in India.--Tuticorin.--Madura.--Bungalows.--Reptiles and
Insects.--Wonderful Pagoda.--Sacred Elephants.--Trichinopoly and
its Temples.--Bishop Heber.--Native Silversmiths.--Tanjore.--The
Rajah's Palace.--Pagoda and an Immense Stone Idol.--Southern
India.--City of Madras.--Want of a Harbor.--In and about the
Capital.--Voyage through the Bay of Bengal.--The Hoogly
River.--Political Capital of India.--A Crazy King.--The
Himalayas.--Sunset and Sunrise at Darjeeling.

We took passage in the British mail steamship Kebela from Colombo to
Tuticorin, the extreme point of southern India, once famous for its
pearl fisheries; but now as forsaken and sleepy a spot as can be found
on any sea-coast. The distance from Colombo is less than two hundred
miles through the Straits of Manar, and we landed on the following day,
after a stormy passage, during which the rain came down with tropical
profuseness.