272 LIFE IN JAVA.
\vitli our eyes suffused with tears, as painful as those which " Hve in an onion," we waited the cooking of our repast, it being too cold and rainy to sit out of doors.
The scene would have formed the subject of a curious sketch. Perched on three large stones, which served as a kind of temporary grate, sang and hissed a huge black kettle; whilst, close by, the mandoer was employed in boiling rice, and next to him a man was warming a cold fowl, which he held near the fire by means of a bamboo thrust across its Avings. The other occupants of the hut were squatted as near the fire as the mandoer would allow them to come; some engaged in chewing betel, their cud of comfort, and otliers puffing away at their rocos, and rubbing their eyes from time to time, apparently by no means in their element. My wife, soon after entering, had tied a bandage over her eyes, and I partially followed her example by holding a pocket hand-
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