detail one or two men to assist us, while the others prepare their own food, which has been selected and laid away, as ours has been, in Bangkok before starting. The Laos men are more or less accustomed to assist in cooking when at home, and this training is a great convenience to themselves and to us in this long river-journey.
If our methods of preparing a meal are different, a much sharper contrast is drawn as we sit down in two companies on the river-shore to eat our food. The Laos squat around their baskets of boiled or steamed rice and bowls of peppery curry made of chicken or fish. This, with bowls of vegetables and fruit lying around loose, is laid on the bare sand or deck as the case may be. No knives or forks are used, but we may see wooden spoons, with which they dip up the savory vegetable curry from the general dish, throwing back their heads as they put it into their mouths. In fact, they eat most of their food in this manner.
Supper is the only meal we can take leisurely, as we do not prepare it till landed for the night. At breakfast and dinner we consume but little over an hour in preparing and eating. By management we can have breakfast and dinner under preparation when the boat stops, so as to make as little delay as possible. All having eaten and the dishes being washed and laid away, we resume our course.
