"Betel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... large and strong, and, whereas in old age they frequently become few and discolored, during prime they are often white and clean. The people never artificially stain the teeth, and, though surrounded by betel-nut chewers with dark teeth or red-stained lips, they do not ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... he had talked for an hour and a half 'I hope some day to enjoy your offeecial acquaintance. Ad interim, if I may be pardoned that expression, I shall give you this betel-box, which is highly valuable article and cost me two rupees only four years ago.' It was a cheap, heart-shaped brass thing with three compartments for carrying the eternal betel-nut, lime and pan-leaf; but it was ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... sun; and were followed by posses of retainers, who prostrated themselves whenever their masters halted or looked round. Ladies in white jackets and trailing silk skirts of vivid hue were taking a leisurely airing, each with her demure maid behind her carrying the lacquer-ware box of betel-nut. As often as not the fair ones were blowing copious clouds from huge reed-like cheroots. Sounds of shrill music were heard in the distance. Walking up the central alley between the rows of palms and the hedges of roses, we found in the ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... abundant and longer than that of other peoples. His figure is well proportioned, neat, and generally somewhat boyish. His expression is bright and mobile, his lips and teeth are generally distorted and discoloured by the constant chewing of betel nut. They are a vain, dressy, boastful, excitable, not to say frivolous people — cheerful, talkative, sociable, fond of fun and jokes and lively stories; though given to exaggeration, their statements can generally be accepted as founded on fact; they ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... particular hill;" "If you wash your head before starting it will not be dry before you reach the place," etc. They also measure distances by the day's walk, and by the number of times it is necessary to chew betel between two places. The hours are denoted by terms not literally accurate. Cockcrowing is daybreak, 1 P.M., and midnight; 9 A.M., Lepas Baja, is the time when the buffaloes, which cannot work when the sun is high, are relieved from the plough; Tetabawe is 6 P.M., ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... unnecessary to say more. At once Ah Minga, the "boy"; Zim, the cook; the kebuns (gardeners); the tukanayer (water-boy), and even the sleek Hindu dirzee, who sat sewing, dozing, and chewing betel-nut, on the shady side of the veranda, turned out with one accord and commenced a systematic ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... all the Mohurrum performers, the Nal Sahebs or Lord Horse-shoes, the tigers and the mummers of Protean disguise. The spot becomes an "Akhada" or tryst at which the tomb-builders entertain all comers with draughts of sherbet or sugared water, but not with betel which has no place in seasons of mourning. Here for example comes a band of Marathas and Kamathis with bells upon their ankles, who form a ring in front of the "tazia", while their leader chants in a ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.
... monkey followed them; but before he did so, he went into the jungle and took off his monkey-skin, and God sent him a beautiful horse and beautiful clothes. Then he followed his brothers and overtook them, and gave them betel-leaf and lovely flowers. "What a beautiful boy!" they said. "Who is it owns such a beautiful boy? He must be some Raja's son." Then he galloped quickly away, took off his grand clothes and put them on his horse, and ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Anonymous
... they tell you in Malay, was always very, very beautiful, as we see her now. Like all the Malay women, Putri Balan loved to chew the spicy betel-nut which turns one's lips a bright scarlet. It is better, so they say, than any kind of candy, and it is considered much nicer and more respectable than chewing-gum. So Putri Balan was not unladylike, although she chewed her betel-nut all ...
— The Curious Book of Birds • Abbie Farwell Brown
... proper toilet of the mouth, and this is the common practice among the Filipinos, buyo seems to be a very useful preservative of the teeth and a gingival and stomachic tonic. These properties are readily understood when we consider that the lime is antacid, the bonga astringent and tonic and the betel aromatic and stimulant. ...
— The Medicinal Plants of the Philippines • T. H. Pardo de Tavera
... the seed till it burned out; it failed notably because, relying upon it, he worked too vigorously. The essence of the "retaining art" is to avoid over-tension of the muscles and to pre-occupy the brain: hence in coition Hindus will drink sherbet, chew betel-nut and even smoke. Europeans ignoring the science and practice, are contemptuously compared with village-cocks by Hindu women who cannot be satisfied, such is their natural coldness, increased doubtless by vegetable diet ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... the Sun, the new fire being kindled from concave mirrors by the sun's rays. The Romans under Numa had precisely the same custom. The Peruvians had theatrical plays. They chewed the leaves of the coca mixed with lime, as the Hindoo to-day chews the leaves of the betel mixed with lime. Both the American and European nations were divided into castes; both practised planet-worship; both used scales and weights and mirrors. The Peruvians, Egyptians, and Chaldeans divided the year into twelve months, and the months into ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... it be," you meditate, "if the betel-chewing priest might be sacrificed in place of the innocent and helpless animal." But no, human sacrifices are no longer permitted in India; ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... stalest, I could contribute nothing to his enlightenment. Besides my rifle, I had in my belt a pair of loaded pistols. He desired to look at them, but took in good part enough my objection that I never trusted them in any hands but my own. We went on talking for a little while, when he called for betel and pan. This meant that I might go. I helped myself, took leave and recrossed the drawbridge. It was a notorious freebooter, a Hindoo Robin Hood, that I had dropped upon. But why did he not tumble me into his ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... Saleh and his people found Abas sitting cross-legged in the outer apartment preparing a quid of betel-nut with elaborate care. The visitors squatted on the mats, and the usual customary salutations over, Penghulu ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... After this I saw the position was serious and I was in a hurry to get back to the Emma, but pretending I did not care I smiled and thanked Tengga for giving me warning of his intentions about me and the Emma. At this he nearly choked himself with his betel quid and fixing me with his little eyes, muttered: "Even a lizard will give a fly the time to say its prayers." I turned my back on him and was very thankful to get beyond the throw of a spear. I haven't been out of the ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad |
