The house has its floor raised a few inches above that of the verandah, and the interior is divided into one, two, or more apartments, according to its size and the wants of its owner. The furniture of the houses is very simple. Mats and cushions are piled in a corner ready for use; the handsomest cushions being triangular in section and embroidered at each end. Simple mats made of fine strips of bamboos or of a species of rush, often worked into patterns, serve as mattresses in summer, and are replaced by home-made cotton mattresses in the colder months. The mattress is rolled up during the day, and placed on the floor at night, and over it is suspended a thick cotton mosquito-curtain, through which one would think it scarcely possible to breathe. Curtains made of book muslin would be much more conducive to health, and would be equally serviceable, as they would keep out the sand-flies as well as the mosquitoes, which an ordinary mosquito-net does not do, as I found out before I had been many days in Burmah. The fireplace consists of a wooden frame about four feet square and six inches deep, filled with earth or sand. On this is placed a light iron tripod, or what equally serves the purpose, three pieces of brick or stone to rest the pot on when the fire is kindled. In the dry season cooking is carried on in the garden, but in the rains in a compartment of the house, the smoke finding its way out through the door, windows, interstices in the mat walls, and through the roof. The utensils consist, besides the water-jars, of a few pots, pans, baskets made waterproof by coatings of _thyt-si_ or wood-oil to serve as buckets, dippers to scoop the water from the jars made of half a cocoa-nut shell fitted with a carved wooden handle, spoons, and a few china bowls. At meal-times, which occur about seven in the morning and towards sunset, the table, about a foot and a half in diameter and six inches high, is taken down from a shelf and placed on the floor, and by its side is put the tall slender basket of steamed glutinous rice. A lacquer or brass tray holding little bowls of fish, pork, beef, bamboo-shoots, vegetables, and curry, all cut up fine before being put in the pot, and fruit, or perhaps only a bowl of curry, a dish of pickled or dried fish, vegetables and some fruit, are then laid on the table. After the family circle has gathered round, the steamed rice is served separately to each person in a small basket. The members squatting like tailors round the tray in a circle, take up the rice in lumps with their fingers, and dip it into the common bowl of curry, and pick out tit-bits from the other bowls as it suits their fancy. When soup or gravy is served, a common spoon is used; each takes a spoonful and then passes the spoon to his neighbour. After meals it is customary to wash your own bowl, as well as your mouth and fingers. [Illustration: