_Other foodstuffs._--Most Oriental nations depend largely for their supply of nitrogenous or proteid food on pulses of various sorts, and, weight for weight, many of these are far more nutritious even than meat. No doubt religious and economical considerations have had much to say in the development of this preference, but, on the other hand, the minute regulations to be found in many religious codes are very often based on really sound sanitary notions that have grown up as the result of traditional experience, and it is probable that the repugnance of the Hindu for meat food, though doubtless carried too far, is based on something more than a mere whim of ritual, and that the introduction of pulses into our dietary as a partial substitute for meat would be advantageous, at any rate during the great heats. At such seasons, the kidneys have all they can do to clear off the waste materials that naturally result from the work of the body, and as meat always contains a large amount of these same waste materials that have originated in the work of the animal that furnished the meat, it is obvious that its extensive use must throw an additional strain on already over-taxed organs. Caution in this matter is, of course, doubly necessary in persons who suffer from either gouty or rheumatic tendencies. The two most palatable among the commoner pulses are lentils (_Lens esculenta_) and thur dal. (_Cajanus Indicus_), the latter of which often finds its way to Anglo-Indian tables, but might be more extensively eaten with advantage. All pulses require very thorough cooking, and should be reduced to an absolute pulp by the process; for under other circumstances, they are apt to prove extremely indigestible, whereas when properly treated they are absorbed with the greatest facility. Rice should be so cooked that the grains, though thoroughly softened, lie quite separate, but it is seldom or never met with cooked to perfection out of India, and by no means always there. The stodgy, sticky mass turned out by the ordinary English cook, or French _chef_, obstinately resists admixture with the gastric juice, and instead of being the lightest, is converted into a very heavy article of food. The secret, I understand, consists in putting the well-washed rice into boiling water to which a crystal of alum has been added, and completing the cooking in this. The alum water is then washed off with several changes of cold water, the rice drained, and finally warmed up over a very gentle fire. _Tinned provisions._--A good many familiar home luxuries can only reach our distant possessions in the form of tinned stores, but there is a tendency to rely too much on them. At their very best they cannot approach well-cooked fresh food in wholesomeness and palatability; and frugality in their employment may be always regarded as one of the distinguishing marks of a good housekeeper, for, speaking generally, the less tins are used the better.