Water is the principal and almost exclusive beverage, and, among people of condition, it is invariably boiled first, and generally drunk warm. Some are in the habit of flavouring the water with cinnamon and other spices; but tea, when it can be procured, is drunk by all classes at intervals during the day. On occasions of festivals and parties, when many of the chiefs are assembled, the dishes are extremely numerous and crowded; and hospitality being a virtue which the Javans carry almost to an excess, due care is taken that the dependants and retainers are also duly provided for. These, particularly in the highlands of the _Súnda_ districts, where the people are furthest removed from foreign intercourse, and the native manners are consequently better preserved, are arranged in rows at intervals, according to their respective ranks; the first in order sitting at the bottom of the hall, and the lowest at some distance without, where each is carefully supplied with a bountiful proportion of the feast: thus exhibiting, in the mountainous districts of Java, an example of rude hospitality, and union of the different gradations of society in the same company, similar to that which prevailed in the Highlands of Scotland some centuries ago, where, it is said, "those of inferior description were, nevertheless, considered as guests, and had their share, both of the entertainment and of the good cheer of the day." It is at these parties that the chiefs sometimes indulge in intoxicating liquors, but the practice is not general; and the use of wine, which has been introduced among them by the Dutch, is in most instances rather resorted to from respect to Europeans, than from any attachment to the bottle. The Javans have universally two meals in the day; one just before noon, and one between seven and eight o'clock in the evening: the former, which is the principal meal, corresponding with the European dinner, and distinguished by the term _mángán-áwan_, or the day meal; the latter, termed _mángán wéngé_, or evening meal. They have no regular meal corresponding with the European breakfast; but those who go abroad early in the morning, usually partake of a basin of coffee and some rice cakes before they quit their homes, or purchase something of the kind at one of the numerous _wárongs_, or stalls, which line the public roads, and are to the common people as so many coffee or eating-houses would be to the European; rice, coffee, cakes, boiled rice, soups, ready dressed meats and vegetables, being at all times exposed in them. What is thus taken by the Javans in the morning to break the fast, is considered as a whet, and termed sarap.