The darker the teeth the more beautiful is a Siamese belle considered; and in order that their gums should be of a brilliant red, to form a pleasant contrast to the black lips and teeth, they resort to the pastime of chewing betel from morning till night. The constituents of the betel being rolled up into something very much like a sailor’s quid, it is then thrust into the lady’s cheek, and is munched, and crunched, and chewed so long as the slightest flavour is to be extracted, and, as they never swallow the juice, the results are very detrimental to the cleanliness of the floors of the houses, and of themselves generally. They commonly make use of two such quids during the day, and this mixture has the effect of dyeing their gums and the whole of the palate and tongue of a blood-red colour. Old crones, and very ancient _chronoses_ (for both men and women use the betel), who have no longer any teeth to masticate the mixture with, are attended by servants, who have a species of small pestle and mortar always about them, wherein they reduce the betel into a proper form for the delicate gums of their aged patrons.[30] The betel pepper is cultivated at Zanzibar, where the use of betel prevails, as it does at the Comoro Islands and at Bombay. But the custom is not in vogue in Arabia. The betel palm is also grown for the sake of its fruits in the island of Zanzibar. The habit of masticating betel nut in combination with hemp has of late come into vogue in the United States of America, and doubtless Brother Jonathan will soon eclipse Malaya in his predilection for the “buyo.” CHAPTER XXI. OUR LADY OF YONGAS. And all my days are trances; And all my nightly dreams Are where thy dark eye glances, And where thy footstep gleams: In what etherial dances, By what eternal streams. E. A. POE. To the Peruvian the province of Yongas de la Paz in the North-East of Bolivia is an El Dorado, because _there_ grows in the greatest profusion and luxuriance his favorite Coca. We may look with delight towards the island of Ceylon, and, in imagination, snuff the fragrant breezes that have passed over the cinnamon groves and coffee plantations; or direct the gaze of our children across the map of the world to South-Eastern China, and inform them that from thence our good dames receive their tea; and thence to the United States, and add that from this place their worthy sires receive the greater part of their tobacco. But the affections of the Peruvian are not so divided; they are located upon one spot, and _that_ the province of the “warm valleys,” or the Yungas de la Paz; there dwells his patron saint, and from thence _he_ receives the “keys of Paradise.”