"Betel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... have had a vast influence on the commerce of nations, and have been the great promoters of navigation, as may be seen in the articles of sugar, tea, tobacco, opium, ginseng, betel, paper, etc. As every climate has its peculiar produce, our natural wants bring on a mutual intercourse; so that by means of trade each distant part is supplied with the growth of every latitude. But, without the knowledge of plants and their culture, we must ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... various kinds of beasts and birds, and the limpid lakes were filled with pure water, and lotus flowers were blooming, upon which swarms upon swarms of black bees were humming. To the distance of many miles orchards, containing an endless variety of fruit and flowers, extended; along these enclosures betel gardens were flourishing. The gardeners, standing at the wells, were singing with sweet strains; and, working waterwheels and buckets, were irrigating ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... according to custom, with great garlands made of yellow flowers, and provided with betel-nut to chew, this pleasant visit closed, and we passed thence to a scene of a different sort: from this glow of color and this sunny life to those grim receptacles of the Parsee dead, the Towers of Silence. There is something stately about that name, and an impressiveness which sinks deep; the hush ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... method of using it as a stimulant is described in Vol. IV, p. 22a. The coca to which the betel-nut is here compared is the dried leaf of a Peruvian shrub (Erythroxylon coca). of stimulant and tonic qualities. From it is obtained the well-known ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... loud musket reports is heard from the different villages along the river; these are imitation evening guns. All copy the Arabs in dress and chewing tobacco with "nora" lime, made from burnt river shells instead of betel-nut and lime. The women are stout, well-built persons, with thick arms and legs; their heads incline to the bullet shape; the lip-rings are small; the tattoo a mixture of Makoa and Waiyau. Fine blue and black beads are in fashion, and so are arm-coils ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... 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 Mat ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... here; but they disfigure and spoil one of the principal attractions of ladies in enlightened nations, the teeth, which they blacken by chewing betel." ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... 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 lesser ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... elephants and the less common giraffes, though the former are strictly forbidden in the streets of Bombay. We had an opportunity of seeing ministers, and even Rajas, mounted on these noble animals, their mouths full of pansupari (betel leaves), their heads drooping under the weight of the precious stones on their turbans, and each of their fingers and toes adorned with rich golden rings. While the evening I am describing lasted, however, we saw no elephants, no ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... like the starving men we were, and did not notice that the chief had assembled his head men for a consultation, until he sent a man running from the hall, returned shortly with six pieces of betel nut, which the natives chew instead of tobacco, and gave them to the chief, who handed one to each of us as a mark of friendship. Next, to our amazement, one of the natives produced Roger's useless pistol ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... morning we placed our presents in the big courtyard in these big yellow trays. The Young Empress had her trays in the first row. The presents from the Young Empress to the Empress Dowager were made by her own hands. There were ten pairs of shoes, silk embroidered handkerchiefs, little bags for betel nuts, and bags for tobacco, all exquisitely done. The Secondary wife of the Emperor Kwang Hsu presented about the same to Her Majesty. The Court ladies' presents were all different, as we could ask permission to go out shopping before the Feast. We could not go out together, for one or two of us ...
— Two Years in the Forbidden City • The Princess Der Ling
... open sala, or shed, where interpreters, inspectors, and tidewaiters lounge away the day on cool mats, chewing areca, betel, and tobacco, and extorting moneys, goods, or provisions from the unhappy proprietors of native trading craft, large or small; but Europeans are protected from their rascally and insolent exactions by the intelligence and ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... vegetables, coconuts, bananas, cassava (tapioca), sakau (kava), betel nuts, sweet potatoes; pigs, ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... looking toward them. They held their breath. Both were on the topmost step but one; only a narrow space separated them from the sentinel; they could hear the movement of his jaws as he chewed a betel {nut of the areca palm wrapped in the leaf of the ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... inscription dated 1468 records their existence in the Myingyan district. Also in a village near Pagan are preserved Tantric frescoes representing Bodhisattvas with their Saktis. In one temple is an inscription dated 1248 and requiring the people to supply the priests morning and evening with rice, beef, betel, and a jar of spirits.[144] It is not clear whether these priests were Aris or not, but they evidently professed an ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... design is traced on the wood with charcoal, gouged out in the rough, and finished with sharp fine tools, using the mallet for every stroke. The great bulk of the silver work is in the form of bowls of different sizes, in shape something like the lower half of a barrel, only more convex, of betel boxes, cups and small boxes for lime. Both in the wood-carving and silver work the Burmese character displays itself, giving boldness, breadth and freedom of design, but a general want of careful finish. Unfortunately the national art is losing its ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... 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 ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... 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 ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... is a-building, there gather 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 ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.
... talks to a customer he "draws a line" and debits the conversation; when his own credit is shaky he writes up his transactions on the wall so that they can easily be rubbed out. He is so stingy that the dogs starve at his feast, and he scolds his wife if she spends a farthing on betel-nut. A Jain Baniya drinks dirty water and shrinks from killing ants and flies, but will not stick at murder in pursuit of gain. As a druggist the Baniya is in league with the doctor; he buys weeds at a nominal price and sells them very dear. Finally, he is always a shocking coward: eighty-four ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... hearing her speak was astonished, gave her a betel leaf in token that he held her to her promise, and permitted her to depart, which she did with a ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... person to write a few words in the open book before him, and then threw upon the leaves a portion of grain. After this had been distributed, they made the circle again, and threw gold leaf upon the volumes; then came spices and betel-nut, cut in small pieces, and lastly flowers, and a profusion of the red powder (abeer) so lavishly employed in Hindu festivals. More incense was burned, and the ceremony concluded, the merchants rising and congratulating each other. Formerly, when our host was a more ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... his head with mournful regret and threw another handful of fuel on the fire. The burst of clear flame lit up his broad, dark, and pock-marked face, where the big lips, stained with betel-juice, looked like a deep and bleeding gash of a fresh wound. The reflection of the firelight gleamed brightly in his solitary eye, lending it for a moment a fierce animation that died out together with the short-lived flame. With quick touches ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... in the Dacca division of Eastern Bengal and Assam. It forms part of the joint delta of the Ganges and the Brahmaputra, and its area is 4542 sq. m. The general aspect of the district is that of a flat even country, dotted with clusters of bamboos and betel-nut trees, and intersected by a perfect network of dark-coloured and sluggish streams. There is not a hill or hillock in the whole district, but it derives a certain picturesque beauty from its wide expanses of cultivation, and the greenness and freshness of the vegetation. This is especially ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... all the clothes he wore. The carved pearl-shell ornament that hung from nose to chin and impeded speech was purely ornamental, as were the holes in his ears mere utilities for carrying pipe and tobacco. His broken-fanged teeth were stained black by betel- nut, the juice of which he ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... by the natives. This is a shrub which grows to the height of a man. The leaves when gathered are dried in the sun, and, being mixed with a little lime, form a preparation for chewing, much like the betel-leaf of the East.31 With a small supply of this cuca in his pouch, and a handful of roasted maize, the Peruvian Indian of our time performs his wearisome journeys, day ,after day, without fatigue, or, at least, without complaint. Even food the most invigorating is less grateful to him than ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... a booth where bottles full of pink and yellow fluid, and green leaves, wrapped around betel-nut, appeared to be the chief stock-in-trade, and a noise of hammering struck on their ears. Here a new shrine was being erected and was all but completed. A few Chinamen, who had been working at it, were putting their tools ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... the utmost luxuriance; almost as broad as the broad fans of the broad-bladed banana. The stalks of the leaf withdrawn, the remainder they cut up, and mixed with soft willow-bark, and the aromatic leaves of the Betel. ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... absolutely safe proceeding even then as we have seen). Much to my amusement a lean toddy drawer of mine, an excellent shikari, went a few yards into the swampy ground, got on to a small boulder of rock, squatted down, took out his betel bag, threw some betel into his mouth preparatory to chewing, and then held out his long skinny arm and forefinger and said, "Look! A tiger made a meal of a man close to this last year. Let everyone therefore be careful and get up into trees, and mind what they are about." The next ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot |
