heir hands, and when they
saw he was at leisure, one of them gently struck his mouth, and the other
his right ear; at which he startled like one awaked on the sudden, and
looking towards me and the company I was in, recollected the occasion of
our coming, whereof he had been informed before. He spoke some words,
whereupon immediately a young man with a flap came up to my side, and
flapped me gently on the right ear; but I made signs, as well as I could,
that I had no occasion for such an instrument; which, as I afterwards
found, gave his majesty, and the whole court, a very mean opinion of my
understanding. The king, as far as I could conjecture, asked me several
questions, and I addressed myself to him in all the languages I had.
When it was found I could neither understand nor be understood, I was
conducted by his order to an apartment in his palace (this prince being
distinguished above all his predecessors for his hospitality to
strangers), where two servants were appointed to attend me. My dinner
was brought, and four persons of quality, whom I remembered to have seen
very near the king's person, did me the honour to dine with me. We had
two courses, of three dishes each. In the first course, there was a
shoulder of mutton cut into an equilateral triangle, a piece of beef into
a rhomboides, and a pudding into a cycloid. The second course was two
ducks trussed up in the form of fiddles; sausages and puddings resembling
flutes and hautboys, and a breast of veal in the shape of a harp. The
servants cut our bread into cones, cylinders, parallelograms, and several
other mathematical figures.

While we were at dinner, I made bold to ask the names of several things
in their language, and those noble persons, by the assistance of their
flappers, delighted to give me answers, hoping to raise my admiration of
their great abilities if I could be brought to converse with them. I was
soon able to call for bread and drink, or whatever else I wanted.

After dinner my company withdrew, and a person was sent to me by the
king's order, attended by a flapper. He brought with him pen, ink, and
paper, and three or four books, giving me to understand by signs, that he
was sent to teach me the language. We sat together four hours, in which
time I wrote down a great number of words in columns, with the
translations over against them; I likewise made a shift to learn several
short sentences; for my tutor would order one of my ser