to be eaten: witness the
consumption of swine and ducks, animals that delight in carriage as
well as fish, and prey upon each other, and feed on bait and carrion;
together with the demand for bear, of which the best hams in the world
are made. He then observed that the negroes on the coast of Guinea, who
are healthy and vigorous people, prefer cats and dogs to all other
fare; and mentioned from history several sieges, during which the
inhabitants, who were blocked up, lived upon these animals, and had
recourse even to human flesh, which, to his certain knowledge, was in
all respects preferable to pork; for, in the course of his studies, he
had, for the experiment's sake, eaten a steak cut from the buttock of a
person who had been hanged.

This dissertation, far from composing, increased the disquiet in
the stomachs of the governor and painter, who, hearing the last
illustration, turned their eyes upon the orator, at the same instant,
with looks of horror and disgust; and the one muttering the term
"cannibal," and the other pronouncing the word "abomination," they rose
from table in a great hurry, and running towards another apartment,
jostled with such violence in the passage, that both were overturned
by the shock, which also contributed to the effect of their nausea that
mutually defiled them as they lay.

CHAPTER XLIX.

Nor is the Physician sacred from his Ridicule--They reach Arras, where
our Adventurer engages in Play with two French Officers, who, next
Morning, give the Landlord an interesting Proof of their Importance.

The doctor remained sullen and dejected during the whole journey: not
but that he attempted to recover his importance by haranguing upon the
Roman highways, when Mr. Jolter desired the company to take notice of
the fine pavement upon which they travelled from Paris into Flanders;
but Pallet, who thought he had now gained the ascendency over the
physician, exerted himself in maintaining the superiority he had
acquired, by venting various sarcasms upon his self-conceit and
affectation of learning, and even tittering puns and conundrums upon the
remarks which the republican retailed. When he talked of the Flaminian
Way, the painter questioned if it was a better pavement than the
Fleminian Way on which they travelled: and the doctor having observed,
that this road was made for the convenience of drawing the French
artillery into Flanders, which was often the seat of war, his competitor