y to give
themselves the trouble to make ready an ill dinner at home when there is
a much more plentiful one made ready for him so near hand. All the
uneasy and sordid services about these halls are performed by their
slaves; but the dressing and cooking their meat, and the ordering their
tables, belong only to the women, all those of every family taking it by
turns. They sit at three or more tables, according to their number; the
men sit towards the wall, and the women sit on the other side, that if
any of them should be taken suddenly ill, which is no uncommon case
amongst women with child, she may, without disturbing the rest, rise and
go to the nurses' room (who are there with the sucking children), where
there is always clean water at hand and cradles, in which they may lay
the young children if there is occasion for it, and a fire, that they may
shift and dress them before it. Every child is nursed by its own mother
if death or sickness does not intervene; and in that case the
Syphogrants' wives find out a nurse quickly, which is no hard matter, for
any one that can do it offers herself cheerfully; for as they are much
inclined to that piece of mercy, so the child whom they nurse considers
the nurse as its mother. All the children under five years old sit among
the nurses; the rest of the younger sort of both sexes, till they are fit
for marriage, either serve those that sit at table, or, if they are not
strong enough for that, stand by them in great silence and eat what is
given them; nor have they any other formality of dining. In the middle
of the first table, which stands across the upper end of the hall, sit
the Syphogrant and his wife, for that is the chief and most conspicuous
place; next to him sit two of the most ancient, for there go always four
to a mess. If there is a temple within the Syphogranty, the Priest and
his wife sit with the Syphogrant above all the rest; next them there is a
mixture of old and young, who are so placed that as the young are set
near others, so they are mixed with the more ancient; which, they say,
was appointed on this account: that the gravity of the old people, and
the reverence that is due to them, might restrain the younger from all
indecent words and gestures. Dishes are not served up to the whole table
at first, but the best are first set before the old, whose seats are
distinguished from the young, and, after them, all the rest are served
alike. The old men distr