epast. It was a kind of garden, but he was
easy to be seen; and we were given to understand that the more we looked
at him the better he would be pleased. He sat under a tree, something
like the palmetto, which effectually shaded him over the head, and on the
south side; but under the tree was placed a large umbrella, which made
that part look well enough. He sat lolling back in a great elbow-chair,
being a heavy corpulent man, and had his meat brought him by two women
slaves. He had two more, one of whom fed the squire with a spoon, and
the other held the dish with one hand, and scraped off what he let fall
upon his worship's beard and taffety vest.

Leaving the poor wretch to please himself with our looking at him, as if
we admired his idle pomp, we pursued our journey. Father Simon had the
curiosity to stay to inform himself what dainties the country justice had
to feed on in all his state, which he had the honour to taste of, and
which was, I think, a mess of boiled rice, with a great piece of garlic
in it, and a little bag filled with green pepper, and another plant which
they have there, something like our ginger, but smelling like musk, and
tasting like mustard; all this was put together, and a small piece of
lean mutton boiled in it, and this was his worship's repast. Four or
five servants more attended at a distance, who we supposed were to eat of
the same after their master. As for our mandarin with whom we travelled,
he was respected as a king, surrounded always with his gentlemen, and
attended in all his appearances with such pomp, that I saw little of him
but at a distance. I observed that there was not a horse in his retinue
but that our carrier's packhorses in England seemed to me to look much
better; though it was hard to judge rightly, for they were so covered
with equipage, mantles, trappings, &c., that we could scarce see anything
but their feet and their heads as they went along.

I was now light-hearted, and all my late trouble and perplexity being
over, I had no anxious thoughts about me, which made this journey the
pleasanter to me; in which no ill accident attended me, only in passing
or fording a small river, my horse fell and made me free of the country,
as they call it--that is to say, threw me in. The place was not deep,
but it wetted me all over. I mention it because it spoiled my pocket-
book, wherein I had set down the names of several people and places which
I had occasion to re