ts and quarrel under its nose, just
to shew his independence of all law.

The dinner-bell rang a short time after our arrival, and for the first
time in my life I found myself at an American _table-d'hote_. I was
astonished, as an Indian well might be. Before my companions and self
had had time to set down and make choice of any particular dish, all was
disappearing like a dream. A general opposite to me took hold of a
fowl, and, in the twinkling of an eye, severed the wings and legs. I
thought it was polite of him to carve for others as well as himself, and
was waiting for him to pass over the dish after he had helped himself,
when to my surprise, he retained all he had cut off, and pushed the
carcase of the bird away from him. Before I had recovered from my
astonishment, his plate was empty. Another seized a plate cranberries,
a fruit I was partial to, and I waited for him to help himself first and
then pass the dish over to me; but he proved be more greedy than the
general, for, with an enormous horn spoon, he swallowed the whole.

The table was now deserted by all except by me and my companions, who,
with doleful faces, endeavoured to appease our hunger with some stray
potatoes. We called the landlord, and asked him for something to eat;
it was with much difficulty that we could get half-a-dozen of eggs and
as many slices of salt pork. This lesson was not thrown away upon me;
and afterwards, when travelling in the States, I always helped myself
before I was seated, caring nothing for my neighbours. Politeness at
meals may be and is practised in Europe, or among the Indians, but among
the Americans it would be attended with starvation.

After dinner, to kill time, we went to the court-house and were
fortunate enough to find room in a position where we could see and hear
all that was going on.

The judge was seated upon a chair, the frame of which he was whittling
with such earnestness that he appeared to have quite forgotten where he
was. On each side of him were half-a-dozen of jurymen, squatted upon
square blocks, which they were also whittling, judge and jurymen having
each a cigar in the mouth, and a flask of liquor, with which now and
then they regaled themselves. The attorney, on his legs, addressing the
jury, was also smoking, as well as the plaintiff, the defendant, and all
the audience. The last were seated, horseback-fashion, upon parallel
low benches, for their accommodation, twenty feet lon