showing my impatience
(perhaps against the strict rules of decency) by putting my finger
frequently on my mouth, to signify that I wanted food.

The _hurgo_ (for so they call a great lord, as I afterward learned)
understood me very well. He descended from the stage, and commanded that
several ladders should be applied to my sides, on which above an hundred
of the inhabitants mounted, and walked toward my mouth, laden with
baskets full of meat, which had been provided and sent thither by the
king's orders, upon the first intelligence he received of me. I observed
there was the flesh of several animals, but could not distinguish them
by the taste. There were shoulders, legs, and loins, shaped like those
of mutton, and very well dressed but smaller than the wings of a lark. I
eat them by two or three at a mouthful, and took three loaves at a time,
about the bigness of musket-bullets. They supplied me as fast as they
could, showing a thousand marks of wonder and astonishment at my bulk
and appetite.

I then made another sign, that I wanted drink. They found by my eating
that a small quantity would not suffice me; and, being a most ingenious
people, they slung up, with great dexterity, one of their largest
hogsheads, then rolled it toward my hand, and beat out the top. I drank
it off at a draught, which I might well do, for it did not hold half a
pint, and tasted like a small wine of Burgundy, but much more delicious.
They brought me a second hogshead, which I drank in the same manner, and
made signs for more; but they had none to give me.

When I had performed these wonders, they shouted for joy, and danced
upon my breast, repeating several times, as they did at first, "Hekinah
degul." They made me a sign that I should throw down the two hogsheads,
but first warning the people below to stand out of the way, crying
aloud, "Borach mivolah"; and when they saw the vessels in the air there
was an universal shout of "Hekinah degul."

I confess I was often tempted, while they were passing backward and
forward on my body, to seize forty or fifty of the first that came in my
reach, and dash them against the ground. But the remembrance of what I
had felt, which probably might not be the worst they could do, and the
promise of honor I made them--for so I interpreted my submissive
behavior--soon drove out these imaginations. Besides, I now considered
myself as bound by the laws of hospitality to a people who had treated
me with so