ENTERTAINMENTS. 37 



larger nerves of the doom palm leaf, sewed very 

 closely together with a finer description of the 

 same material; the inside was overlaid by some 

 black vegetable matter, but of what character I 

 could never properly understand. 



Having arranged our legs as decently as we could 

 around the table, which was merely a large mat of 

 the palm leaf, we had nearly satisfied ourselves 

 before the arrival of some promised lumps of meat, 

 which, strong and tough, challenged the integrity 

 of our teeth, in the vain endeavours we made to do 

 justice to this part of our host's hospitality, for we 

 might almost as well have attempted to devour the 

 piece of round leather upon which it was brought. 

 The latter piece of furniture, at all events, afforded 

 some degree of pleasure, for I saw immediately an 

 explanation of the obscure passage in iEneid, where 

 the Harpy Celeeno is made to say — 



.... " Ambesas subigat malis absimiere mcnsas," 

 which has been by commentators considered impro- 

 bable and absurd, from the difficulty of supposing 

 how tables, according to our ideas of them, could 

 be eaten. By the sailors in the Red Sea, and among 

 the Arabs, these leathern interpositions between the 

 ground and the food are very general indeed ; and 

 I do not see why, in the extremity of a castaway 

 crew, or in a time of famine, these tables, which 

 they certainly are, should not be devoured for want 

 of other food ; and parallel cases have frequently 

 occurred in modern times, in the numerous recorded 



