34 
TRAVELS IN 
gra^e before meat pronounced with an audible voice bj the 
youngest of the family ; and every morning before day-light 
one of William Sluiter's Gesangen is drawled out in full cho- 
rus by an assemblage of the whole family. In their attend- 
ance at church they are scrupulously exact, though the per- 
formance of this duty costs many of them a journey of seve- 
ral days. Those who live at the distance of a fortnight or 
three weeks from the nearest church generally go with their 
families once a-year. 
Rude and uncultivated as are their minds, there is one vir- 
tue in which they eminently excel — hospitality to strangers^ 
A countryman, a foreigner, a relation, a friend, are all equally 
welcome to whatsoever the house will afford. A. Dutch farmer 
never passes a house on the road without alighting,, except in- 
deed his next neighbour's, with whom it is ten to one he is at 
variance. It is not enough to inquire after the health of the 
family in passing: even on the road, if two peasants should 
meet, they instantly dismount to shake hands, whether strangers 
or friends. When a traveller arrives at a habitation, he alights 
from his horse, enters the house, shakes hands with the men, 
kisses the women, and sits down without farther ceremony. 
When the table is served he takes his place among the family 
without waiting for an invitation. This is never given, on the 
supposition that a traveller in a country so thinly inhabited 
must always have an appetite for something. Accordingly, 
" What will you make use of?" is generally the first question. 
If there be a bed in the house it is given to the stranger; if 
none, which is frequently the case among the graziers of the 
distant district of Graaff Reynet, he must take his chance for a 
