375 TRAVELS IN 
or night till it be exhaufted. Friends and ftrangers are equally 
welcome to it as long as it will run. Among the prefent com- 
pany were two men whom, from their countenances, I could 
perceive to be Europeans. They had been long enough in the 
country to forget their own language, but not to have learned 
that of the Dutch, fo that in fadt they fcarcely had the means 
of making themfelves intelligible to any one. The one was an 
Irlfhman, the other Englifh, and both were probably deferters 
from the army or the navy. The firft had taken up the pro- 
feffion of a water-wyzer or difcoverer of water, and had fhewn 
fagacity enough to eftablifh a fort of reputation in the country. 
By fpeaking little, looking wife, and frequent application to 
the eye of a double convex lens, which happened to have an 
air-bubble within it, he had pradtifed with great fuccefs on the 
credulity and ignorance of the Dutch farmers, and had ob- 
tained from them, by this and other means, a pair of horfes, 
and feveral hundred rix-dollars of paper money. Lighting their 
pipes at the fun by means of his glafs, and the perfuafion that 
the air-bubble within it was a drop of water that polTefTed the 
fympathetic quality of always turning towards its kindred 
element, had fuch an irrefiftible effedt on the rude minds of the 
African boc%-s, that the Irifhman, like a true quack, appreciated 
Ills confequence fo highly, that he never deigned to pay a vifit 
to any farmer, in order to examine the ftate of his water, with- 
out a previous fee. Obferving me laugh at the, credulity of 
the people gaping at his mountebank tricks, he took occafion 
to fpeak to me apart, begging, for God's fake, I would not de- 
ted the impofture, as he was now in fuch good pradice that 
lie was able to keep an afTiftant. Surprife ceafes at the credulity 
of 
