104 
MIDDALR. 
the horses. Our tents were placed near the 
church and the house of the priest, who soon 
came down to welcome us, and offer any thing 
we might want that his house would afford. As 
the most necessary, I first requested that we 
might have some fire prepared to cook our vic¬ 
tuals by; during which operation I was witness 
to a scene that afforded me no small degree of 
o 
amusement. After Jacob had been gone into 
the house some considerable time with the fish 
that was to be cooked for our dinners, I began 
to be rather impatient, and begged to be shown 
into the kitchen, that I might see if any thing 
had happened. I was conducted thither by a 
female who took hold of my hand, and led me 
through a dark passage and a bed room, where 
there was but a small portion of light admitted 
from an aperture in the roof, into the cooking 
room, whence so much smoke was rushing out 
through the sleeping room, as the only vent, 
that I hesitated about proceeding, till I found 
myself dragged in. I with difficulty discovered 
two or three filthy females sitting on the ground, 
or on some broken chests, and in the middle of 
them Jacob upon the bare earth. A fire was 
also on the ground between his legs, over which 
he held some fish cut in slices, in the fryingpan, 
an article which caused considerable astonishment 
among the women. Close by him sat a pretty 
