Page:A voyage to Abyssinia (Salt).djvu/54

 with a great quantity of oil, by no means remarkable for its purity. It appears to be the fashion to eat quick, and to drink pretty briskly while at table, and as soon as the cloth is removed, the company adjourn to a separate apartment.

As to the importance attached to the mode of taking our meals, it may be said altogether to arise from prejudice. The Hindoos with their solitary repast, the Arabs with their single dish, out of which they may be said to feed gregariously, and the Abyssinians with a joint of raw meat, all feel the same kind of satisfaction and pride in their respective methods, as the European does from the fancied superiority of his own. Conforming, as I have generally done, to most of these customs, I confess that I have felt almost as much repugnance to return to the tedious forms of an English entertainment, as I did to descend to the simple informality of these homely repasts; and possibly the irksome restraint of sitting in a constrained position for three hours, pampering the appetite with an accumulated succession of viands, may, with equal justice, appear to a savage quite as irrational, as his rude and unceremonious habits, to our more refined taste.

The Governor's household establishment forms a small society, in some degree independent of the old settlers; but in some degree only, for, owing to a most unpleasant practice, prevailing in the place, every person who can command a decent coat, takes advantage of the privilege to visit the Government House, about five o'clock in the evening, under the pretext of paying his compliments (as it is termed) to His Excellency, though, as I should rather presume, with the more immediate design of obtaining a cup of tea. Here many of them remain seated, not unfrequently without uttering a syllable, till so late an hour as nine o'clock. If the Governor remove to his country seat, it is esteemed a proper mark of respect to follow him, where the same custom is duly kept up, which, however absurd it may appear, has now been long sanctioned by usage, that it does not allow of any escape from the persecution.

September the 8th being a festival, I attended the Governor and family to mass, in the chapel adjoining to the