I asked him if they were used to lie on the bare stone. He told me some did, but he had orders to lay me on doffee; and presently up came four fellows with great mats, as I took them for by my globe light, full of something, which, by their so easily carrying so great bulk, I perceived was very light. They pitched it down upon my stone bedstead, and first with great sticks, and then with small switches having beat it soundly, retired.
Whilst I was looking about at the oddity of the place, I found my bash was gone too. "So," says I, "all gone! I suppose they intend I shall now go to bed." I then went into my bed-chamber, for there were globe lights there too, and observing my bed lay full four feet above the stone, and sloping higher to the sides and head, I went to feel what it was; but laying my hand upon it, it was so soft I could feel no resistance till I had pressed it some way; and it lay so light, that a fly must have sunk upon it.—"Well," thinks I, "what if I never lay thus before, I believe I have lain as bad!"
I then took a turn into my oval room again, and observed the floor, sides, and all was stone, as smooth as possible, but not polished; and the walls and ceiling, and in short every place where they could be ornamented, were as well adorned with carvings as can be conceived.
Though nobody came near me yet, I did not care to be too inquisitive all at once, but I longed to know what they burnt in the globes, which gave so steady a light, and yet seemed to be enclosed quite round, top and sides, without any vent-hole for the smoke to evaporate. Surely, thinks I, they are a dullish glass, for they hung almost above my touch, and must be exceeding hot with the fire so enclosed, and have some small vent-hole though I can't see it. Then standing on tiptoe to feel, it struck quite cold to my finger; but I could only reach to touch that, or any of the rest, being all of one height.
Whilst I was musing thus, I heard the sound of voices coming along the gallery; and presently came a train of servants with as much victuals as a hundred men could eat, and wines proportionable; they set it down at the upper end of the oval room, on a flat of stone, which on making the room had been left in the upper bend of the oval quite across it, about table high, for that purpose. These eatables, such as were liquid, or had sauces to them, were served up in a sort of grey stone bowls; but the dry were brought in neat wooden baskets of twig-work.
The servants all retiring into the gallery, except my bash, I asked him if anybody was to eat with me: he told me no.—"I wonder," says I, "they should send me so much, then." He replied it was the allowance of my apartment by his majesty's orders; which silenced me.
I believe there were twenty different things on the table, insomuch that I did not know where to begin, and heartily wished for an excuse to get rid of my bash, who stood close at my elbow, that I might have smelt and tasted before I helped myself to anything, for I knew not what any one thing was.
In this perplexity, I asked my bash what post he was in under his majesty. He said, one of the fifty bashes appointed to be near the king's favourites when at court. "And pray," said I, "are you the person to attend me?" He was, he said, the principal to wait on my person; but there were at least sixty others, who had different offices in this apartment. "I would be glad," said I, "to know your name, that I may the more readily speak to you." He told me his name was Quilly. "Then, pray, Quilly," says I, "do you know what is become of my baggage and chair?" I found, though he guessed at my baggage, he was puzzled at the name of chair. "My seat," says I. "Oh, I understand you," says he. "Then, pray, will you go bring me word of them, and see them brought safe up into the gallery?" He tripped away on my errand. So thinks I, now I am fairly rid of you! but I had scarce turned any of my viands over, before I found he had but stepped into the gallery, to send some of the idle fellows-in-waiting there. And this putting me to a nonplus, "Quilly," says I, "you know I am a stranger here; and as different countries have different ways and customs, as well of dressing their eatables as other things, and these dishes being dressed contrary to my custom, I shall be glad if you will name some of them to me, that I may know them when I see them again."
Quilly began with this, and ran on to that, which was a fine dish; and the other few but the king have at their tables. "And here," says he, "is a dish of padsi; and there——"
"Hold, hold," says I, "Quilly, let's try these first before you proceed;" for I remembered, at my grotto, they all eat my fish for padsi, and I cut a slice of it; for I always carried my clasp-knife in my pocket, and they had no such thing there; and laying it on a round cake I took for my trencher, I tasted it, and found it so, to my apprehension, in the palate; but it did not look or flake like fish, as I observed by the slices they had cut it into; for all the victuals were in long slices ready to bite at. I asked him if these things were not all cut, and with what; for I understood they had no knives, showing him mine. He said the cook cut it with a sharp stone. I then asked him the name of several other things, and at last he came to crullmott, which having heard of before, I now tasted, and could have sworn it had been a hashed fowl. I asked him if crullmotts were very common; he told me yes, towards the bottoms of the mountains there were abundance of crullmott-trees.—"No, no," says I, "not trees; I mean fowls, birds."—"I don't know what they are," said he; "but these crullmotts grow on very large trees." Indeed, I did not know yet what I was at. "But," says I, "if your fowls do, sure your fish don't grow on trees too!"—"We have none of them," says he, "in this country."—"Why," says I, "it is but this moment I tasted one."—"I don't know," said he, "where the cook got it."—"Why, here," says I, "what you call padsi I call fish."—"Aye, padsi," says he, "'grows upon a bush in the same woods."—"Well done," says I, "this is the first country I was ever in where the fish and fowl grew on trees. It is ten to one but I meet with an ox growing on some tree by the tail before I leave you."