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It was with great difficulty that he could be restrained from putting on his cocked hat and tights to wait upon the English consul at the Free City of Judenstadt, when that hospitable functionary asked our travellers to dinner. He kept a journal of his voyage and noted elaborately the defects or excellences of the various inns at which he put up, and of the wines and dishes of which he partook.
The chief articles of exportation are grapes, figs, raisins, oranges, anchovies, wines, &c. Their streets are very narrow, running at random in every direction. Their houses are mostly built of marble, four stories high, different families occupying different stories of the same house.
As for clarets, burgundy, hock and champagne, they were wines then unknown in America, except on the tables of some of the principal merchants, and, here and there, on that of some travelled gentleman of an estate larger than common.
The wines of Orvieto and of Montefiascone, conveyed with the peculiar care needed in moving them, Lachrymachristi and Giro, all the heady liqueurs of la cara Patria, went to their brains with the intoxication alike of the grape and of fond memory.
He described the persons of the ladies with great eloquence; the service of the table; the size and costume of the servants; enumerated the dishes and wines served; the ornaments of the sideboard; and the probable value of the plate. Such a dinner he calculated could not be dished up under fifteen or eighteen dollars per head.
At this minute they were hindered from further speech by the servants, who came in to bid us to supper, and there stood ready wild fowl and fish, fruits and pastry, with the rarest wines and the richest vessels; the great middle table and the side buffet alike made such a show as though Pomona, Ceres, Bacchus, and Plutus had heaped it with prodigal hand.
The advance trains, under the direction of the master hunter, having deposited their stores of wines, cordials, and provisions, and telegraphic communications being transmitted to head-quarters from time to time, it is at length privately announced that his imperial majesty has condescended to honor the place with his presence, and, should the saints not prove averse, will be there with his royal party at the hour and on the day specified in the imperial dispatch.
Messer Torello then brought the three stranger gentlemen to the chambers prepared for them, where he let unboot them and refresh them somewhat with very cool wines and entertained them in agreeable discourse till such time as they might sup.
He did not affect outlandish fishes himself, and dined upon pike, but observing the curiosity of his guests, he took good care to have them well supplied with grampus; also in due time with varieties of the pudding and cake kind which had never dawned on their forest bred imagination, and with a due proportion of good ale the same over which the knight might be heard rejoicing, and lauding far above the Spanish or French wines, on which he said he had been half starved.
These men came across him and told him they were going to return East in sixty days, and if he would keep straight, and drive one of their wagons for them, they would take him home with them. When they went ashore the first day they left him in charge of their baggage, and promised him that he could go ashore the next. They had their private store of wines and brandy.
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