the feast," she seated herself at a little distance from it, and issued
her commands to her hand-maidens what to serve, and when to change a
plate, what wine to offer, and which dish she most recommended, with a
good-humoured attention to our wants, that really anticipated them.

There was something as novel as patriarchal in her mode of doing the
honours, and it pleased us so much that we invited her to partake of
our repast; but she could not be prevailed on, though she consented to
drink our healths in a glass of her best wine.

She repeatedly expressed her fears that our dinner was not sufficiently
_recherché_, and hoped we would allow her to prepare a good supper.

When we were descending the stairs, she met us with several of her
female neighbours _en grande toilette_, whom she had invited to see the
strangers, and who gazed at us with as much surprise as if we were
natives of Otaheite, beheld for the first time. Cordial greetings,
however, atoned for the somewhat too earnest examination to which we
had been subjected; and many civil speeches from our good hostess, who
seemed not a little proud of displaying her foreign guests, rewarded
the patience with which we submitted to the inspection.

One old lady felt the quality of our robes, another admired our
trinkets, and a third was in raptures with our veils. In short, as a
Frenchwoman would say, we had _un grand succès_; and so, our hostess
assured us.

We went over the Amphitheatre, the dimensions of which exceed those of
the Amphitheatre at Nismes. Three orders of architecture are also
introduced in it, and it has no less than sixty arcades, with four