prepare myself and you too, to be content with neighbours' fare.

When a man writes remarks upon the manners and customs of other nations,
he should endeavour to wean himself from all partiality for his own; and
I need not tell you that I am in _full possession_ of that single
qualification, which I hope will make you some amends for my defects in
all the others; for it is certainly unjust, uncandid, and illiberal, to
pronounce a custom or fashion absurd, because it does not coincide with
our ideas of propriety. A Turk who travelled into England, would, upon
his return to Constantinople, tell his countrymen, that at Canterbury;
(bring out of _opium_,) his host did not know even what he demanded;
and that it was with some difficulty he found out, that there were shops
in the town where _opium_ was sold, and even then, it was with greater,
he could prevail upon the vender of it to let him have above half an
ounce: if he were questioned, why all these precautions? he would tell
them, laughingly, that Englishmen believe _opium_ to be a deadly poison,
and those people suspected that he either meant to kill himself, or to
poison another man with it.

A French gentleman, who travelled some years since into Spain, had
letters of recommendation to a Spanish Bishop, who received him with
every mark of politeness, and treated him with much hospitality: soon
after he retired to his bedchamber, a priest entered it,[A] holding a
vessel in his hand, which was covered with a clean napkin; he said
something; but the Frenchman understanding but little Spanish,
intimated by signs his thanks, and desired him to put it down,
believing, that his friend, the Bishop, had sent him a plate of
sweetmeats, fruit, iced cream, or some kind of refreshment to eat before
he went to bed, or to refresh his exhausted spirits in the night; but
his astonishment was great indeed, when he found the priest put the