The dinner was very lively. The General gave us a most interesting account of the dialects spoken in the Caucasus, some of which are Aryan, and others Turanian, although between the different peoples there is a remarkable uniformity in manners and customs. I had to talk of my travels because Count Szémioth congratulated me on the way I sat a horse, and said he had never met a minister or a professor who could have managed so easily such a journey as the one we had taken. I explained to him that, commissioned by the Bible Society to write a work on the language of the _Charruas_, I had spent three and a half years in the Republic of Uruguay, nearly always on horse-back, and living in the pampas among the Indians. This led me to relate how, when lost for three days in those boundless plains, without food or water, I had been reduced, like the _gauchos_ who accompanied me, to bleed my horse and drink his blood. All the ladies uttered a cry of horror. The General observed that the Kalmouks did the same in similar extremities. The Count asked me what the drink tasted like. "Morally, it was most repugnant," I replied, "but, physically, I found it rather good, and it is owing to it that I have the honour of dining here to-day. Many Europeans, I mean white men, who have lived for a long time with the Indians, accustom themselves to it, and even get to like the taste. My good friend Don Fructuoso Rivero, President of the Republic, hardly ever missed a chance of gratifying it. I recollect one day, when he was going to Congress in full uniform, he passed a _rancho_ where a young foal was being bled. He got off his horse to ask for a _chupon_, a suck; after which he delivered one of his most eloquent speeches." "Your President is a hideous monster," cried Mademoiselle Iwinska. "Pardon me, my dear Pani," I said to her, "he is a very distinguished person, with a most enlightened mind. He speaks several very difficult Indian dialects to perfection, specially the _Charrua_, the verbs of which take innumerable forms, according to whether its objective is direct or indirect, and even according to the social relations of the persons who speak." I was about to give some very curious instances of the construction of the _Charrua_ verb, but the Count interrupted me to ask what part of the horse they bled when they wanted to drink its blood. "For goodness' sake, my dear Professor," cried Mademoiselle Iwinska, with a comic expression of terror, "do not tell him. He is just the man to slay his whole stable, and to eat us up ourselves when he has no more horses left!" Upon this sally the ladies laughingly left the table to prepare tea and coffee whilst we smoked. In a quarter of an hour they sent from the drawing-room for the General. We all prepared to go with him; but we were told that the ladies only wished one man at a time. Very soon we heard from the drawing-room loud bursts of laughter and clapping of hands.