We put to sea that very moment, steering our course forwards, and gave Pantagruel a full account of our adventures, which so deeply struck him with compassion that he wrote some elegies on that subject to divert himself during the voyage. When we were safe in the port we took some refreshment, and took in fresh water and wood. The people of the place, who had the countenance of jolly fellows and boon companions, were all of them forward folks, bloated and puffed up with fat. And we saw some who slashed and pinked their skins to open a passage to the fat, that it might swell out at the slits and gashes which they made; neither more nor less than the shit-breech fellows in our country bepink and cut open their breeches that the taffety on the inside may stand out and be puffed up. They said that what they did was not out of pride or ostentation, but because otherwise their skins would not hold them without much pain. Having thus slashed their skin, they used to grow much bigger, like the young trees on whose barks the gardeners make incisions that they may grow the better. Near the haven there was a tavern, which forwards seemed very fine and stately. We repaired thither, and found it filled with people of the forward nation, of all ages, sexes, and conditions; so that we thought some notable feast or other was getting ready, but we were told that all that throng were invited to the bursting of mine host, which caused all his friends and relations to hasten thither. We did not understand that jargon, and therefore thought in that country by that bursting they meant some merry meeting or other, as we do in ours by betrothing, wedding, groaning, christening, churching (of women), shearing (of sheep), reaping (of corn, or harvest-home), and many other junketting bouts that end in -ing. But we soon heard that there was no such matter in hand.