A German traveller writes of England thus: "The women there are charming, and by nature so mighty pretty as I have scarcely ever beheld, for they do not falsify, paint or bedaub themselves as they do in Italy or other places, but they are some deal awkward in their style of dress; for they dress in splendid stuffs, and many a one wears three cloth gowns, one over the other. Then, when a stranger goeth to a citizen's house on business, or is invited as a guest, he is received by the master of the house and the ladies and by them welcomed: he has even a right to take them by the arm and to kiss them, which is the custom of the country; and if any one doth not do this, it is regarded and imputed as ignorance and ill-breeding on his part." Erasmus, writing in 1500, after a visit to Sir Thomas More, exclaims merrily: "There is a custom which it would be impossible to praise too much. Wherever you go, every one welcomes you with a kiss, and the same on bidding you farewell. You call again, when there is more kissing.... You meet an acquaintance anywhere, you are kissed till you are tired. In short, turn where you will, there are kisses, kisses everywhere." It was the same before and after a dance: you bowed, or curtseyed, and kissed your partner in all formal ceremony. So Shakespeare-- "Come unto these yellow sands, And then take hands: Curtseyed when you have, and kissed, The wild waves whist" (hushed). Another foreigner describes the English as serious, like the Germans, liking to be followed by hosts of servants who wear their masters' arms in silver, fastened to their left arms: they excel in music and dancing, and their favourite sport is hawking: they are more polite than the French in eating, devour less bread but more meat, which they roast in perfection. They put a great deal of sugar in their drink, a habit which may account for their teeth turning black in age. Harrison tells us that the nobles had "for cooks musicall-headed Frenchmen, who concocted sundrie delicacies: every dish being first taken to the greatest personage at the table." We are told that Sir Walter Raleigh was once staying with a noble lady, whom he heard in the morning scolding her servant and crying, "Have the pigs been fed? have the pigs been fed?"