Eating among the Savages is like drinking among the drunkards of Europe. Those dry and ever-thirsty souls would willingly end their lives in a tub of malmsey, and the Savages in a pot full of meat; those over there, talk only of drinking, and these here only of eating. It is giving a sort of insult to a Savage to refuse the pieces which he offers you. A certain one, seeing that I had declined what my host [115] offered me to eat, said to me, "Thou dost not love him, since thou refusest him." I told him that it was not our custom to eat at all hours; but, nevertheless, I would take what he would give me, if he did not give it to me quite so often. They all began to laugh; and an old woman said to me that, if I wished to be loved by their tribe, I must eat a great deal. When you treat them well, they show their satisfaction with your feast in these words, _tapoué nimitison_, "I am really eating," as if their highest content were in this action; and at the end of the banquet, they will say as an act of thanks, _tapoué nikhispoun_, "I am really full;" meaning, "Thou hast treated me well; I am full to bursting." It seems to me that I have spoken of this before. They believe that it is foolish and stupid to refuse; the greatest satisfaction that they can have in their Paradise is in the stomach. I do not hesitate to exclaim: Oh, how just is the judgment of God, that these people, who place their ultimate happiness in eating, are always hungry, and are only fed like dogs; for their most splendid feastings are, [116] so to speak, only the bones and the leavings of the tables of Europe! Their first act, upon awakening in the morning, is to stretch out their arms toward their bark dish full of meat, and then to eat. When I first began to stay with them, I tried to introduce the custom of praying to God before eating, and in fact I pronounced a blessing when they wanted it done. But the Apostate said to me, "If you want to pray as many times as they will eat in your Cabin, prepare to say your _Benedicite_ more than twenty times before night." They end the day as they begin it, always with a morsel in their mouths, or with their pipes to smoke when they lay their heads on the pillow to rest.