“In the mean time, the man having put up his knife, with each hand resting on his neighbour’s knee, his body stooping, his head low and forward, and mouth open very like an idiot, he turns to the one whose cartridge is first ready, who stuffs the whole of it into his mouth, which is so full that he is in constant danger of being choked. This is a mark of grandeur. The greater the man would seem to be the larger piece he takes in his mouth; and the more noise he makes in chewing it the more polite he is thought to be. They have indeed a proverb that says, ‘Beggars and thieves only eat small pieces or without making a noise.’ Having despatched this morsel, which he does very expeditiously, his next female neighbour holds another cartridge which goes the same way, and so on till he has finished. He never drinks till he has finished eating; and, before he begins, in gratitude to the fair one that fed him, he makes up two small rolls of the same kind and form; each of his neighbours open their mouths at the same time, while with each hand he puts their portion into their mouths. He then falls to drinking out of a large handsome horn; the ladies eat till they are satisfied, and then all drink together. A great deal of mirth and jokes goes round, very seldom with any mixture of acrimony or ill-humour. “During all this time the unfortunate victim at the door is bleeding indeed, but bleeding little. As long as they can cut off the flesh from his bones they do not meddle with the thighs or the parts where the great arteries are. At last they fall upon the thighs likewise, and soon afterwards the animal, bleeding to death, becomes so tough that the cannibals, who have the rest of it to eat, find it very hard work to separate the flesh from the bones with their teeth, like dogs. “In the mean time those within are very much elevated; love lights all its fires, and everything is permitted with absolute freedom. There is no coyness, no delays, no need of appointments or retirement to gratify their wishes; there are no rooms but one, in which they sacrifice both to Bacchus and to Venus.”