As a relief from the general statements, a particular instance may be quoted to exemplify a night by the way in Poland. The sleeping-room struck the writer as something between a stable and a subterranean furnace. Six soldiers lay on the ground as if dead; the peasant-tenant, his wife, children, and servants, lay on benches round the walls, with coverings of straw and feathers; in one corner slept a Calvinist, a baron's secretary; in another, on the peasant's straw pallet, an ambassador's chaplain, a Roman Catholic; and between the two, to save each, it seemed, from the heels of the other, was lying a huge Tartar, a captain in the Polish army, who had made up a bed of hay for himself. About the room were dogs, geese, pigs, fowls; while the corner by the oven was conceded to a woman who had just given birth to a child. The baby cried, the mother moaned, the tired servants and soldiers snored; and early in the morning the writer rose from the shelf he was sharing with some leggings, spurs, and muskets, and escaped.[94] Speaking generally, there were no beds to be found in the North. In Muscovy everything had to be carried along; without a hatchet, tinder-box, and kettle there was no hot food for the wayfarer till he reached a monastery or a town, much less shelter; unless by chance he came across somebody's one-story cabin which would have no outlet for the smoke except the door, and accommodation below the level of the average stable, one room shared between the family, visitors, and live-stock. When Sir Jerome Horsey was at Arensberg, in the island of Oesel, near the gulf of Riga, in 1580, snakes crept about bed and table and the hens came and pecked at them in the flour and the milk. Crossing over to Sweden the absence of inns was equally noticeable, but no disadvantage, for one of the conditions on which the parson held his living was that of showing hospitality to those in need of it. In Denmark, too, while taverns existed for supplying victuals, the wayfarer was dependent on the citizen for lodging, again not to his loss; he was sure of decent food, a clean bed, and a welcome. Foreigners in England are singularly reticent about the inns, except for reviling Gravesend for swindling; which may, perhaps, be taken as confirming Moryson's opinion that the English inn was the best in Europe. As to Ireland, there is the usual diversity of opinion; the absence of inns is accounted for by the traditional idea that the possession of an inn was a disgrace to a town, a slur on the hospitality of its inhabitants; yet the hospitality itself was most uncertain, since the natives were not in a position to believe in the neutrality of a visitor.