We did not require
a second invitation, but at once fell to ravenously on the viands
before us, which were served on wooden platters, and consisted
of cold goat's-flesh, wrapped up in some kind of leaf that gave
it a delicious flavour, green vegetables resembling lettuces,
brown bread, and red wine poured from a skin into horn mugs.
This wine was peculiarly soft and good, having something of
the flavour of Burgundy. Twenty minutes after we sat down at
that hospitable board we rose from it, feeling like new men.
After all that we had gone through we needed two things, food
and rest, and the food of itself was a great blessing to us.
Two girls of the same charming cast of face as the first whom
we had seen waited on us while we ate, and very nicely they did
it. They were also dressed in the same fashion namely, in a
white linen petticoat coming to the knee, and with the toga-like
garment of brown cloth, leaving bare the right arm and breast.
I afterwards found out that this was the national dress, and
regulated by an iron custom, though of course subject to variations.
Thus, if the petticoat was pure white, it signified that the
wearer was unmarried; if white, with a straight purple stripe
round the edge, that she was married and a first or legal wife;
if with a black stripe, that she was a widow.
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