imitate, in the use os tobacco, the baneful example of their elders. At the houses of the middling classes of society, where national manners are predominate, the first civility which a stranger usually receives is the offer of a pipe, or at least it accompanies the mention of any kind of refreshment, and no hour of the day is thought unseasonable for the luxury of smoking. I have often disappointed the exercise of this branch of Dutch hospitality; and it sometimes happened, that the persons whom I so refused, particularly if they were in mean situations of life, seemed to judge ill of my understanding for wanting the sense to relish the weed of which the nation approved.
At Overschie, the miserable village which I formerly mentioned, where we were compelled by a storm to lodge all night, the landlord, with an earnestness which was the best assurance of his entire belief in its efficacy, entreated me to smoke a pipe, to prevent any bad consequences happening to me from the drenching rain, which had wetted me to the skin; and my refusal to try his
