22.
On waking from sleep, which they generally prolong to a late hour of the day,
they take a bath, oftenest of warm water, which suits a country where winter is
the longest of the seasons. After their bath they take their meal, each having
a separate seat and table of his own. Then they go
armed to business, or no less often to their festal meetings. To pass an entire
day and night in drinking disgraces no one. Their quarrels, as might be
expected with intoxicated people, are seldom fought out with mere abuse, but
commonly with wounds and bloodshed. Yet it is at their feasts that they
generally consult on the reconciliation of enemies, on the forming of
matrimonial alliances, on the choice of chiefs, finally even on peace and war,
for they think that at no time is the mind more open to simplicity of purpose
or more warmed to noble aspirations. A race without either natural or acquired
cunning, they disclose their hidden thoughts in the freedom of the festivity.
Thus the sentiments of all having been discovered and laid bare, the discussion
is renewed on the following day, and from each occasion its own peculiar
advantage is derived. They deliberate when they have no power to dissemble;
they resolve when error is impossible.
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