Chapter 5

RHEIMS, in Champagne.

Little or nothing occurred to me worth remarking to you on my journey hither, but that the province of _Artois_ is a fine corn country, and that the French farmers seem to understand that business perfectly well. I was surprised to find, near _St. Omer_'s, large plantations of tobacco, which had all the vigour and healthy appearance of that which I have seen grow in _poor_ America. On my way here, (like the countryman in London, in gazing about) I missed my road; but a civil, and, in appearance, a substantial farmer, conducted us half a league over the fields, and marked out the course to get into it again, without returning directly back, a circumstance I much hate, though perhaps it might have been the shorter way. However, before I gained the high road, I stumbled upon a private one, which led us into a little village pleasantly situated, and inhabited by none other but the poorest peasants; whose tattered habits, wretched houses, and smiling countenances, convinced me, that chearfulness and contentment shake hands oftener under thatched than painted roofs. We found one of these villagers as ready to boil our tea-kettle, provide butter, milk, &c. as we were for our breakfasts; and during the preparation of it, I believe every man, woman, and child of the hamlet, was come down to _look at us_; for beside that wonderful curiosity common to this whole nation, the inhabitants of this village had never before seen an Englishman; they had heard indeed often of the country, they said, and that it was _un pays très riche_. There was such a general delight in the faces of every age, and so much civility, I was going to say politeness, shewn to us, that I caught a temporary chearfulness in this village, which I had not felt for some months before, and which I intend to carry with me. I therefore took out my guittar, and played till I set the whole assembly in motion; and some, in spite of their wooden shoes, and others without any, danced in a manner not to be seen among our English peasants. They had "shoes like a sauce-boat," but no "steeple-clock'd hose." While we breakfasted, one of the villagers fed my horse with some fresh-mowed hay, and it was with some difficulty I could prevail upon him to be paid for it, because the trifle I offered was much more than his _Court of Conscience_ informed him it was worth. I could moralize here a little; but I will only ask you, in which state think you man is best; the untaught man, in that of nature, or the man whose mind is enlarged by education and a knowledge of the world? The behaviour of the inhabitants of this little hamlet had a very forcible effect upon me; because it brought me back to my earlier days, and reminded me of the reception I met with in America by what we now call the _Savage_ Indians; yet I have been received in the same courteous manner in a little hamlet, unarmed, and without any other protection but by the law of nature, by those _savages_;--indeed it was before the _Savages of Europe_ had instructed them in the art of war, or Mr. Whitfield had preached _methodism_ among them. Therefore, I only tell you what they _were_ in 1735, not what they _are at present_. When I visited them, they walked in the flowery paths of Nature; now, I fear, they tread the polluted roads of blood. Perhaps of all the uncivilized nations under the sun, the native Indians of America _were_ the most humane; I have seen an hundred instances of their humanity and integrity;--when a white man was under the lash of the executioner, at _Savannah in Georgia_, for using an Indian woman ill, I saw _Torno Chaci_, their King, run in between the offender and the corrector, saying, "_whip me, not him_;"--the King was the complainant, indeed, but the man deserved a much severer chastisement. This was a _Savage King_. Christian Kings too often care not who is whipt, so they escape the smart.