he city and places adjacent, within our tedder; and
obtaining acquaintance with many of the city, not of the meanest
quality, at whose hands we found such humanity, and such a freedom and
desire to take strangers, as it were, into their bosom, as was enough to
make us forget all that was dear to us in our own countries; and
continually we met with many things, right worthy of observation and
relation; as indeed, if there be a mirror in the world, worthy to hold
men's eyes, it is that country. One day there were two of our company
bidden to a feast of the family, as they call it; a most natural, pious,
and reverend custom it is, showing that nation to be compounded of all
goodness. This is the manner of it; it is granted to any man that shall
live to see thirty persons descended of his body, alive together, and
all above three years old, to make this feast, which is done at the cost
of the state. The father of the family, whom they call the Tirsan, two
days before the feast, taketh to him three of such friends as he liketh
to choose, and is assisted also by the governor of the city or place
where the feast is celebrated, and all the persons of the family, of
both sexes, are summoned to attend him. These two days the Tirsan
sitteth in consultation, concerning the good estate of the family.
There, if there be any discord or suits between any of the family, they
are compounded and appeased. There, if any of the family be distressed
or decayed, order is taken for their relief, and competent means to
live. There, if any be subject to vice, or take ill courses, they are
reproved and censured. So likewise direction is given touching
marriages, and the courses of life which any of them should take, with
divers other the like orders and advices. The governor assisteth to the
end, to put in execution, by his public authority, the decrees and
orders of the Tirsan, if they should be disobeyed, though that seldom
needeth; such reverence and obedience they give to the order of Nature.
The Tirsan doth also then ever choose one man from amongst his sons, to
live in house with him; who is called ever after the Son of the Vine.
The reason will hereafter appear. On the feast day, the father or Tirsan
cometh forth after divine service into a large room where the feast is
celebrated; which room hath an half-pace at the upper end. Against the
wall, in the middle of the half-pace, is a chair placed for him, with a
table and carpet before it. Ove