CHAPTER X.
_The travellers visit a gentleman farmer, who is a great projector: his
breed of cattle: his apparatus for cooking: he is taken
dangerously ill._
After we had gone about half a mile farther, our attention was arrested
by a gate of very singular character. It was extremely ingenious in its
structure, and, among other peculiarities, it had three or four latches,
for children, for grown persons, for those who were tall and those who
were short, and for the right hand as well as the left. In the act of
opening, it was made to crush certain berries, and the oil they yielded,
was carried by a small duct to the hinge, which was thus made to turn
easily, and was prevented from creaking. While we were admiring its
mechanism, an elderly man, rather plainly dressed, on a zebra in low
condition, rode up, and showed that he was the owner of the mansion to
which the gate belonged, and that he was not displeased with the
curiosity we manifested. We found him both intelligent and obliging. He
informed us that he was an experimental farmer; and when he learnt that
we were strangers, and anxious to inform ourselves of the state of
agriculture in the country, he very civilly invited us to take our next
meal with him. Our walk having now made us hungry and fatigued, we
gladly accepted of his hospitality; whereupon he alighted, and walked
with us to his lodgings.
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