1Straight after sleep, which they generally prolong into the day, they wash, more often in warm water, as is natural for people among whom winter takes up most of the year. 1After washing they take food: each has a separate seat and his own table. 1Then they go out to business, and no less often to feasts, armed. 2To drink continuously for a day and a night is a disgrace to no one. 2Quarrels, frequent as among drunken men, are rarely settled with abuse, more often with killing and wounds. 3But on reconciling enemies with one another, on forming marriage alliances and adopting chiefs, and finally on peace and war, they generally deliberate at feasts, as though at no other time is the mind more open to frank thoughts or more warmed to great ones.
4A race without guile or cunning still reveals the secrets of the heart in the freedom of the occasion; 4so the mind of each is laid bare and naked. 4On the following day the matter is reconsidered, and the reasoning of each occasion is preserved: they deliberate when they cannot dissemble, they decide when they cannot be mistaken.