Note 122 — Chapter III · THE THIRD VISITATION OF THE DISEASE.—1517.
B. G. (Benjamin Guy) Babington translation
The floors of the houses generally are made of nothing but loam, and are strewed with rushes, which being constantly put on fresh, without a removal of the old, remain lying there, in some cases for twenty years, with fish-bones, broken victuals and other filth underneath, and impregnated with the urine of dogs and men. Erasm. Epist. L. xxii. ep. 12. col. 1140. This description is in all probability overdrawn, and applicable only to the poorest huts. It is, however, certainly not fictitious, and is not refuted by Kaye.