with arms as white as snow, and a shield without any device, is a Frenchman, now created knight, called Pierre Papin, baron of Utrique; he whom you see pricking that pied courser’s flanks with his armed heels is the mighty duke of Nervia, Espartafilardo of the Wood, bearing for device on his shield an asparagus plant with this motto in Castilian, Rastrea mi suerte (Divine my fate).”  And thus he went on, naming a great number of others in both armies, to every one of whom his fertile imagination assigned arms, colors, impresses, and mottoes, as readily as if they had really been that moment in being before his eyes.  And then proceeding without the least hesitation, “That vast body,” said he, “that is just opposite to us is composed of several nations.  There you see those who drink the pleasant stream of the famous Xanthus; there the mountaineers that till the Massilian fields; those that sift the pure gold of Arabia Felix:  those that inhabit the renowned and delightful banks of Thermodon.  Yonder, those who so many ways sluice and drain the golden Pactolus for its precious sand; the Numidians, unsteady and careless of their promises; the Persians, excellent archers; the Medes and Parthians, who fight flying; the Arabs, who have no fixed habitations; the Scythians, cruel and savage, though fair-complexioned; the sooty Ethiopians, that bore their lips; and a thousand other nations whose countenances I know, though I have forgotten their names.  On the other side come those whose country is watered with the crystal streams of Betis, shaded with olive trees; those who bathe their limbs in the rich flood of the golden Tagus; those whose mansions are laved by the profitable stream of the divine Genil; those who range the verdant Tartesian meadows; those who indulge their luxurious temper in the delicious pastures of Xerez; the wealthy inhabitants of La Mancha, crowned with golden ears of corn; the ancient offspring of the Goths, cased in iron; those who wanton in the lazy current of Pisuerga; those who feed their numerous flocks in the ample plains where the Guadiana, so celebrated for its hidden course, pursues its wandering race; those who shiver with extremity of cold on the woody Pyrenean hills or on the hoary tops of the snowy Apennines,—­in a word, all that Europe includes within its spacious bounds, half a world in an army.”  It is scarce to be imagined how many countries he had run over, how many nations he enumerated, distinguishing every one by what is peculiar to them, with an incredible vivacity of mind, and that still in the puffy style of his fabulous books.

Sancho listened to all this romantic muster-roll as mute as a fish, with amazement; all that he could do was now and then to turn his head on this side and the other side, to see if he could discern the knights and giants whom his master named.  But at length, not being able to discover any, “Why,” cried he, “you had as good tell me it snows; the devil of any knight, giant, or man can I see, of