erneath looked towards the earth, and it
seemed to me that it was altogether no bigger than a grain of mustard
seed, and that the men walking on it were little bigger than hazel nuts;
so you may see how high we must have got to them."

To this the duchess said, "Sancho, my friend, mind what you are saying;
it seems you could not have seen the earth, but only the men walking on
it; it is plain that if the earth looked to you like a grain of mustard
seed, and each man like a hazel nut, one man alone would have covered
the whole earth."

"That is true," said Sancho, "but for all that I got a glimpse of a bit
of one side of it, and saw it all."

"Take care, Sancho," said the duchess; "with a bit of one side one does
not see the whole of what one looks at."

"I don't understand that way of looking at things," said Sancho; "I only
know that your ladyship will do well to bear in mind that as we were
flying by enchantment, so I might have seen the whole earth and all the
men by enchantment, whatever way I looked; and if you won't believe
this, no more will you believe that, uncovering myself nearly to the
eyebrows, I saw myself so close to the sky that there was not a palm and
a half between me and it; and by everything that I can swear by, senora,
it is mighty great! And it so happened we came by where the seven
she-goats[478-7] are, and by God and upon my soul, as in my youth I was
a goatherd in my own country, as soon as I saw them I felt a longing to
be among them for a little, and if I had not given way to it I think I'd
have burst. So I come and take, and what do I do? without saying
anything to anybody, not even to my master, softly and quietly I got
down from Clavileno and amused myself with the goats--which are like
violets, like flowers--for nigh three-quarters of an hour; and Clavileno
never stirred or moved from one spot."

"And while the good Sancho was amusing himself with the goats," said the
duke, "how did Senor Don Quixote amuse himself?"

To which Don Quixote replied, "As all these things and such like
occurrences are out of the ordinary course of nature, it is no wonder
that Sancho says what he does; for my own part I can only say that I
did not uncover my eyes, either above or below, nor did I see sky or
earth or sea or shore. It is true I felt that I was passing through the
region of the air, and even that I touched that of fire; but that we
passed farther I cannot believe; for the region of fire bein