on. And so, may God deliver your worship from
evil-minded enchanters, and bring me well and peacefully out of this
government, which I doubt, for I expect to take leave of it and my life
together, from the way Doctor Pedro Recio treats me.

Your worship's servant

SANCHO PANZA THE GOVERNOR.

The secretary sealed the letter, and immediately dismissed the courier;
and those who were carrying on the joke against Sancho putting their
heads together arranged how he was to be dismissed from the government.
Sancho spent the afternoon in drawing up certain ordinances relating to
the good government of what he fancied the island; and he ordained that
there were to be no provision hucksters in the State, and that men might
import wine into it from any place they pleased, provided they declared
the quarter it came from, so that a price might be put upon it according
to its quality, reputation, and the estimation it was held in; and he
that watered his wine, or changed the name, was to forfeit his life for
it. He reduced the prices of all manner of shoes, boots, and stockings,
but of shoes in particular, as they seemed to him to run extravagantly
high. He established a fixed rate for servants' wages, which were
becoming recklessly exorbitant. He laid extremely heavy penalties upon
those who sang lewd or loose songs either by day or night. He decreed
that no blind man should sing of any miracle in verse, unless he could
produce authentic evidence that it was true, for it was his opinion that
most of those the blind men sing are trumped up, to the detriment of the
true ones. He established and created an alguacil of the poor, not to
harass them, but to examine them and see whether they really were so; for
many a sturdy thief or drunkard goes about under cover of a make-believe
crippled limb or a sham sore. In a word, he made so many good rules that
to this day they are preserved there, and are called The constitutions of
the great governor Sancho Panza.

CHAPTER LII.

WHEREIN IS RELATED THE ADVENTURE OF THE SECOND DISTRESSED OR AFFLICTED
DUENNA, OTHERWISE CALLED DONA RODRIGUEZ

Cide Hamete relates that Don Quixote being now cured of his scratches
felt that the life he was leading in the castle was entirely inconsistent
with the order of chivalry he professed, so he determined to ask the duke
and duchess to permit him to take his departure for Saragossa, as the
time of the festival was now drawing near, and he hoped to