Page:The Garden of Romance - 1897.djvu/108

96 to compare with that of Toboso de la Mancha; though, to be plain with you, I never before heard of any such generation." "How, not heard?" replied Don Quixote. The rest of the company jogged on, listening with great attention to this discourse, and all of them, even the very goatherds, by this time, were convinced, that our knight's judgment was grievously impaired. Sancho alone believed that everything his master said was true; because he knew his family, and had been acquainted with himself from his cradle. The only doubt that he entertained was of this same beautiful Dulcinea del Toboso; for never had such a name, or such a princess, come within the sphere of his observation, although he lived in the neighbourhood of that place.

While they travelled along, conversing in this manner, they perceived about twenty shepherds descending through a cleft made by two high mountains. They were all clad in jackets of sheep-skin, covered with black wool, and each of them crowned with a garland, which was composed, as it afterwards appeared, partly of cypress, and partly of yew: six of the foremost carried a bier, upon which they had strewed a variety of branches and flowers. And this was no sooner perceived by one of the goatherds, than he said, "These are the people who carry the corpse of Chrysostom, and the foot of that mountain is the place where he ordered himself to be interred."

Upon this information they made haste, and came up just at the time that the bearers, having laid down the body, began to dig the grave with pick-axes on one side of a flinty rock. They received our travellers with great courtesy, and Don Quixote, with his company, went towards the bier, to look at the dead body, which was