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Don Quixote laughed at the interpretation Sancho had given to the name and computations and calculations of the cosmographer Ptolemy, and he said:

“You should know, Sancho, that the Spaniards and others who embark at Cádiz for the East Indies have a sign to let them know they have passed the equinoctial line, which is that every louse on the ship dies,1 and not one is left alive, and you could not find a single one on the vessel even if you were paid its weight in gold; and so, Sancho, you can run your hand along your thigh, and if you run across a living thing, our doubts will be resolved, and if you do not, then we have passed the line.”

“I don’t believe any of that,” responded Sancho, “but even so, I’ll do what your grace tells me to, though I don’t know why we need to make these tests, since I can see with my own eyes that we haven’t gone five varas from shore, and we haven’t moved two varas away from the animals because there’s Rocinante and the donkey exactly where we left them, and looking carefully, which is what I’m doing now, I swear that we’re not even moving or traveling as fast as an ant.”

“Sancho, perform the investigation I have told you to, and do not concern yourself with any other, for you know nothing about the colures, lines, parallels, zodiacs, ellipticals, poles, solstices, equinoxes, planets, signs, points, and measurements that compose the celestial and terrestrial spheres; if you knew all these things, or even some of them, you would see clearly which parallels we have cut, how many zodiacal signs we have seen, and how many we have already left behind and are leaving behind now. And I tell you again to probe and go hunting, for in my opinion you are cleaner than a sheet of smooth white paper.”

Sancho began to probe, and after extending his hand carefully and cautiously behind his left knee, he raised his head, looked at his master, and said:

“Either the test is false, or we haven’t gone as far as your grace says, not by many leagues.”

“What is it?” asked Don Quixote. “Have you come across something?”

“More like somethings,” responded Sancho.

And shaking his fingers, he washed his entire hand in the river as the boat glided gently along in midstream, moved not by any secret intelligence or hidden enchanter, but by the current of the water itself, which was calm and tranquil then.

At this point they saw two large watermills in the middle of the river, and as soon as Don Quixote saw them, he said in a loud voice to Sancho:

“Do you see? There, my friend, you can see the city, castle, or fortress where some knight is being held captive, or some queen, princess, or noblewoman ill-treated, and I have been brought here to deliver them.”

“What the devil kind of city, fortress, or castle is your grace talking about, Señor?” said Sancho. “Can’t you see that those are watermills in the river, where they grind wheat?”

“Be quiet, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “for although they seem to be watermills, they are not; I have already told you that enchantments change and alter all things from their natural state. I do not mean to say that they are really altered from one state to another, but that they seem to be, as experience has shown in the transformation of Dulcinea, sole refuge of my hopes.”

And then the boat, having entered the middle of the current, began to travel not quite so slowly as it had so far. Many of the millers in the watermills, who saw that the boat was coming down the river and would be swallowed up by the rushing torrent of the wheels, hurried out with long poles to stop it; and since they came out well-floured, their faces and clothes covered in dust from the flour, they were not a pretty sight. They were shouting, saying:

“You devils! Where are you going? Are you crazy? Do you want to drown and be smashed to pieces by those wheels?”

“Did I not tell you, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “that we had come to a place where I would show the valor of my arm? Look at the miscreants and scoundrels who have come out to meet me; look at the number of monsters who