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“God save me! What do I see? Is it possible that I have my arms around my dear friend and good neighbor Sancho Panza? I do, no doubt about it, because I’m not asleep or drunk now.”

Sancho was amazed to hear himself called by name and to find himself embraced by a foreign pilgrim, and he looked at him very carefully, not saying a word, but did not recognize him; the pilgrim, however, seeing his bewilderment, said:

“How is it possible, my brother Sancho Panza, that you don’t know your neighbor Ricote the Morisco,4 a shopkeeper in your village?”

Then Sancho looked at him even more closely, and began to recognize his face, and finally knew exactly who he was, and without dismounting, Sancho threw his arms around the man’s neck and said:

“Who the devil could recognize you, Ricote, in the ridiculous disguise you’re wearing? Tell me, who turned you into a foreigner, and why did you risk coming back to Spain? It’ll be very dangerous for you if they catch you and recognize you.”

“If you don’t give me away, Sancho,” responded the pilgrim, “I’m sure nobody will know me in these clothes; let’s move off the road to that grove of poplars where my companions want to eat and rest, and you can eat with them, for they’re very peaceable people. I’ll have a chance to tell you what happened to me after I left our village, obeying His Majesty’s proclamation that threatened the unfortunate members of my race so severely, as you must have heard.”5

Sancho agreed, and after Ricote spoke to the other pilgrims, they set out for the grove of poplars that could be seen at some distance from the king’s highway. They threw down their staffs, took off their hooded cloaks or capes, and remained in their shirtsleeves; they were all young and good-looking except for Ricote, who was a man well on in years. All of them carried traveling bags, and all of these, it seemed, were well-provisioned, at least with things that call up and summon a thirst from two leagues away.

They stretched out on the ground, and with the grass as their tablecloth, they set out bread, salt, knives, nuts, pieces of cheese, and bare ham-bones that could not be gnawed but could still be sucked. They also set out a black food called cabial6 that is made of fish eggs and is a great awakener of thirst. There was no lack of olives, dried without any brine but good-tasting and flavorful. What stood out most on the field of that banquet, however, were six wineskins, for each of them took one out of his bag; even the good Ricote, transformed from a Morisco into a German or Teuton, took out his own wineskin, comparable in size to the other five.

They began to eat with great pleasure, savoring each mouthful slowly, just a little of each thing, which they picked up with the tip of a knife, and then all at once, and all at the same time, they raised their arms and the wineskins into the air, their mouths pressed against the mouths of the wineskins and their eyes fixed on heaven, as if they were taking aim; they stayed this way for a long time, emptying the innermost contents of the skins into their stomachs, and moving their heads from one side to the other, signs that attested to the pleasure they were receiving.

Sancho watched everything, and not one thing caused him sorrow;7 rather, in order to comply with a proverb that he knew very well—“When in Rome, do as the Romans do”—he asked Ricote for his wineskin and took aim along with the rest and with no less pleasure than they enjoyed.

The skins were tilted four times, but a fifth time was not possible because they were now as dry and parched as esparto grass, something that withered the joy the pilgrims had shown so far. From time to time one of them would take Sancho’s right hand in his and say:

“Español y tudesqui, tuto uno: bon compaño!”

And Sancho would respond:

“Bon compaño, jura Di!”

And he burst into laughter that lasted for an hour, and then he did not remember anything that had happened to him in his governorship; for during the time and period when one eats