re Papin, baron of Utrique;
he whom you see pricking that pied courser's flanks with his armed
heels is the mighty duke of Nervia, Espartafilardo of the Wood,
bearing for device on his shield an asparagus plant with this motto in
Castilian, _Rastrea mi suerte_ (Divine my fate)." And thus he went on,
naming a great number of others in both armies, to every one of whom
his fertile imagination assigned arms, colors, impresses, and mottoes,
as readily as if they had really been that moment in being before his
eyes. And then proceeding without the least hesitation, "That vast
body," said he, "that is just opposite to us is composed of several
nations. There you see those who drink the pleasant stream of the
famous Xanthus; there the mountaineers that till the Massilian fields;
those that sift the pure gold of Arabia Felix: those that inhabit the
renowned and delightful banks of Thermodon. Yonder, those who so many
ways sluice and drain the golden Pactolus for its precious sand; the
Numidians, unsteady and careless of their promises; the Persians,
excellent archers; the Medes and Parthians, who fight flying; the
Arabs, who have no fixed habitations; the Scythians, cruel and savage,
though fair-complexioned; the sooty Ethiopians, that bore their lips;
and a thousand other nations whose countenances I know, though I have
forgotten their names. On the other side come those whose country is
watered with the crystal streams of Betis, shaded with olive trees;
those who bathe their limbs in the rich flood of the golden Tagus;
those whose mansions are laved by the profitable stream of the divine
Genil; those who range the verdant Tartesian meadows; those who
indulge their luxurious temper in the delicious pastures of Xerez; the
wealthy inhabitants of La Mancha, crowned with golden ears of corn;
the ancient offspring of the Goths, cased in iron; those who wanton in
the lazy current of Pisuerga; those who feed their numerous flocks in
the ample plains where the Guadiana, so celebrated for its hidden
course, pursues its wandering race; those who shiver with extremity of
cold on the woody Pyrenean hills or on the hoary tops of the snowy
Apennines,--in a word, all that Europe includes within its spacious
bounds, half a world in an army." It is scarce to be imagined how many
countries he had run over, how many nations he enumerated,
distinguishing every one by what is peculiar to them, with an
incredible vivacity of mind, and that still in