alnuts; thanks to the austerity of my master, and the
idea he has and the rule he follows, that knights-errant must not live or
sustain themselves on anything except dried fruits and the herbs of the
field."

"By my faith, brother," said he of the Grove, "my stomach is not made for
thistles, or wild pears, or roots of the woods; let our masters do as
they like, with their chivalry notions and laws, and eat what those
enjoin; I carry my prog-basket and this bota hanging to the saddle-bow,
whatever they may say; and it is such an object of worship with me, and I
love it so, that there is hardly a moment but I am kissing and embracing
it over and over again;" and so saying he thrust it into Sancho's hands,
who raising it aloft pointed to his mouth, gazed at the stars for a
quarter of an hour; and when he had done drinking let his head fall on
one side, and giving a deep sigh, exclaimed, "Ah, whoreson rogue, how
catholic it is!"

"There, you see," said he of the Grove, hearing Sancho's exclamation,
"how you have called this wine whoreson by way of praise."

"Well," said Sancho, "I own it, and I grant it is no dishonour to call
anyone whoreson when it is to be understood as praise. But tell me,
senor, by what you love best, is this Ciudad Real wine?"

"O rare wine-taster!" said he of the Grove; "nowhere else indeed does it
come from, and it has some years' age too."

"Leave me alone for that," said Sancho; "never fear but I'll hit upon the
place it came from somehow. What would you say, sir squire, to my having
such a great natural instinct in judging wines that you have only to let
me smell one and I can tell positively its country, its kind, its flavour
and soundness, the changes it will undergo, and everything that
appertains to a wine? But it is no wonder, for I have had in my family,
on my father's side, the two best wine-tasters that have been known in La
Mancha for many a long year, and to prove it I'll tell you now a thing
that happened them. They gave the two of them some wine out of a cask, to
try, asking their opinion as to the condition, quality, goodness or
badness of the wine. One of them tried it with the tip of his tongue, the
other did no more than bring it to his nose. The first said the wine had
a flavour of iron, the second said it had a stronger flavour of cordovan.
The owner said the cask was clean, and that nothing had been added to the
wine from which it could have got a flavour of either iron or