peared afterwards was a physician, placed himself standing by
his side, with a whalebone wand in his hand. They then lifted up a
fine white cloth covering fruit and a great variety of dishes of
different sorts; one who looked like a student said grace, and a page
put a laced bib on Sancho, while another who played the part of head
carver placed a dish of fruit before him. But hardly had he tasted a
morsel when the man with the wand touched the plate with it, and they
took it away from before him with the utmost celerity. The carver
however brought him another dish, and Sancho proceeded to try it; but
before he could get at it, not to say taste it, already the wand had
touched it and a page had carried it off with the same promptitude as
the fruit. Sancho seeing this was puzzled, and looking from one to
another, asked if this dinner was to be eaten after the fashion of a
jugglery trick.

To this he with the wand replied:--"It is not to be eaten, senor
governor, except as is usual and customary in other islands where
there are governors. I, senor, am a physician, and I am paid a salary
in this island to serve its governors as such; and I have a much
greater regard for their health than for my own, studying day and
night and making myself acquainted with the governor's constitution,
in order to be able to cure him when he falls sick. The chief thing I
have to do is to attend at his dinners and suppers, and allow him to
eat what appears to me to be fit for him, and keep from him what I
think will do him harm and be injurious to his stomach: and therefore
I ordered that plate of fruit to be removed as being too moist, and
that other dish I ordered to be removed as being too hot and
containing many spices that stimulate thirst; for he who drinks much
kills and consumes the radical moisture wherein life consists."

"Well then," said Sancho, "that dish of roast partridges there that
seems so savory will not do me any harm."

To this the physician replied, "Of those my lord the governor shall
not eat so long as I live."

"Why so?" said Sancho.

"Because," replied the doctor, "our master Hippocrates, the pole-star
and beacon of medicine, says in one of his aphorisms, _Omnis saturatio
mala, perdicis autem pessima_; which means, 'All repletion is bad, but
that of partridge is the worst of all.'"

"In that case," said Sancho, "let senor doctor see among the dishes
that are on the table what will do me most good and least harm