As I approached this aged creature I saw she had an eye which seemed to ask an alms yet did disdain it; and this war of pride and necessity in a poor beggar woman, halt and lean, led me to consider that she was not of the common sort, but had had a birth perhaps, and upon a day had known the cushions of prosperity. And this fancy moved my heart indeed, for in my view there is no more pitiful sight in nature than a blood Arab so broken in his wind and circumstances as to be condemned to base employments. There were only ten crowns in my purse, but its strings were untied before I could consider of my private need. Bowing to her as solemnly as if she had been the daughter of a marquis--and who shall say that she was not?--I begged her to accept a tenth part of my inheritance. She received this invitation with those shy eyes that so much enhance her sex; while such confusion overcame the gentle soul that a minute passed before her faltering hand could draw a coin from the bag I held before her. I went on my way with no more than nine crowns in my possession. Now, it is no light thing, believe me, reader, for a youth of one-and-twenty to adventure into an unknown country, upon a quest of fortune on a mountain horse, in the company of a sword of an ancient pattern, a leather jerkin laced with steel, a hat without a feather, and the sum of nine crowns, neither more nor less, for the whole of his estate. I had set the nose of Babieca in the direction of the south. At first my way was taken through a pleasant country of great hills, that had cork trees on their slopes. Here and there little rivers ran in and out; sparkling in the morning sun; shining on the side of some tall mountain; circling round the foot of some grave precipice. But as the morning passed, and as hour by hour I went farther from my native hills, the nature of the land was changed. The cool woods and streams, the rich green pastures, and the fine tall hills with their garlands of dark forests yielded to a barren plain, to which, alas! there appeared to be no end. It was bare and arid, and strewn in many places with sharp rocks. There was not a tree, not a stream of water; and such horrid quantities of sand consumed it that it became at last a desert whose life was sterile. A few barren shrubs were the only things that grew there; and, as I was soon to learn, an infinite degree of misery.