This phrase alludes to how the servant Sancho Panza, in Don Quixote, Book II, Chapter
33, faces the prospect of becoming governor of his own island.

Mary Shelley was aware that climbing to the top of Mont Salêve was a popular sport
of the Genevese, except that they did so from the sloping angle of its other side
not by scaling its sheer face: see her letter of 1 June 1816 appended to A History
of a Six Weeks' Tour

It is important to note that, however "ardent" he may be as an individual, Walton
has a highly developed sense of social responsibility. It will be strongly tested
toward the end of the novel by simultaneous pressures from his crew, Victor Frankenstein,
and Victor's Creature that establish markers for the complex moral resolution with
which it ends.

Why Mary Shelley felt it important to alter the legendary materials loved by Clerval
is unknown. It may simply be dictated by a change in the conditions of her culture.
Although Roland, the hero of Roncesvalles, is identical with the title character of
Ariosto's Orlando Furioso (one of the books specified in 1818), in this rendering
Clerval's interest in him is more "romantic," less bookish. His other literary passions
are of a similar generic kind, rather than for specific books. On the other hand,
that the Battle of Roncesvalles was fought against Saracen attackers, who are also
the "infidels" who held the "holy sepulchre" of Jerusalem against the crusaders in
Victor's third example of their texts of romance, indicates an early manifestation
of the interest in eastern, or Mohammedan, culture Clerval will later develop.