The Big Friendly Giant picked Sophie off the table and carried her to the cave entrance. He rolled the huge stone to one side and said, ‘Peep out over there, little girl, and tell me what you is seeing.’

Sophie, sitting on the BFG's hand, peeped out of the cave.

The sun was up now and shining fiery-hot over the great yellow wasteland with its blue rocks and dead trees.

‘Is you seeing them?’ the BFG asked.

Sophie, squinting through the glare of the sun, saw several tremendous tall figures moving among the rocks about five hundred yards away. Three or four others were sitting quite motionless on the rocks themselves.

‘This is Giant Country,’ the BFG said. ‘Those is all giants, every one.’

It was a brain-boggling sight. The giants were all naked except for a sort of short skirt around their waists, and their skins were burnt brown by the sun. But it was the sheer size of each one of them that boggled Sophie's brain most of all. They were simply colossal, far taller and wider than the Big Friendly Giant upon whose hand she was now sitting. And oh how ugly they were! Many of them had large bellies. All of them had long arms and big feet. They were too far away for their faces to be seen clearly, and perhaps that was a good thing.

‘What on earth are they doing?’ Sophie asked.

‘Nothing,’ said the BFG. ‘They is just moocheling and footcheling around and waiting for the night to come. Then they will all be galloping off to places where people is living to find their suppers.’

‘You mean to Turkey,’ Sophie said.

‘Bonecrunching Giant will be galloping to Turkey, of course,’ said the BFG. ‘But the others will be whiffling off to all sorts of flungaway places like Wellington for the booty flavour and Panama for the hatty taste. Every giant is having his own favourite hunting ground.’

‘Do they ever go to England?’ Sophie asked.

‘Often,’ said the BFG. ‘They say the English is tasting ever so wonderfully of crodscollop.’

‘I'm not sure I quite know what that means,’ Sophie said.

‘Meanings is not important,’ said the BFG. ‘I cannot be right all the time. Quite often I is left instead of right.’

‘And are all those beastly giants over there really going off again tonight to eat people?’ Sophie asked.

‘All of them is guzzling human beans every night,’ the BFG answered. ‘All of them excepting me. That is why you will be coming to an ucky-mucky end if any of them should ever be getting his gogglers upon you. You would be swallowed up like a piece of frumpkin pie, all in one dollop!’

‘But eating people is horrible!’ Sophie cried. ‘It’s frightful! Why doesn’t someone stop them?’

‘And who please is going to be stopping them?’ asked the BFG.

‘Couldn't you?’ said Sophie.

‘Never in a pig's whistle!' cried the BFG. 'All of those man-eating giants is enormous and very fierce! They is all at least two times my wideness and double my royal highness!'