Goblin Counsels He must have slept a long time, for when he awoke he felt wonderfully restored--indeed almost well--and very hungry.

There were voices in the outer cave.
Once more, then, it was night; for the goblins slept during the day and went about their affairs during the night.
In the universal and constant darkness of their dwelling they had no reason to prefer the one arrangement to the other; but from aversion to the sun-people they chose to be busy when there was least chance of their being met either by the miners below, when they were burrowing, or by the people of the mountain above, when they were feeding their sheep or catching their goats.

And indeed it was only when the sun was away that the outside of the mountain was sufficiently like their own dismal regions to be endurable to their mole eyes, so thoroughly had they become unaccustomed to any light beyond that of their own fires and torches.
Curdie listened, and soon found that they were talking of himself.
'How long will it take ?' asked Harelip.
'Not many days, I should think,' answered the king.

'They are poor feeble creatures, those sun-people, and want to be always eating.

We can go a week at a time without food, and be all the better for it; but I've been told they eat two or three times every day! Can you believe it?
They must be quite hollow inside--not at all like us, nine-tenths of whose bulk is solid flesh and bone.