The Bible in Spain

G >> George Borrow >> The Bible in Spain

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There are many Roman remains in the vicinity of this place, the
most remarkable of which are the ruins of the ancient medicinal
baths, which stand on the southern side of the river Minho, which
creeps through the valley beneath the town. The Minho in this
place is a dark and sullen stream, with high, precipitous, and
thickly wooded banks.

One evening I visited the baths, accompanied by my friend the
bookseller. They had been built over warm springs which flow into
the river. Notwithstanding their ruinous condition, they were
crowded with sick, hoping to derive benefit from the waters, which
are still famed for their sanative power. These patients exhibited
a strange spectacle as, wrapped in flannel gowns much resembling
shrouds, they lay immersed in the tepid waters amongst disjointed
stones, and overhung with steam and reek.

Three or four days after my arrival I was seated in the corridor
which, as I have already observed, occupied the entire front of the
house. The sky was unclouded, and the sun shone most gloriously,
enlivening every object around. Presently the door of the
apartment in which the strangers were lodged opened, and forth
walked the whole family, with the exception of the father, who, I
presumed, was absent on business. The shabby domestic brought up
the rear, and on leaving the apartment, carefully locked the door,
and secured the key in his pocket. The one son and the eleven
daughters were all dressed remarkably well: the boy something
after the English fashion, in jacket and trousers, the young ladies
in spotless white: they were, upon the whole, a very good-looking
family, with dark eyes and olive complexions, but the eldest
daughter was remarkably handsome. They arranged themselves upon
the benches of the corridor, the shabby domestic sitting down
amongst them without any ceremony whatever. They continued for
some time in silence, gazing with disconsolate looks upon the
houses of the suburb and the dark walls of the town, until the
eldest daughter, or senorita as she was called, broke silence with
an "Ay Dios mio!"

Domestic.--Ay Dios mio! we have found our way to a pretty country.

Myself.--I really can see nothing so very bad in the country, which
is by nature the richest in all Spain, and the most abundant. True
it is that the generality of the inhabitants are wretchedly poor,
but they themselves are to blame, and not the country.

Domestic.--Cavalier, the country is a horrible one, say nothing to
the contrary. We are all frightened, the young ladies, the young
gentleman, and myself; even his worship is frightened, and says
that we are come to this country for our sins. It rains every day,
and this is almost the first time that we have seen the sun since
our arrival, it rains continually, and one cannot step out without
being up to the ankles in fango; and then, again, there is not a
house to be found.

Myself.--I scarcely understand you. There appears to be no lack of
houses in this neighbourhood.

Domestic.--Excuse me, sir. His worship hired yesterday a house,
for which he engaged to pay fourteen pence daily; but when the
senorita saw it, she wept, and said it was no house, but a hog-sty,
so his worship paid one day's rent and renounced his bargain.
Fourteen pence a day! why, in our country, we can have a palace for
that money.

Myself.--From what country do you come?

Domestic.--Cavalier, you appear to be a decent gentleman, and I
will tell you our history. We are from Andalusia, and his worship
was last year receiver-general for Granada: his salary was
fourteen thousand rials, with which we contrived to live very
commodiously--attending the bull funcions regularly, or if there
were no bulls, we went to see the novillos, and now and then to the
opera. In a word, sir, we had our diversions and felt at our ease;
so much so, that his worship was actually thinking of purchasing a
pony for the young gentleman, who is fourteen, and must learn to
ride now or never. Cavalier, the ministry was changed, and the new
corners, who were no friends to his worship, deprived him of his
situation. Cavalier, they removed us from that blessed country of
Granada, where our salary was fourteen thousand rials, and sent us
to Galicia, to this fatal town of Lugo, where his worship is
compelled to serve for ten thousand, which is quite insufficient to
maintain us in our former comforts. Good-bye, I trow, to bull
funcions, and novillos, and the opera. Good-bye to the hope of a
horse for the young gentleman. Cavalier, I grow desperate: hold
your tongue, for God's sake! for I can talk no more."

On hearing this history I no longer wondered that the receiver-
general was eager to save a cuarto in the purchase of the oil for
the gaspacho of himself and family of eleven daughters, one son,
and a domestic.

We staid one week at Lugo, and then directed our steps to Coruna,
about twelve leagues distant. We arose before daybreak in order to
avail ourselves of the escort of the general post, in whose company
we travelled upwards of six leagues. There was much talk of
robbers, and flying parties of the factious, on which account our
escort was considerable. At the distance of five or six leagues
from Lugo, our guard, in lieu of regular soldiers, consisted of a
body of about fifty Miguelets. They had all the appearance of
banditti, but a finer body of ferocious fellows I never saw. They
were all men in the prime of life, mostly of tall stature, and of
Herculean brawn and limbs. They wore huge whiskers, and walked
with a fanfaronading air, as if they courted danger, and despised
it. In every respect they stood in contrast to the soldiers who
had hitherto escorted us, who were mere feeble boys from sixteen to
eighteen years of age, and possessed of neither energy nor
activity. The proper dress of the Miguelet, if it resembles
anything military, is something akin to that anciently used by the
English marines. They wear a peculiar kind of hat, and generally
leggings, or gaiters, and their arms are the gun and bayonet. The
colour of their dress is mostly dark brown. They observe little or
no discipline whether on a march or in the field of action. They
are excellent irregular troops, and when on actual service are
particularly useful as skirmishers. Their proper duty, however, is
to officiate as a species of police, and to clear the roads of
robbers, for which duty they are in one respect admirably
calculated, having been generally robbers themselves at one period
of their lives. Why these people are called Miguelets it is not
easy to say, but it is probable that they have derived this
appellation from the name of their original leader. I regret that
the paucity of my own information will not allow me to enter into
farther particulars with respect to this corps, concerning which I
have little doubt that many remarkable things might be said.

Becoming weary of the slow travelling of the post, I determined to
brave all risk, and to push forward. In this, however, I was
guilty of no slight imprudence, as by so doing I was near falling
into the hands of robbers. Two fellows suddenly confronted me with
presented carbines, which they probably intended to discharge into
my body, but they took fright at the noise of Antonio's horse, who
was following a little way behind. The affair occurred at the
bridge of Castellanos, a spot notorious for robbery and murder, and
well adapted for both, for it stands at the bottom of a deep dell
surrounded by wild desolate hills. Only a quarter of an hour
previous I had passed three ghastly heads stuck on poles standing
by the wayside; they were those of a captain of banditti and two of
his accomplices, who had been seized and executed about two months
before. Their principal haunt was the vicinity of the bridge, and
it was their practice to cast the bodies of the murdered into the
deep black water which runs rapidly beneath. Those three heads
will always live in my remembrance, particularly that of the
captain, which stood on a higher pole than the other two: the long
hair was waving in the wind, and the blackened, distorted features
were grinning in the sun. The fellows whom I met wore the relics
of the band.

We arrived at Betanzos late in the afternoon. This town stands on
a creek at some distance from the sea, and about three leagues from
Coruna. It is surrounded on three sides by lofty hills. The
weather during the greater part of the day had been dull and
lowering, and we found the atmosphere of Betanzos insupportably
close and heavy. Sour and disagreeable odours assailed our
olfactory organs from all sides. The streets were filthy--so were
the houses, and especially the posada. We entered the stable; it
was strewed with rotten sea-weeds and other rubbish, in which pigs
were wallowing; huge and loathsome flies were buzzing around.
"What a pest-house!" I exclaimed. But we could find no other
stable, and were therefore obliged to tether the unhappy animals to
the filthy mangers. The only provender that could be obtained was
Indian corn. At nightfall I led them to drink at a small river
which passes through Betanzos. My entero swallowed the water
greedily; but as we returned towards the inn, I observed that he
was sad, and that his head drooped. He had scarcely reached the
stall, when a deep hoarse cough assailed him. I remembered the
words of the ostler in the mountains, "the man must be mad who
brings a horse to Galicia, and doubly so he who brings an entero."
During the greater part of the day the animal had been much heated,
walking amidst a throng of at least a hundred pony mares. He now
began to shiver violently. I procured a quart of anise brandy,
with which, assisted by Antonio, I rubbed his body for nearly an
hour, till his coat was covered with a white foam; but his cough
increased perceptibly, his eyes were becoming fixed, and his
members rigid. "There is no remedy but bleeding," said I. "Run
for a farrier." The farrier came. "You must bleed the horse," I
shouted; "take from him an azumbre of blood." The farrier looked
at the animal, and made for the door. "Where are you going?" I
demanded. "Home," he replied. "But we want you here." "I know
you do," was his answer; "and on that account I am going." "But
you must bleed the horse, or he will die." "I know he will," said
the farrier, "but I will not bleed him." "Why?" I demanded. "I
will not bleed him, but under one condition." "What is that?"
"What is it!--that you pay me an ounce of gold." "Run for the red
morocco case," said I to Antonio. It was brought; I took out a
large fleam, and with the assistance of a stone, drove it into the
principal artery horse's leg. The blood at first refused to flow;
with much rubbing, it began to trickle, and then to stream; it
continued so for half an hour. "The horse is fainting, mon
maitre," said Antonio. "Hold him up," said I, "and in another ten
minutes we will stop the vein."

I closed the vein, and whilst doing so I looked up into the
farrier's face, arching my eyebrows.

"Carracho! what an evil wizard," muttered the farrier, as he walked
away. "If I had my knife here I would stick him." We bled the
horse again, during the night, which second bleeding I believe
saved him. Towards morning he began to eat his food.

The next day we departed for Coruna, leading our horses by the
bridle: the day was magnificent, and our walk delightful. We
passed along beneath tall umbrageous trees, which skirted the road
from Betanzos to within a short distance of Coruna. Nothing could
be more smiling and cheerful than the appearance of the country
around. Vines were growing in abundance in the vicinity of the
villages through which we passed, whilst millions of maize plants
upreared their tall stalks and displayed their broad green leaves
in the fields. After walking about three hours, we obtained a view
of the bay of Coruna, in which, even at the distance of a league,
we could distinguish three or four immense ships riding at anchor.
"Can these vessels belong to Spain?" I demanded of myself. In the
very next village, however, we were informed that the preceding
evening an English squadron had arrived, for what reason nobody
could say. "However," continued our informant, "they have
doubtless some design upon Galicia. These foreigners are the ruin
of Spain."

We put up in what is called the Calle Real, in an excellent fonda,
or posada, kept by a short, thick, comical-looking person, a
Genoese by birth. He was married to a tall, ugly, but good-
tempered Basque woman, by whom he had been blessed with a son and
daughter. His wife, however, had it seems of late summoned all her
female relations from Guipuscoa, who now filled the house to the
number of nine, officiating as chambermaids, cooks, and scullions:
they were all very ugly, but good-natured, and of immense
volubility of tongue. Throughout the whole day the house resounded
with their excellent Basque and very bad Castilian. The Genoese,
on the contrary, spoke little, for which he might have assigned a
good reason; he had lived thirty years in Spain, and had forgotten
his own language without acquiring Spanish, which he spoke very
imperfectly.

We found Coruna full of bustle and life, owing to the arrival of
the English squadron. On the following day, however, it departed,
being bound for the Mediterranean on a short cruise, whereupon
matters instantly returned to their usual course.

I had a depot of five hundred Testaments at Coruna, from which it
was my intention to supply the principal towns of Galicia.
Immediately on my arrival I published advertisements, according to
my usual practice, and the book obtained a tolerable sale--seven or
eight copies per day on the average. Some people, perhaps, on
perusing these details, will be tempted to exclaim, "These are
small matters, and scarcely worthy of being mentioned." But let
such bethink them, that till within a few months previous to the
time of which I am speaking, the very existence of the gospel was
almost unknown in Spain, and that it must necessarily be a
difficult task to induce a people like the Spaniards, who read very
little, to purchase a work like the New Testament, which, though of
paramount importance to the soul, affords but slight prospect of
amusement to the frivolous and carnally minded. I hoped that the
present was the dawning of better and more enlightened times, and
rejoiced in the idea that Testaments, though but few in number,
were being sold in unfortunate benighted Spain, from Madrid to the
furthermost parts of Galicia, a distance of nearly four hundred
miles.

Coruna stands on a peninsula, having on one side the sea, and on
the other the celebrated bay, generally called the Groyne. It is
divided into the old and new town, the latter of which was at one
time probably a mere suburb. The old town is a desolate ruinous
place, separated from the new by a wide moat. The modern town is a
much more agreeable spot, and contains one magnificent street, the
Calle Real, where the principal merchants reside. One singular
feature of this street is, that it is laid entirely with flags of
marble, along which troop ponies and cars as if it were a common
pavement.

It is a saying amongst the inhabitants of Coruna, that in their
town there is a street so clean, that puchera may be eaten off it
without the slightest inconvenience. This may certainly be the
fact after one of those rains which so frequently drench Galicia,
when the appearance of the pavement of the street is particularly
brilliant. Coruna was at one time a place of considerable
commerce, the greater part of which has latterly departed to
Santander, a town which stands a considerable distance down the Bay
of Biscay.

"Are you going to Saint James, Giorgio? If so, you will perhaps
convey a message to my poor countryman," said a voice to me one
morning in broken English, as I was standing at the door of my
posada, in the royal street of Coruna.

I looked round and perceived a man standing near me at the door of
a shop contiguous to the inn. He appeared to be about sixty-five,
with a pale face and remarkably red nose. He was dressed in a
loose green great coat, in his mouth was a long clay pipe, in his
hand a long painted stick.

"Who are you, and who is your countryman?" I demanded; "I do not
know you."

"I know you, however," replied the man; "you purchased the first
knife that I ever sold in the market-place of N-."

Myself.--Ah, I remember you now, Luigi Piozzi; and well do I
remember also, how, when a boy, twenty years ago, I used to repair
to your stall, and listen to you and your countrymen discoursing in
Milanese.

Luigi.--Ah, those were happy times to me. Oh, how they rushed back
on my remembrance when I saw you ride up to the door of the posada.
I instantly went in, closed my shop, lay down upon my bed and wept.

Myself.--I see no reason why you should so much regret those times.
I knew you formerly in England as an itinerant pedlar, and
occasionally as master of a stall in the market-place of a country
town. I now find you in a seaport of Spain, the proprietor,
seemingly, of a considerable shop. I cannot see why you should
regret the difference.

Luigi (dashing his pipe on the ground).--Regret the difference! Do
you know one thing? England is the heaven of the Piedmontese and
Milanese, and especially those of Como. We never lie down to rest
but we dream of it, whether we are in our own country or in a
foreign land, as I am now. Regret the difference, Giorgio! Do I
hear such words from your lips, and you an Englishman? I would
rather be the poorest tramper on the roads of England, than lord of
all within ten leagues of the shore of the lake of Como, and much
the same say all my countrymen who have visited England, wherever
they now be. Regret the difference! I have ten letters, from as
many countrymen in America, who say they are rich and thriving, and
principal men and merchants; but every night, when their heads are
reposing on their pillows, their souls auslandra, hurrying away to
England, and its green lanes and farm-yards. And there they are
with their boxes on the ground, displaying their looking-glasses
and other goods to the honest rustics and their dames and their
daughters, and selling away and chaffering and laughing just as of
old. And there they are again at nightfall in the hedge alehouses,
eating their toasted cheese and their bread, and drinking the
Suffolk ale, and listening to the roaring song and merry jest of
the labourers. Now, if they regret England so who are in America,
which they own to be a happy country, and good for those of
Piedmont and of Como, how much more must I regret it, when, after
the lapse of so many years, I find myself in Spain, in this
frightful town of Coruna, driving a ruinous trade, and where months
pass by without my seeing a single English face, or hearing a word
of the blessed English tongue.

Myself.--With such a predilection for England, what could have
induced you to leave it and come to Spain?

Luigi.--I will tell you: about sixteen years ago a universal
desire seized our people in England to become something more than
they had hitherto been, pedlars and trampers; they wished,
moreover, for mankind are never satisfied, to see other countries:
so the greater part forsook England. Where formerly there had been
ten, at present scarcely lingers one. Almost all went to America,
which, as I told you before, is a happy country, and specially good
for us men of Como. Well, all my comrades and relations passed
over the sea to the West. I, too, was bent on travelling; but
whither? Instead of going towards the West with the rest, to a
country where they have all thriven, I must needs come by myself to
this land of Spain; a country in which no foreigner settles without
dying of a broken heart sooner or later. I had an idea in my head
that I could make a fortune at once, by bringing a cargo of common
English goods, like those which I had been in the habit of selling
amongst the villagers of England. So I freighted half a ship with
such goods, for I had been successful in England in my little
speculations, and I arrived at Coruna. Here at once my vexations
began: disappointment followed disappointment. It was with the
utmost difficulty that I could obtain permission to land my goods,
and this only at a considerable sacrifice in bribes and the like;
and when I had established myself here, I found that the place was
one of no trade, and that my goods went off very slowly, and
scarcely at prime cost. I wished to remove to another place, but
was informed that, in that case, I must leave my goods behind,
unless I offered fresh bribes, which would have ruined me; and in
this way I have gone on for fourteen years, selling scarcely enough
to pay for my shop and to support myself. And so I shall doubtless
continue till I die, or my goods are exhausted. In an evil day I
left England and came to Spain.

Myself.--Did you not say that you had a countryman at St. James?

Luigi.--Yes, a poor honest fellow, who, like myself, by some
strange chance found his way to Galicia. I sometimes contrive to
send him a few goods, which he sells at St. James at a greater
profit than I can here. He is a happy fellow, for he has never
been in England, and knows not the difference between the two
countries. Oh, the green English hedgerows! and the alehouses!
and, what is much more, the fair dealing and security. I have
travelled all over England and never met with ill usage, except
once down in the north amongst the Papists, upon my telling them to
leave all their mummeries and go to the parish church as I did, and
as all my countrymen in England did; for know one thing, Signor
Giorgio, not one of us who have lived in England, whether
Piedmontese or men of Como, but wished well to the Protestant
religion, if he had not actually become a member of it.

Myself.--What do you propose to do at present, Luigi? What are
your prospects?

Luigi.--My prospects are a blank, Giorgio; my prospects are a
blank. I propose nothing but to die in Coruna, perhaps in the
hospital, if they will admit me. Years ago I thought of fleeing,
even if I left all behind me, and either returning to England, or
betaking myself to America; but it is too late now, Giorgio, it is
too late. When I first lost all hope, I took to drinking, to which
I was never before inclined, and I am now what I suppose you see.

"There is hope in the Gospel," said I, "even for you. I will send
you one."

There is a small battery of the old town which fronts the east, and
whose wall is washed by the waters of the bay. It is a sweet spot,
and the prospect which opens from it is extensive. The battery
itself may be about eighty yards square; some young trees are
springing up about it, and it is rather a favourite resort of the
people of Coruna.

In the centre of this battery stands the tomb of Moore, built by
the chivalrous French, in commemoration of the fall of their heroic
antagonist. It is oblong and surmounted by a slab, and on either
side bears one of the simple and sublime epitaphs for which our
rivals are celebrated, and which stand in such powerful contrast
with the bloated and bombastic inscriptions which deform the walls
of Westminster Abbey:

"JOHN MOORE,
LEADER OF THE ENGLISH ARMIES,
SLAIN IN BATTLE,
1809."

The tomb itself is of marble, and around it is a quadrangular wall,
breast high, of rough Gallegan granite; close to each corner rises
from the earth the breech of an immense brass cannon, intended to
keep the wall compact and close. These outer erections are,
however, not the work of the French, but of the English government.

Yes, there lies the hero, almost within sight of the glorious hill
where he turned upon his pursuers like a lion at bay and terminated
his career. Many acquire immortality without seeking it, and die
before its first ray has gilded their name; of these was Moore.
The harassed general, flying through Castile with his dispirited
troops before a fierce and terrible enemy, little dreamed that he
was on the point of attaining that for which many a better,
greater, though certainly not braver man, had sighed in vain. His
very misfortunes were the means which secured him immortal fame;
his disastrous route, bloody death, and finally his tomb on a
foreign strand, far from kin and friends. There is scarcely a
Spaniard but has heard of this tomb, and speaks of it with a
strange kind of awe. Immense treasures are said to have been
buried with the heretic general, though for what purpose no one
pretends to guess. The demons of the clouds, if we may trust the
Gallegans, followed the English in their flight, and assailed them
with water-spouts as they toiled up the steep winding paths of
Fuencebadon; whilst legends the most wild are related of the manner
in which the stout soldier fell. Yes, even in Spain, immortality
has already crowned the head of Moore;--Spain, the land of
oblivion, where the Guadalete {16} flows.