The Bible in Spain

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Well, we reached Burgos in safety; we reached Valladolid in safety;
we passed the Guadarama in safety; and were at length safely housed
in Madrid. People said we had been very lucky; Antonio said, "It
was so written"; but I say, Glory be to the Lord for his mercies
vouchsafed to us.

CHAPTER XXXVI

State of Affairs at Madrid--The New Ministry--Pope of Rome--The
Bookseller of Toledo--Sword Blades--Houses of Toledo--The Forlorn
Gypsy--Proceedings at Madrid--Another Servant.

During my journey in the northern provinces of Spain, which
occupied a considerable portion of the year 1837, I had
accomplished but a slight portion of what I proposed to myself to
effect in the outset. Insignificant are the results of man's
labours compared with the swelling ideas of his presumption;
something, however, had been effected by the journey, which I had
just concluded. The New Testament of Christ was now enjoying a
quiet sale in the principal towns of the north, and I had secured
the friendly interest and co-operation of the booksellers of those
parts, particularly of him the most considerable of them all, old
Rey of Compostella. I had, moreover, disposed of a considerable
number of Testaments with my own hands, to private individuals,
entirely of the lower class, namely, muleteers, carmen,
contrabandistas, etc., so that upon the whole I had abundant cause
for gratitude and thanksgiving.

I did not find our affairs in a very prosperous state at Madrid,
few copies having been sold in the booksellers' shops, yet what
could be rationally expected during these latter times? Don
Carlos, with a large army, had been at the gates; plunder and
massacre had been expected; so that people were too much occupied
in forming plans to secure their lives and property, to give much
attention to reading of any description.

The enemy, however, had now retired to his strongholds in Alava and
Guipuscoa. I hoped that brighter days were dawning, and that the
work, under my own superintendence, would, with God's blessing,
prosper in the capital of Spain. How far the result corresponded
with my expectations will be seen in the sequel. During my absence
in the north, a total change of ministers had occurred. The
liberal party had been ousted from the cabinet, and in their place
had entered individuals attached to the moderado or court party:
unfortunately, however, for my prospects, they consisted of persons
with whom I had no acquaintance whatever, and with whom my former
friends, Galiano and Isturitz, had little or no influence. These
gentlemen were now regularly laid on the shelf, and their political
career appeared to be terminated for ever.

From the present ministry I could expect but little; they consisted
of men, the greater part of whom had been either courtiers or
employes of the deceased King Ferdinand, who were friends to
absolutism, and by no means inclined to do or to favour anything
calculated to give offence to the court of Rome, which they were
anxious to conciliate, hoping that eventually it might be induced
to recognize the young queen, not as the constitutional but as the
absolute Queen Isabella the Second.

Such was the party which continued in power throughout the
remainder of my sojourn in Spain, and which persecuted me less from
rancour and malice than from policy. It was not until the
conclusion of the war of the succession that it lost the
ascendancy, when it sank to the ground with its patroness the
queen-mother, before the dictatorship of Espartero.

The first step which I took after my return to Madrid, towards
circulating the Scriptures, was a very bold one. It was neither
more nor less than the establishment of a shop for the sale of
Testaments. This shop was situated in the Calle del Principe, a
respectable and well-frequented street in the neighbourhood of the
Square of Cervantes. I furnished it handsomely with glass cases
and chandeliers, and procured an acute Gallegan of the name of Pepe
Calzado, to superintend the business, who gave me weekly a faithful
account of the copies sold.

"How strangely times alter," said I, the second day subsequent to
the opening of my establishment, as I stood on the opposite side of
the street, leaning against the wall with folded arms, surveying my
shop, on the windows of which were painted in large yellow
characters, Despacho de la Sociedad Biblica y Estrangera; "how
strangely times alter; here have I been during the last eight
months running about old Popish Spain, distributing Testaments, as
agent of what the Papists call an heretical society, and have
neither been stoned nor burnt; and here am I now in the capital,
doing that which one would think were enough to cause all the dead
inquisitors and officials buried within the circuit of the walls to
rise from their graves and cry abomination; and yet no one
interferes with me. Pope of Rome! Pope of Rome! look to thyself.
That shop may be closed; but oh! what a sign of the times, that it
has been permitted to exist for one day. It appears to me, my
Father, that the days of your sway are numbered in Spain; that you
will not be permitted much longer to plunder her, to scoff at her,
and to scourge her with scorpions, as in bygone periods. See I not
the hand on the wall? See I not in yonder letters a 'Mene, mene,
Tekel, Upharsin'? Look to thyself, Batuschca."

And I remained for two hours, leaning against the wall, staring at
the shop.

A short time after the establishment of the despacho at Madrid, I
once more mounted the saddle, and, attended by Antonio, rode over
to Toledo, for the purpose of circulating the Scriptures, sending
beforehand by a muleteer a cargo of one hundred Testaments. I
instantly addressed myself to the principal bookseller of the
place, whom from the circumstance of his living in a town so
abounding with canons, priests, and ex-friars as Toledo, I expected
to find a Carlist, or a servile at least. I was never more
mistaken in my life; on entering the shop, which was very large and
commodious, I beheld a stout athletic man, dressed in a kind of
cavalry uniform, with a helmet on his head, and an immense sabre in
his hand: this was the bookseller himself, who I soon found was an
officer in the national cavalry. Upon learning who I was, he shook
me heartily by the hand, and said that nothing would give him
greater pleasure than taking charge of the books, which he would
endeavour to circulate to the utmost of his ability.

"Will not your doing so bring you into odium with the clergy?"

"Ca!" said he; "who cares? I am rich, and so was my father before
me. I do not depend on them, they cannot hate me more than they do
already, for I make no secret of my opinions. I have just returned
from an expedition," said he; "my brother nationals and myself
have, for the last three days, been occupied in hunting down the
factious and thieves of the neighbourhood; we have killed three and
brought in several prisoners. Who cares for the cowardly priests?
I am a liberal, Don Jorge, and a friend of your countryman,
Flinter. Many is the Carlist guerilla-curate and robber-friar whom
I have assisted him to catch. I am rejoiced to hear that he has
just been appointed captain-general of Toledo; there will be fine
doings here when he arrives, Don Jorge. We will make the clergy
shake between us, I assure you."

Toledo was formerly the capital of Spain. Its population at
present is barely fifteen thousand souls, though, in the time of
the Romans, and also during the Middle Ages, it is said to have
amounted to between two and three hundred thousand. It is situated
about twelve leagues (forty miles) westward of Madrid, and is built
upon a steep rocky hill, round which flows the Tagus, on all sides
but the north. It still possesses a great many remarkable
edifices, notwithstanding that it has long since fallen into decay.
Its cathedral is the most magnificent of Spain, and is the see of
the primate. In the tower of this cathedral is the famous bell of
Toledo, the largest in the world with the exception of the monster
bell of Moscow, which I have also seen. It weighs 1,543 arrobes,
or 37,032 pounds. It has, however, a disagreeable sound, owing to
a cleft in its side. Toledo could once boast the finest pictures
in Spain, but many were stolen or destroyed by the French during
the Peninsular war, and still more have lately been removed by
order of the government. Perhaps the most remarkable one still
remains; I allude to that which represents the burial of the Count
of Orgaz, the masterpiece of Domenico, the Greek, a most
extraordinary genius, some of whose productions possess merit of a
very high order. The picture in question is in the little parish
church of San Tome, at the bottom of the aisle, on the left side of
the altar. Could it be purchased, I should say it would be cheap
at five thousand pounds.

Amongst the many remarkable things which meet the eye of the
curious observer at Toledo, is the manufactory of arms, where are
wrought the swords, spears, and other weapons intended for the
army, with the exception of fire-arms, which mostly come from
abroad.

In old times, as is well known, the sword-blades of Toledo were
held in great estimation, and were transmitted as merchandise
throughout Christendom. The present manufactory, or fabrica, as it
is called, is a handsome modern edifice, situated without the wall
of the city, on a plain contiguous to the river, with which it
communicates by a small canal. It is said that the water and the
sand of the Tagus are essential for the proper tempering of the
swords. I asked some of the principal workmen whether, at the
present day, they could manufacture weapons of equal value to those
of former days, and whether the secret had been lost.

"Ca!" said they, "the swords of Toledo were never so good as those
which we are daily making. It is ridiculous enough to see
strangers coming here to purchase old swords, the greater part of
which are mere rubbish, and never made at Toledo, yet for such they
will give a large price, whilst they would grudge two dollars for
this jewel, which was made but yesterday"; thereupon putting into
my hand a middle-sized rapier. "Your worship," said they, "seems
to have a strong arm, prove its temper against the stone wall;--
thrust boldly and fear not."

I HAVE a strong arm and dashed the point with my utmost force
against the solid granite: my arm was numbed to the shoulder from
the violence of the concussion, and continued so for nearly a week,
but the sword appeared not to be at all blunted, or to have
suffered in any respect.

"A better sword than that," said an ancient workman, a native of
Old Castile, "never transfixed Moor out yonder on the sagra."

During my stay at Toledo, I lodged at the Posada de los Caballeros,
which signifies the inn of the gentlemen, which name, in some
respects, is certainly well deserved, for there are many palaces
far less magnificent than this inn of Toledo. By magnificence it
must not be supposed, however, that I allude to costliness of
furniture, or any kind of luxury which pervaded the culinary
department. The rooms were as empty as those of Spanish inns
generally are, and the fare, though good in its kind, was plain and
homely; but I have seldom seen a more imposing edifice. It was of
immense size, consisting of several stories, and was built
something in the Moorish taste, with a quadrangular court in the
centre, beneath which was an immense algibe or tank, serving as a
reservoir for rain-water. All the houses in Toledo are supplied
with tanks of this description, into which the waters in the rainy
season flow from the roofs through pipes. No other water is used
for drinking; that of the Tagus, not being considered salubrious,
is only used for purposes of cleanliness, being conveyed up the
steep narrow streets on donkeys in large stone jars. The city,
standing on a rocky mountain, has no wells. As for the rain-water,
it deposits a sediment in the tank, and becomes very sweet and
potable: these tanks are cleaned out: twice every year. During
the summer, at which time the heat in this part of Spain is
intense, the families spend the greater part of the day in the
courts, which are overhung with a linen awning, the heat of the
atmosphere being tempered by the coolness arising from the tank
below, which answers the same purpose as the fountain in the
southern provinces of Spain.

I spent about a week at Toledo, during which time several copies of
the Testament were disposed of in the shop of my friend the
bookseller. Several priests took it up from the mostrador on which
it lay, examined it, but made no remarks; none of them purchased
it. My friend showed me through his house, almost every apartment
of which was lined from roof to floor with books, many of which
were highly valuable. He told me that he possessed the best
collection in Spain of the ancient literature of the country. He
was, however, less proud of his library than his stud; finding that
I had some acquaintance with horses, his liking for me and also his
respect considerably increased. "All I have," said he, "is at your
service; I see you are a man after my own heart. When you are
disposed to ride out upon the sagra, you have only to apply to my
groom, who will forthwith saddle you my famed Cordovese entero; I
purchased him from the stables at Aranjuez, when the royal stud was
broken up. There is but one other man to whom I would lend him,
and that man is Flinter."

At Toledo I met with a forlorn Gypsy woman and her son, a lad of
about fourteen years of age; she was not a native of the place, but
had come from La Mancha, her husband having been cast into the
prison of Toledo on a charge of mule-stealing: the crime had been
proved against him, and in a few days he was to depart for Malaga,
with the chain of galley slaves. He was quite destitute of money,
and his wife was now in Toledo, earning a few cuartos by telling
fortunes about the streets, to support him in prison. She told me
that it was her intention to follow him to Malaga, where she hoped
to be able to effect his escape. What an instance of conjugal
affection; and yet the affection here was all on one side, as is
too frequently the case. Her husband was a worthless scoundrel,
who had previously abandoned her and betaken himself to Madrid,
where he had long lived in concubinage with the notorious she-thug
Aurora, at whose instigation he had committed the robbery for which
he was now held in durance. "Should your husband escape from
Malaga, in what direction will he fly?" I demanded.

"To the chim of the Corahai, my son; to the land of the Moors, to
be a soldier of the Moorish king."

"And what will become of yourself?" I inquired; "think you that he
will take you with him?"

"He will leave me on the shore, my son, and as soon as he has
crossed the black pawnee, he will forget me and never think of me
more."

"And knowing his ingratitude, why should you give yourself so much
trouble about him?"

"Am I not his romi, my son, and am I not bound by the law of the
Cales to assist him to the last? Should he return from the land of
the Corahai at the end of a hundred years, and should find me
alive, and should say, I am hungry, little wife, go forth and steal
or tell bahi, I must do it, for he is the rom and I the romi."

On my return to Madrid, I found the despacho still open: various
Testaments had been sold, though the number was by no means
considerable: the work had to labour under great disadvantage,
from the ignorance of the people at large with respect to its tenor
and contents. It was no wonder, then, that little interest was
felt respecting it. To call, however, public attention to the
despacho, I printed three thousand advertisements on paper, yellow,
blue, and crimson, with which I almost covered the sides of the
streets, and besides this, inserted an account of it in all the
journals and periodicals; the consequence was, that in a short time
almost every person in Madrid was aware of its existence. Such
exertions in London or Paris would probably have ensured the sale
of the entire edition of the New Testament within a few days. In
Madrid, however, the result was not quite so flattering; for after
the establishment had been open an entire month, the copies
disposed of barely amounted to one hundred.

These proceedings of mine did not fail to cause a great sensation:
the priests and their partisans were teeming with malice and fury,
which, for some time, however, they thought proper to exhibit only
in words; it being their opinion that I was favoured by the
ambassador and by the British government; but there was no attempt,
however atrocious, that might not be expected from their malignity;
and were it right and seemly for me, the most insignificant of
worms, to make such a comparison, I might say, like Paul at
Ephesus, I was fighting with wild beasts.

On the last day of the year 1837, my servant Antonio thus addressed
me: "Mon maitre, it is necessary that I leave you for a time.
Ever since we have returned from our journeys, I have become
unsettled and dissatisfied with the house, the furniture, and with
Donna Marequita. I have therefore engaged myself as cook in the
house of the Count of -, where I am to receive four dollars per
month less than what your worship gives me. I am fond of change,
though it be for the worse. Adieu, mon maitre, may you be as well
served as you deserve; should you chance, however, to have any
pressing need de mes soins, send for me without hesitation, and I
will at once give my new master warning, if I am still with him,
and come to you."

Thus was I deprived for a time of the services of Antonio. I
continued for a few days without a domestic, at the end of which
time I hired a certain Cantabrian or Basque, a native of the
village of Hernani, in Guipuscoa, who was strongly recommended to
me.

CHAPTER XXXVII

Euscarra--Basque not Irish--Sanskrit and Tartar Dialects--A Vowel
Language--Popular Poetry--The Basques--Their Persons--Basque Women.

I now entered upon the year 1838, perhaps the most eventful of all
those which I passed in Spain. The despacho still continued open,
with a somewhat increasing sale. Having at this time little of
particular moment with which to occupy myself, I committed to the
press two works, which for some time past had been in the course of
preparation. These were the Gospel of St. Luke in the Spanish
Gypsy and the Euscarra languages.

With respect to the Gypsy Gospel I have little to say, having
already spoken of it in a former work (The Zincali): it was
translated by myself, together with the greater part of the New
Testament, during my long intercourse with the Spanish Gypsies.
Concerning the Luke in Euscarra, however, it will be as well to be
more particular, and to avail myself of the present opportunity to
say a few words concerning the language in which it was written,
and the people for whom it was intended.

The Euscarra, then, is the proper term for a certain speech or
language, supposed to have been at one time prevalent throughout
Spain, but which is at present confined to certain districts, both
on the French and Spanish side of the Pyrenees, which are laved by
the waters of the Cantabrian Gulf or Bay of Biscay. This language
is commonly known as the Basque or Biscayan, which words are mere
modifications of the word Euscarra, the consonant B having been
prefixed for the sake of euphony. Much that is vague, erroneous,
and hypothetical, has been said and written concerning this tongue.
The Basques assert that it was not only the original language of
Spain, but also of the world, and that from it all other languages
are derived; but the Basques are a very ignorant people, and know
nothing of the philosophy of language. Very little importance,
therefore, need be attached to any opinion of theirs on such a
subject. A few amongst them, however, who affect some degree of
learning, contend, that it is neither more nor less than a dialect
of the Phoenician, and, that the Basques are the descendants of a
Phoenician colony, established at the foot of the Pyrenees at a
very remote period. Of this theory, or rather conjecture, as it is
unsubstantiated by the slightest proof, it is needless to take
further notice than to observe that, provided the Phoenician
language, as many of the TRULY LEARNED have supposed and almost
proved, was a dialect of the Hebrew, or closely allied to it, it
were as unreasonable to suppose that the Basque is derived from it,
as that the Kamschatdale and Cherokee are dialects of the Greek or
Latin.

There is, however, another opinion with respect to the Basque which
deserves more especial notice, from the circumstance of its being
extensively entertained amongst the literati of various countries
of Europe, more especially England. I allude to the Celtic origin
of this tongue, and its close connexion with the most cultivated of
all the Celtic dialects, the Irish. People who pretend to be well
conversant with the subject, have even gone so far as to assert,
that so little difference exists between the Basque and Irish
tongues, that individuals of the two nations, when they meet
together, find no difficulty in understanding each other, with no
other means of communication than their respective languages; in a
word, that there is scarcely a greater difference between the two
than between the French and the Spanish Basque. Such similarity,
however, though so strongly insisted upon, by no means exists in
fact, and perhaps in the whole of Europe it would be difficult to
discover two languages which exhibit fewer points of mutual
resemblance than the Basque and Irish.

The Irish, like most other European languages, is a dialect of the
Sanskrit, a REMOTE one, as may well be supposed. The corner of the
western world in which it is still preserved being, of all
countries in Europe, the most distant from the proper home of the
parent tongue. It is still, however, a dialect of that venerable
and most original speech, not so closely resembling it, it is true,
as the English, Danish, and those which belong to what is called
the Gothic family, and far less than those of the Sclavonian; for,
the nearer we approach to the East, in equal degree the
assimilation of languages to this parent stock becomes more clear
and distinct; but still a dialect, agreeing with the Sanskrit in
structure, in the arrangement of words, and in many instances in
the words themselves, which, however modified, may still be
recognized as Sanskrit. But what is the Basque, and to what family
does it properly pertain?

To two great Asiatic languages, all the dialects spoken at present
in Europe may be traced. These two, if not now spoken, still exist
in books, and are, moreover, the languages of two of the principal
religions of the East. I allude to the Tibetian and Sanskrit--the
sacred languages of the followers of Buddh and Bramah. These
tongues, though they possess many words in common, which is easily
to be accounted for by their close proximity, are properly
distinct, being widely different in structure. In what this
difference consists, I have neither time nor inclination to state;
suffice it to say that the Celtic, Gothic, and Sclavonian dialects
in Europe belong to the Sanskrit family, even as in the East the
Persian, and to a less degree the Arabic, Hebrew, etc.; whilst to
the Tibetian or Tartar family in Asia pertain the Mandchou and
Mongolian, the Calmuc and the Turkish of the Caspian Sea; and in
Europe, the Hungarian and the Basque PARTIALLY.

Indeed this latter language is a strange anomaly, so that upon the
whole it is less difficult to say what it is not, than what it is.
It abounds with Sanskrit words to such a degree that its surface
seems strewn with them. Yet would it be wrong to term it a
Sanskrit dialect, for in the collocation of these words the Tartar
form is most decidedly observable. A considerable proportion of
Tartar words is likewise to be found in this language, though
perhaps not in equal number to the terms derived from the Sanskrit.
Of these Tartar etymons I shall at present content myself with
citing one, though, if necessary, it were easy to adduce hundreds.
This word is Jauna, or as it is pronounced, Khauna, a word in
constant use amongst the Basques, and which is the Khan of the
Mongols and Mandchous, and of the same signification--Lord.

Having closely examined the subject in all its various bearings,
and having weighed what is to be said on one side against what is
to be advanced on the other, I am inclined to rank the Basque
rather amongst the Tartar than the Sanskrit dialects. Whoever
should have an opportunity of comparing the enunciation of the
Basques and Tartars would, from that alone, even if he understood
them not, come to the conclusion that their respective languages
were formed on the same principles. In both occur periods
seemingly interminable, during which the voice gradually ascends to
a climax, and then gradually sinks down.