The Bible in Spain

G >> George Borrow >> The Bible in Spain

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49

I had not been seated long before the blazing pile, when a fellow,
mounted on a fine spirited horse, dashed from the stables through
the passage into the kitchen, where he commenced displaying his
horsemanship, by causing the animal to wheel about with the
velocity of a millstone, to the great danger of everybody in the
apartment. He then galloped out upon the plain, and after half an
hour's absence returned, and having placed his horse once more in
the stable, came and seated himself next to me, to whom he
commenced talking in a gibberish of which I understood very little,
but which he intended for French. He was half intoxicated, and
soon became three parts so, by swallowing glass after glass of
aguardiente. Finding that I made him no answer, he directed his
discourse to one of the contrabandistas, to whom he talked in bad
Spanish. The latter either did not or would not understand him;
but at last, losing patience, called him a drunkard, and told him
to hold his tongue. The fellow, enraged at this contempt, flung
the glass out of which he was drinking at the Spaniard's head, who
sprang up like a tiger, and unsheathing instantly a snick and snee
knife, made an upward cut at the fellow's cheek, and would have
infallibly laid it open, had I not pulled his arm down just in time
to prevent worse effects than a scratch above the lower jawbone,
which, however, drew blood.

The smuggler's companions interfered, and with much difficulty led
him off to a small apartment in the rear of the house, where they
slept, and kept the furniture of their mules. The drunkard then
commenced singing, or rather yelling, the Marseillois hymn; and
after having annoyed every one for nearly an hour, was persuaded to
mount his horse and depart, accompanied by one of his neighbours.
He was a pig merchant of the vicinity, but had formerly been a
trooper in the army of Napoleon, where, I suppose, like the drunken
coachman of Evora, he had picked up his French and his habits of
intoxication.

From Estremoz to Elvas the distance is six leagues. I started at
nine next morning; the first part of the way lay through an
enclosed country, but we soon emerged upon wild bleak downs, over
which the wind, which still pursued us, howled most mournfully. We
met no one on the route; and the scene was desolate in the extreme;
the heaven was of a dark grey, through which no glimpse of the sun
was to be perceived. Before us, at a great distance, on an
elevated ground, rose a tower--the only object which broke the
monotony of the waste. In about two hours from the time when we
first discovered it, we reached a fountain, at the foot of the hill
on which it stood; the water, which gushed into a long stone
trough, was beautifully clear and transparent, and we stopped here
to water the animals.

Having dismounted, I left the guide, and proceeded to ascend the
hill on which the tower stood. Though the ascent was very gentle I
did not accomplish it without difficulty; the ground was covered
with sharp stones, which, in two or three instances, cut through my
boots and wounded my feet; and the distance was much greater than I
had expected. I at last arrived at the ruin, for such it was. I
found it had been one of those watch towers or small fortresses
called in Portuguese atalaias; it was square, and surrounded by a
wall, broken down in many places. The tower itself had no door,
the lower part being of solid stone work; but on one side were
crevices at intervals between the stones, for the purpose of
placing the feet, and up this rude staircase I climbed to a small
apartment, about five feet square, from which the top had fallen.
It commanded an extensive view from all sides, and had evidently
been built for the accommodation of those whose business it was to
keep watch on the frontier, and at the appearance of an enemy to
alarm the country by signals--probably by a fire. Resolute men
might have defended themselves in this little fastness against many
assailants, who must have been completely exposed to their arrows
or musketry in the ascent.

Being about to leave the place, I heard a strange cry behind a part
of the wall which I had not visited, and hastening thither, I found
a miserable object in rags, seated upon a stone. It was a maniac--
a man about thirty years of age, and I believe deaf and dumb; there
he sat, gibbering and mowing, and distorting his wild features into
various dreadful appearances. There wanted nothing but this object
to render the scene complete; banditti amongst such melancholy
desolation would have been by no means so much in keeping. But the
maniac, on his stone, in the rear of the wind-beaten ruin,
overlooking the blasted heath, above which scowled the leaden
heaven, presented such a picture of gloom and misery as I believe
neither painter nor poet ever conceived in the saddest of their
musings. This is not the first instance in which it has been my
lot to verify the wisdom of the saying, that truth is sometimes
wilder than fiction.

I remounted my mule, and proceeded till, on the top of another
hill, my guide suddenly exclaimed, "there is Elvas." I looked in
the direction in which he pointed, and beheld a town perched on the
top of a lofty hill. On the other side of a deep valley towards
the left rose another hill, much higher, on the top of which is the
celebrated fort of Elvas, believed to be the strongest place in
Portugal. Through the opening between the fort and the town, but
in the background and far in Spain, I discerned the misty sides and
cloudy head of a stately mountain, which I afterwards learned was
Albuquerque, one of the loftiest of Estremadura.

We now got into a cultivated country, and following the road, which
wound amongst hedgerows, we arrived at a place where the ground
began gradually to shelve down. Here, on the right, was the
commencement of an aqueduct by means of which the town on the
opposite hill was supplied; it was at this point scarcely two feet
in altitude, but, as we descended, it became higher and higher, and
its proportions more colossal. Near the bottom of the valley it
took a turn to the left, bestriding the road with one of its
arches. I looked up, after passing under it; the water must have
been flowing near a hundred feet above my head, and I was filled
with wonder at the immensity of the structure which conveyed it.
There was, however, one feature which was no slight drawback to its
pretensions to grandeur and magnificence; the water was supported
not by gigantic single arches, like those of the aqueduct of
Lisbon, which stalk over the valley like legs of Titans, but by
three layers of arches, which, like three distinct aqueducts, rise
above each other. The expense and labour necessary for the
erection of such a structure must have been enormous; and, when we
reflect with what comparative ease modern art would confer the same
advantage, we cannot help congratulating ourselves that we live in
times when it is not necessary to exhaust the wealth of a province
to supply a town on a hill with one of the first necessaries of
existence.

CHAPTER VIII

Elvas--Extraordinary Longevity--The English Nation--Portuguese
Ingratitude--Illiberality--Fortifications--Spanish Beggar--Badajoz-
-The Custom House.

Arrived at the gate of Elvas, an officer came out of a kind of
guard house, and, having asked me some questions, despatched a
soldier with me to the police office, that my passport might be
viseed, as upon the frontier they are much more particular with
respect to passports than in other parts. This matter having been
settled, I entered an hostelry near the same gate, which had been
recommended to me by my host at Vendas Novas, and which was kept by
a person of the name of Joze Rosado. It was the best in the town,
though, for convenience and accommodation, inferior to a hedge
alehouse in England. The cold still pursued me, and I was glad to
take refuge in an inner kitchen, which, when the door was not open,
was only lighted by a fire burning somewhat dimly on the hearth.
An elderly female sat beside it in her chair, telling her beads:
there was something singular and extraordinary in her look, as well
as I could discern by the imperfect light of the apartment. I put
a few unimportant questions to her, to which she replied, but
seemed to be afflicted to a slight degree with deafness. Her hair
was becoming grey, and I said that I believed she was older than
myself, but that I was confident she had less snow on her head.

"How old may you be, cavalier?" said she, giving me that title
which in Spain is generally used when an extraordinary degree of
respect is wished to be exhibited. I answered that I was near
thirty. "Then," said she, "you were right in supposing that I am
older than yourself; I am older than your mother, or your mother's
mother: it is more than a hundred years since I was a girl, and
sported with the daughters of the town on the hillside." "In that
case," said I, "you doubtless remember the earthquake." "Yes," she
replied, "if there is any occurrence in my life that I remember, it
is that: I was in the church of Elvas at the moment, hearing the
mass of the king, and the priest fell on the ground, and let fall
the Host from his hands. I shall never forget how the earth shook;
it made us all sick; and the houses and walls reeled like
drunkards. Since that happened I have seen fourscore years pass by
me, yet I was older then than you are now."

I looked with wonder at this surprising female, and could scarcely
believe her words. I was, however, assured that she was in fact
upwards of a hundred and ten years of age, and was considered the
oldest person in Portugal. She still retained the use of her
faculties in as full a degree as the generality of people who have
scarcely attained the half of her age. She was related to the
people of the house.

As the night advanced, several persons entered for the purpose of
enjoying the comfort of the fire and for the sake of conversation,
for the house was a kind of news room, where the principal speaker
was the host, a man of some shrewdness and experience, who had
served as a soldier in the British army. Amongst others was the
officer who commanded at the gate. After a few observations, this
gentleman, who was a good-looking young man of five-and-twenty,
began to burst forth in violent declamation against the English
nation and government, who, he said, had at all times proved
themselves selfish and deceitful, but that their present conduct in
respect to Spain was particularly infamous, for though it was in
their power to put an end to the war at once, by sending a large
army thither, they preferred sending a handful of troops, in order
that the war might be prolonged, for no other reason than that it
was of advantage to them. Having paid him an ironical compliment
for his politeness and urbanity, I asked whether he reckoned
amongst the selfish actions of the English government and nation,
their having expended hundreds of millions of pounds sterling, and
an ocean of precious blood, in fighting the battles of Spain and
Portugal against Napoleon. "Surely," said I, "the fort of Elvas
above our heads, and still more the castle of Badajoz over the
water, speak volumes respecting English selfishness, and must,
every time you view them, confirm you in the opinion which you have
just expressed. And then, with respect to the present combat in
Spain, the gratitude which that country evinced to England after
the French, by means of English armies, had been expelled,--
gratitude evinced by discouraging the trade of England on all
occasions, and by offering up masses in thanksgiving when the
English heretics quitted the Spanish shores,--ought now to induce
England to exhaust and ruin herself, for the sake of hunting Don
Carlos out of his mountains. In deference to your superior
judgment," continued I to the officer, "I will endeavour to believe
that it would be for the advantage of England were the war
prolonged for an indefinite period; nevertheless, you would do me a
particular favour by explaining by what process in chemistry blood
shed in Spain will find its way into the English treasury in the
shape of gold."

As he was not ready with his answer, I took up a plate of fruit
which stood on the table beside me, and said, "What do you call
these fruits?" "Pomegranates and bolotas," he replied. "Right,"
said I, "a home-bred Englishman could not have given me that
answer; yet he is as much acquainted with pomegranates and bolotas
as your lordship is with the line of conduct which it is incumbent
upon England to pursue in her foreign and domestic policy."

This answer of mine, I confess, was not that of a Christian, and
proved to me how much of the leaven of the ancient man still
pervaded me; yet I must be permitted to add, that I believe no
other provocation would have elicited from me a reply so full of
angry feeling: but I could not command myself when I heard my own
glorious land traduced in this unmerited manner. By whom? A
Portuguese! A native of a country which has been twice liberated
from horrid and detestable thraldom by the hands of Englishmen.
But for Wellington and his heroes, Portugal would have been French
at this day; but for Napier and his mariners, Miguel would now be
lording it in Lisbon. To return, however, to the officer; every
one laughed at him, and he presently went away.

The next day I became acquainted with a respectable tradesman of
the name of Almeida, a man of talent, though rather rough in his
manners. He expressed great abhorrence of the papal system, which
had so long spread a darkness like that of death over his
unfortunate country, and I had no sooner informed him that I had
brought with me a certain quantity of Testaments, which it was my
intention to leave for sale at Elvas, than he expressed a great
desire to undertake the charge, and said that he would do the
utmost in his power to procure a sale for them amongst his numerous
customers. Upon showing him a copy, I remarked, your name is upon
the title page; the Portuguese version of the Holy Scriptures,
circulated by the Bible Society, having been executed by a
Protestant of the name of Almeida, and first published in the year
1712; whereupon he smiled, and observed that he esteemed it an
honour to be connected in name at least with such a man. He
scoffed at the idea of receiving any remuneration, and assured me
that the feeling of being permitted to co-operate in so holy and
useful a cause as the circulation of the Scriptures was quite a
sufficient reward.

After having accomplished this matter, I proceeded to survey the
environs of the place, and strolled up the hill to the fort on the
north side of the town. The lower part of the hill is planted with
azinheiras, which give it a picturesque appearance, and at the
bottom is a small brook, which I crossed by means of stepping
stones. Arrived at the gate of the fort, I was stopped by the
sentry, who, however, civilly told me, that if I sent in my name to
the commanding officer he would make no objection to my visiting
the interior. I accordingly sent in my card by a soldier who was
lounging about, and, sitting down on a stone, waited his return.
He presently appeared, and inquired whether I was an Englishman; to
which, having replied in the affirmative, he said, "In that case,
sir, you cannot enter; indeed, it is not the custom to permit any
foreigners to visit the fort." I answered that it was perfectly
indifferent to me whether I visited it or not; and, having taken a
survey of Badajoz from the eastern side of the hill, descended by
the way I came.

This is one of the beneficial results of protecting a nation and
squandering blood and treasure in its defence. The English, who
have never been at war with Portugal, who have fought for its
independence on land and sea, and always with success, who have
forced themselves by a treaty of commerce to drink its coarse and
filthy wines, which no other nation cares to taste, are the most
unpopular people who visit Portugal. The French have ravaged the
country with fire and sword, and shed the blood of its sons like
water; the French buy not its fruits and loathe its wines, yet
there is no bad spirit in Portugal towards the French. The reason
of this is no mystery; it is the nature not of the Portuguese only,
but of corrupt and unregenerate man, to dislike his benefactors,
who, by conferring benefits upon him, mortify in the most generous
manner his miserable vanity.

There is no country in which the English are so popular as in
France; but, though the French have been frequently roughly handled
by the English, and have seen their capital occupied by an English
army, they have never been subjected to the supposed ignominy of
receiving assistance from them.

The fortifications of Elvas are models of their kind, and, at the
first view, it would seem that the town, if well garrisoned, might
bid defiance to any hostile power; but it has its weak point: the
western side is commanded by a hill, at the distance of half a
mile, from which an experienced general would cannonade it, and
probably with success. It is the last town in this part of
Portugal, the distance to the Spanish frontier being barely two
leagues. It was evidently built as a rival to Badajoz, upon which
it looks down from its height across a sandy plain and over the
sullen waters of the Guadiana; but, though a strong town, it can
scarcely be called a defence to the frontier, which is open on all
sides, so that there would not be the slightest necessity for an
invading army to approach within a dozen leagues of its walls,
should it be disposed to avoid them. Its fortifications are so
extensive that ten thousand men at least would be required to man
them, who, in the event of an invasion, might be far better
employed in meeting the enemy in the open field. The French,
during their occupation of Portugal, kept a small force in this
place, who, at the approach of the British, retreated to the fort,
where they shortly after capitulated.

Having nothing farther to detain me at Elvas, I proceeded to cross
the frontier into Spain. My idiot guide was on his way back to
Aldea Gallega; and, on the fifth of January, I mounted a sorry mule
without bridle or stirrups, which I guided by a species of halter,
and followed by a lad who was to attend me on another, I spurred
down the hill of Elvas to the plain, eager to arrive in old
chivalrous romantic Spain. But I soon found that I had no need to
quicken the beast which bore me, for though covered with sores,
wall-eyed, and with a kind of halt in its gait, it cantered along
like the wind.

In little more than half an hour we arrived at a brook, whose
waters ran vigorously between steep banks. A man who was standing
on the side directed me to the ford in the squeaking dialect of
Portugal; but whilst I was yet splashing through the water, a voice
from the other bank hailed me, in the magnificent language of
Spain, in this guise: "O Senor Caballero, que me de usted una
limosna por amor de Dios, una limosnita para que io me compre un
traguillo de vino tinto" (Charity, Sir Cavalier, for the love of
God, bestow an alms upon me, that I may purchase a mouthful of red
wine). In a moment I was on Spanish ground, as the brook, which is
called Acaia, is the boundary here of the two kingdoms, and having
flung the beggar a small piece of silver, I cried in ecstasy
"Santiago y cierra Espana!" and scoured on my way with more speed
than before, paying, as Gil Blas says, little heed to the torrent
of blessings which the mendicant poured forth in my rear: yet
never was charity more unwisely bestowed, for I was subsequently
informed that the fellow was a confirmed drunkard, who took his
station every morning at the ford, where he remained the whole day
for the purpose of extorting money from the passengers, which he
regularly spent every night in the wine-shops of Badajoz. To those
who gave him money he returned blessings, and to those who refused,
curses; being equally skilled and fluent in the use of either.

Badajoz was now in view, at the distance of little more than half a
league. We soon took a turn to the left, towards a bridge of many
arches across the Guadiana, which, though so famed in song and
ballad, is a very unpicturesque stream, shallow and sluggish,
though tolerably wide; its banks were white with linen which the
washer-women had spread out to dry in the sun, which was shining
brightly; I heard their singing at a great distance, and the theme
seemed to be the praises of the river where they were toiling, for
as I approached, I could distinguish Guadiana, Guadiana, which
reverberated far and wide, pronounced by the clear and strong
voices of many a dark-checked maid and matron. I thought there was
some analogy between their employment and my own: I was about to
tan my northern complexion by exposing myself to the hot sun of
Spain, in the humble hope of being able to cleanse some of the foul
stains of Popery from the minds of its children, with whom I had
little acquaintance, whilst they were bronzing themselves on the
banks of the river in order to make white the garments of
strangers: the words of an eastern poet returned forcibly to my
mind.

"I'll weary myself each night and each day,
To aid my unfortunate brothers;
As the laundress tans her own face in the ray,
To cleanse the garments of others."

Having crossed the bridge, we arrived at the northern gate, when
out rushed from a species of sentry box a fellow wearing on his
head a high-peaked Andalusian hat, with his figure wrapped up in
one of those immense cloaks so well known to those who have
travelled in Spain, and which none but a Spaniard can wear in a
becoming manner: without saying a word, he laid hold of the halter
of the mule, and began to lead it through the gate up a dirty
street, crowded with long-cloaked people like himself. I asked him
what he meant, but he deigned not to return an answer, the boy,
however, who waited upon me said that it was one of the gate-
keepers, and that he was conducting us to the Custom House or
Alfandega, where the baggage would be examined. Having arrived
there, the fellow, who still maintained a dogged silence, began to
pull the trunks off the sumpter mule, and commenced uncording them.
I was about to give him a severe reproof for his brutality, but
before I could open my mouth a stout elderly personage appeared at
the door, who I soon found was the principal officer. He looked at
me for a moment and then asked me, in the English language, if I
was an Englishman. On my replying in the affirmative, he demanded
of the fellow how he dared to have the insolence to touch the
baggage, without orders, and sternly bade him cord up the trunks
again and place them on the mule, which he performed without
uttering a word. The gentleman then asked what the trunks
contained: I answered clothes and linen; when he begged pardon for
the insolence of the subordinate, and informed him that I was at
liberty to proceed where I thought proper. I thanked him for his
exceeding politeness, and, under guidance of the boy, made the best
of my way to the Inn of the Three Nations, to which I had been
recommended at Elvas.

CHAPTER IX

Badajoz--Antonio the Gypsy--Antonio's Proposal--The Proposal
Accepted--Gypsy Breakfast--Departure from Badajoz--The Gypsy
Donkey--Merida--The Ruined Wall--The Crone--The Land of the Moor--
The Black Men--Life in the Desert--The Supper.

I was now at Badajoz in Spain, a country which for the next four
years was destined to be the scene of my labour: but I will not
anticipate. The neighbourhood of Badajoz did not prepossess me
much in favour of the country which I had just entered; it consists
chiefly of brown moors, which bear little but a species of
brushwood, called in Spanish carrasco; blue mountains are however
seen towering up in the far distance, which relieve the scene from
the monotony which would otherwise pervade it.

It was at this town of Badajoz, the capital of Estremadura, that I
first fell in with those singular people, the Zincali, Gitanos, or
Spanish gypsies. It was here I met with the wild Paco, the man
with the withered arm, who wielded the cachas (shears) with his
left hand; his shrewd wife, Antonia, skilled in hokkano baro, or
the great trick; the fierce gypsy, Antonio Lopez, their father-in-
law; and many other almost equally singular individuals of the
Errate, or gypsy blood. It was here that I first preached the
gospel to the gypsy people, and commenced that translation of the
New Testament in the Spanish gypsy tongue, a portion of which I
subsequently printed at Madrid.

After a stay of three weeks at Badajoz, I prepared to depart for
Madrid: late one afternoon, as I was arranging my scanty baggage,
the gypsy Antonio entered my apartment, dressed in his zamarra and
high-peaked Andalusian hat.