The Bible in Spain. Volume 1 of 2

“I will,” said I.

It was a pleasant afternoon’s ride from Pontevedra to Vigo, the distance being only four leagues. As we approached the latter town, the country became exceedingly mountainous, though scarcely anything could exceed the beauty of the surrounding scenery. The sides of the hills were for the most part clothed with luxuriant forests, even to the very summits, though occasionally a flinty and naked peak would present itself, rising to the clouds. As the evening came on the route along which we advanced became very gloomy, the hills and forests enwrapping it in deep shade. It appeared, however, to be well frequented: numerous cars were creaking along it, and both horsemen and pedestrians were continually passing us. The villages were frequent. Vines, supported on parras, were growing, if possible, in still greater abundance than in the neighbourhood of Pontevedra. Life and activity seemed to pervade everything. The hum of insects, the cheerful bark of dogs, the rude songs of Galicia, were blended together in pleasant symphony. So delicious was my ride that I almost regretted when we entered the gate of Vigo.

The town occupies the lower part of a lofty hill, which, as it ascends, becomes extremely steep and precipitous, and the top of which is crowned with a strong fort or castle. It is a small compact place, surrounded with low walls; the streets are narrow, steep, and winding, and in the middle of the town is a small square.

There is rather an extensive faubourg extending along the shore of the bay. We found an excellent posada, kept by a man and woman from the Basque provinces, who were both civil and intelligent. The town seemed to be crowded, and resounded with noise and merriment. The people were making a wretched attempt at an illumination, in consequence of some victory lately gained, or pretended to have been gained, over the forces of the Pretender. Military uniforms were glancing about in every direction. To increase the bustle, a troop of Portuguese players had lately arrived from Oporto, and their first representation was to take place this evening. “Is the play to be performed in Spanish?” I demanded. “No,” was the reply; “and on that account every person is so eager to go, which would not be the case if it were in a language which they could understand.”

On the morning of the next day I was seated at breakfast in a large apartment which looked out upon the Plaza Mayor, or great square of the good town of Vigo. The sun was shining very brilliantly, and all around looked lively and gay. Presently a stranger entered, and, bowing profoundly, stationed himself at the window, where he remained a considerable time in silence. He was a man of very remarkable appearance, of about thirty-five. His features were of perfect symmetry, and I may almost say of perfect beauty. His hair was the darkest I had ever seen, glossy and shining; his eyes large, black, and melancholy; but that which most struck me was his complexion. It might be called olive, it is true, but it was a livid olive. He was dressed in the very first style of French fashion. Around his neck was a massive gold chain, while upon his fingers were large rings, in one of which was set a magnificent ruby. Who can that man be? thought I – Spaniard or Portuguese; perhaps a Creole. I asked him an indifferent question in Spanish, to which he forthwith replied in that language, but his accent convinced me that he was neither Spaniard nor Portuguese.

“I presume I am speaking to an Englishman, sir,” said he, in as good English as it was possible for one not an Englishman to speak.

Myself. – You know me to be an Englishman; but I should find some difficulty in guessing to what country you belong.

Stranger. – May I take a seat?

Myself. – A singular question. Have you not as much right to sit in the public apartment of an inn as myself?

Stranger. – I am not certain of that. The people here are not in general very gratified at seeing me seated by their side.

Myself. – Perhaps owing to your political opinions, or to some crime which it may have been your misfortune to commit.

Stranger. – I have no political opinions, and I am not aware that I ever committed any particular crime. I am hated for my country and my religion.

Myself. – Perhaps I am speaking to a Protestant, like myself?

Stranger. – I am no Protestant. If I were, they would be cautious here of showing their dislike, for I should then have a government and a consul to protect me. I am a Jew – a Barbary Jew, a subject of Abderrahman.

Myself. – If that be the case, you can scarcely complain of being looked upon with dislike in this country, since in Barbary the Jews are slaves.

Stranger. – In most parts, I grant you, but not where I was born, which was far up the country, near the deserts. There the Jews are free, and are feared, and are as valiant men as the Moslems themselves; as able to tame the steed, or to fire the gun. The Jews of our tribe are not slaves, and I like not to be treated as a slave either by Christian or Moor.

Myself. – Your history must be a curious one; I would fain hear it.

Stranger. – My history I shall tell to no one. I have travelled much, I have been in commerce, and have thriven. I am at present established in Portugal, but I love not the people of Catholic countries, and least of all these of Spain. I have lately experienced the most shameful injustice in the Aduana of this town, and when I complained, they laughed at me, and called me Jew. Wherever he turns, the Jew is reviled, save in your country, and on that account my blood always warms when I see an Englishman. You are a stranger here. Can I do aught for you? You may command me.

Myself. – I thank you heartily, but I am in need of no assistance.

Stranger. – Have you any bills? I will accept them if you have.

Myself. – I have no need of assistance; but you may do me a favour by accepting of a book.

Stranger. – I will receive it with thanks. I know what it is. What a singular people! The same dress, the same look, the same book. Pelham gave me one in Egypt. Farewell! Your Jesus was a good man, perhaps a prophet; but.. farewell!

Well may the people of Pontevedra envy the natives of Vigo their bay, with which, in many respects, none other in the world can compare. On every side it is defended by steep and sublime hills, save on the part of the west, where is the outlet to the Atlantic; but in the midst of this outlet, up towers a huge rocky wall, or island, which breaks the swell, and prevents the billows of the western sea from pouring through in full violence. On either side of this island is a passage, so broad that navies might pass through at all times in safety. The bay itself is oblong, running far into the land, and so capacious that a thousand sail of the line might ride in it uncrowded. The waters are dark, still, and deep, without quicksands or shallows, so that the proudest man-of-war might lie within a stone’s throw of the town ramparts without any fear of injuring her keel.

Of many a strange event, and of many a mighty preparation, has this bay been the scene. It was here that the bulky dragons of the grand Armada were mustered; and it was from hence that, fraught with the pomp, power, and terror of Old Spain, the monster fleet, spreading its enormous sails to the wind, and bent on the ruin of the Lutheran isle, proudly steered; – that fleet, to build and man which half the forests of Galicia had been felled, and all the mariners impressed from the thousand bays and creeks of the stern Cantabrian shore. It was here that the united flags of Holland and England triumphed over the pride of Spain and France; when the burning timbers of exploded war-ships soared above the tops of the Gallegan hills, and blazing galleons sank with their treasure-chests whilst drifting in the direction of Sampayo. It was on the shores of this bay that the English guards first emptied Spanish bodegas, whilst the bombs of Cobham were crushing the roofs of the castle of Castro, and the vecinos of Pontevedra buried their doubloons in cellars, and flying posts were conveying to Lugo and Orense the news of the heretic invasion and the disaster of Vigo. All these events occurred to my mind as I stood far up the hill, at a short distance from the fort, surveying the bay.

“What are you doing there, Cavalier?” roared several voices. “Stay, Carracho! if you attempt to run we will shoot you!” I looked round and saw three or four fellows in dirty uniforms, to all appearance soldiers, just above me, on a winding path, which led up the hill. Their muskets were pointed at me. “What am I doing? Nothing, as you see,” said I, “save looking at the bay; and as for running, this is by no means ground for a course.” “You are our prisoner,” said they, “and you must come with us to the fort.” “I was just thinking of going there,” I replied, “before you thus kindly invited me. The fort is the very spot I was desirous of seeing.” I thereupon climbed up to the place where they stood, when they instantly surrounded me, and with this escort I was marched into the fort, which might have been a strong place in its time, but was now rather ruinous. “You are suspected of being a spy,” said the corporal, who walked in front. “Indeed?” said I. “Yes,” replied the corporal, “and several spies have lately been taken and shot.”

Upon one of the parapets of the fort stood a young man, dressed as a subaltern officer, and to this personage I was introduced. “We have been watching you this half-hour,” said he, “as you were taking observations.” “Then you gave yourselves much useless trouble,” said I. “I am an Englishman, and was merely looking at the bay. Have the kindness now to show me the fort.”.

After some conversation, he said, “I wish to be civil to people of your nation; you may therefore consider yourself at liberty.” I bowed, made my exit, and proceeded down the hill. Just before I entered the town, however, the corporal, who had followed me unperceived, tapped me on the shoulder. “You must go with me to the governor,” said he. “With all my heart,” I replied. The governor was shaving when we were shown up to him. He was in his shirt-sleeves, and held a razor in his hand. He looked very ill-natured, which was perhaps owing to his being thus interrupted in his toilet. He asked me two or three questions, and on learning that I had a passport, and was the bearer of a letter to the English consul, he told me that I was at liberty to depart. So I bowed to the governor of the town, as I had done to the governor of the fort, and making my exit, proceeded to my inn.

At Vigo I accomplished but little in the way of distribution, and, after a sojourn of a few days, I returned in the direction of Saint James.

APPENDIX

THE JEWS IN LISBON Chap. v. p. 67

In the early editions this chapter ended as follows: —

I found them a vile, infamous rabble, about two hundred in number. With a few exceptions, they consist of escapados from the Barbary shore, from Tetuan, from Tangier, but principally from Mogadore; fellows who have fled to a foreign land from the punishment due to their misdeeds. Their manner of life in Lisbon is worthy of such a goodly assemblage of amis réunis. The generality of them pretend to work in gold and silver, and keep small peddling shops; they, however, principally depend for their livelihood on an extensive traffic in stolen goods which they carry on. It is said that there is honour among thieves, but this is certainly not the case with the Jews of Lisbon, for they are so greedy and avaricious, that they are constantly quarrelling about their ill-gotten gain, the result being that they frequently ruin each other. Their mutual jealousy is truly extraordinary. If one, by cheating and roguery, gains a cruzado in the presence of another, the latter instantly says, “I cry halves,” and if the first refuse he is instantly threatened with an information. The manner in which they cheat each other has, with all its infamy, occasionally something extremely droll and ludicrous. I was one day in the shop of a Swiri, or Jew of Mogadore, when a Jew from Gibraltar entered, with a Portuguese female, who held in her hand a mantle, richly embroidered with gold.

Gibraltar Jew (speaking in broken Arabic). – Good day, O Swiri; God has favoured me this day; here is a bargain by which we shall both gain. I have bought this mantle of the woman almost for nothing, for it is stolen; but I am poor, as you know, I have not a cruzado; pay her therefore the price, that we may then forthwith sell the mantle and divide the gain.

Swiri. – Willingly, brother of Gibraltar; I will pay the woman for the mantle; it does not appear a bad one.

Thereupon he flung two cruzados to the woman, who forthwith left the shop.

Gibraltar Jew. – Thanks, brother Swiri; this is very kind of you. Now let us go and sell the mantle, the gold alone is well worth a moidore. But I am poor, and have nothing to eat; give me, therefore, the half of that sum and keep the mantle; I shall be content.

Swiri. – May Allah blot out your name, you thief! What mean you by asking me for money? I bought the mantle of the woman and paid for it. I know nothing of you. Go out of my doors, dog of a Nazarene; if not, I will pay you with a kick.

The dispute was referred to one of the sabios, or priests; but the sabio, who was also from Mogadore, at once took the part of the Swiri, and decided that the other should have nothing. Whereupon the Gibraltar Jew cursed the sabio, his father, mother, and all his family. The sabio replied, “I put you in nduis,” – a kind of purgatory or hell. “I put you in seven nduis,” retorted the incensed Jew, over whom, however, superstitious fear speedily prevailed; he faltered, became pale, and dropping his voice, retreated, trembling in every limb.

The Jews have two synagogues in Lisbon, both are small; one is, however, tolerably well furnished, it has its reading-desk, and in the middle there is a rather handsome chandelier; the other is little better than a sty, filthy to a degree, without ornament of any kind. The congregation of this last are thieves to a man; no Jew of the slightest respectability ever enters it.

How well do superstition and crime go hand in hand! These wretched beings break the eternal commandments of their Maker without scruple; but they will not partake of the beast of the uncloven foot, and the fish which has no scales. They pay no regard to the denunciations of holy prophets against the children of sin, but they quake at the sound of a dark cabalistic word pronounced by one perhaps their equal or superior in villainy; as if God would delegate the exercise of his power to the workers of iniquity.

I was one day sauntering along the Caesodré, when a Jew, with whom I had previously exchanged a word or two, came up and addressed me.

Jew. – The blessing of God upon you, brother; I know you to be a wise and powerful man, and I have conceived much regard for you; it is on that account that I wish to put you in the way of gaining much money. Come with me, and I will conduct you to a place where there are forty chests of tea. It is a sereka, and the thieves are willing to dispose of it for a trifle; for there is search being made, and they are in much fear. I can raise one-half of what they demand, do you supply the other, we will then divide it, each shall go his own way and dispose of his portion.

Myself. – Wherefore, O son of Arbat, do you propose this to me, who am a stranger? Surely you are mad. Have you not your own people about you whom you know, and in whom you can confide?

Jew. – It is because I know our people here that I do not confide in them; we are in the galoot of sin. Were I to confide in my brethren there would be a dispute, and perhaps they would rob me, and few of them have any money. Were I to apply to the sabio he might consent, but when I ask for my portion he would put me in ndui. You I do not fear; you are good, and would do me no harm, unless I attempted to deceive you, and that I dare not do, for I know you are powerful. Come with me, master, for I wish to gain something, that I may return to Arbat, where I have children..

Such are Jews in Lisbon.

END OF VOL. I

1

“Om Frands Gonzales, og Rodrik Cid,End siunges i Sierra Murene!”

Krönike Riim. By Severin Grundtvig. Copenhagen, 1829.

2

See Burke’s History of Spain, vol. i. p. 182, and vol. ii. pp. 87–95, 105.

3

He reigned July – September, 1506.

4

Known as los fueros. See Duncan, The English in Spain, p. 163.

5

Graydon was a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, who, finding himself unemployed at Gibraltar in 1835, undertook the distribution of the Scriptures, and continued the work until 1840.

6

William Harris Rule, a Wesleyan minister, was born at Penryn, Cornwall, in November, 1802, educated at first for an artist, was called to the ministry in 1826, and proceeded as a Wesleyan missionary to Malta, making afterwards many voyages to the West Indies, until he was ordered to Gibraltar, where he arrived in February, 1832. See Rule, Mission to Gibraltar and Spain (1844); Recollections of my Life and Work (1886).

7

Of Mr. Lyon I can learn nothing of any interest.

8

Don Luis de Usoz y Rio was born at Madrid of noble parents in May, 1805. A pupil of the well-known Cardinal Mezzofanti, he was appointed, while yet a very young man, to the Chair of Hebrew at Valladolid. In 1839 he made the acquaintance in England of Benjamin Wiffen, the Quaker, so well known in connexion with Protestant literature and the slavery question in Spain; and after helping Borrow in his endeavour to circulate the Scriptures, and having accumulated an immense library of religious books, some of which were bequeathed to Wiffen, some to the British and Foreign Bible Society, and some to the great library at Madrid, he died in August, 1865. See the works of Wiffen and Boehmer; Menendez Pelayo, Heterodoxos Españoles, lib. viii. cap. 2; and finally Mayor, Spain, Portugal, and the Bible (London, 1892).

9

Chili in 1810–1818; Paraguay in 1811–1814; La Plata in 1810–1816; Mexico in 1810–1821; Peru and Bolivia not until 1824.

10

The Duc de Berri was the second son of the Comte d’Artois, and as his elder brother, the Duc d’Angoulême, was childless, he was practically heir to the crown of France, and his assassination in 1820 had a most disastrous effect upon the royalist fortunes in that country. The son that was born to his wife some months after his death was the Duc de Bordeaux, better known in our own times as the Comte de Chambord, “Henri V.”

11

She was proclaimed in 1833; again on attaining her majority in 1843; and was formally deposed in 1868. She still (1895) lives in Paris.

12

Queen Christina soon afterwards married her paramour, Ferdinand Muñoz, created Duke of Rianzares.

13

It was a curious coincidence that Don Carlos, Pretender in Spain, and Dom Miguel, Pretender in Portugal, should have left Lisbon on the same day in an English ship.

14

See Duncan, The English in Spain, p. 26.

15

In the words of an ancient chronicler, “Tuvose por muy cierto, que le fueron dadas yerbas” (Zurita, Anales de Aragon, lib. xviii. cap. 7).

16

Villages between Madrid and Toledo.

17

Mendizabal had become Premier and Minister of Finance in September, and the new Cortes was opened at Madrid by a speech from the throne on November 16.

18

Bethlehem. The church was founded on the spot where Vasco da Gama embarked for his memorable voyage, July 8, 1497.

19

More correctly Caes do Sodré, now the Praça dos Romulares.

20

Sir Charles Napier (1786–1860) defeated and destroyed the Miguelite squadron off Cape St. Vincent on July 3, 1833.

21

One of the peculiarities of Lisbon is the number and variety of the names borne by the same street or square. This noble square, nearly 600 feet long by 500 wide, is, as may be supposed, no longer known by the name of the detested Inquisition, but is officially designated Praça do Commercio; it is invariably spoken of by the Portuguese inhabitants as the Terreiro do Paço, and by the English as Blackhorse Square, from the fine equestrian statue of King José I., erected in 1775.

22

Henry Fielding, born 1707, died at Lisbon, 1754.

23

Dr. Philip Doddridge, born 1702, died at Lisbon, 1751.

24

Cintra is an agglomeration of beauties, natural and architectural, and is full of historic and antiquarian interest. The greater part of the buildings are Moorish; but, unlike the Alhambra in Spain, it has been the abode of Christian kings ever since the expulsion of the Moslems in the twelfth century, and the palace especially is to-day a singular and most beautiful mixture of Moorish and Christian architecture.

25

Tivoli (Tibur) is eighteen miles north-east of Rome.

26

Born 1554, succeeded to the throne 1557, killed in battle in Africa in 1578.

27

Alcazar-Kebir al-Araish, near Tangier or Larache, in Morocco.

28

João or John de Castro, the Castro forte of Camoens, second only to Vasco da Gama, among the great Portuguese discoverers and warriors of the sixteenth century, was born in 1500, appointed governor-general of the Portuguese Indies in 1546, and died in 1548. After a deadly battle with the Moslems near Goa, in which his son Ferdinand was killed, he pledged the hairs of the moustache and beard of his dead son to provide funds, not to defend, but to re-fortify the city of Goa. The money was cheerfully provided on this slender security, and punctually repaid by the borrower.

29

William Beckford of Fonthill, the author of Vathek. His Quinta de Montserrat, with perhaps the most beautiful gardens in Europe, lies about three miles from the palace at Cintra, and is now in the possession of Sir Francis Cook, Bart., better known by his Portuguese title of Visconde de Montserrat.

30

A version of the entire Scriptures from the Vulgate was published in twenty-three volumes 12mo at Lisbon, 1781–83 by Dr. Antonio Pereira de Figueiredo. This was re-edited and published at Lisbon, 1794–1819. An earlier version was that of Almeida, a Portuguese missionary in Ceylon, who became a convert to Protestantism at the close of the seventeenth century. (See note on p. 98.)

31

If Cintra is the Alhambra of Portugal, Mafra is the Escurial. The famous convent was, moreover, founded by John V. in fulfilment of a vow. The building was commenced in 1717, and the church consecrated only in 1730.

32

He was killed in June, 1835. (See Introduction.)

33

Alem, “beyond;” Tejo, the river Tagus.

34

“I, who am a smuggler.” The Spanish version, “Yo que soy,” etc., is more familiar, and more harmonious.

35

“When the king arrived.”

36

So spelt by Borrow, but the correct Portuguese form is Dom.

37

Rabbits were so numerous in the south of the Peninsula in Carthaginian and Roman times, that they are even said to have given their name (Phœn. “Pahan”) to Hispania. Strabo certainly speaks of their number, and of the mode of destroying them with ferrets, and the rabbit is one of the commonest of the early devices of Spain (see Burke’s History of Spain, chap. ii.).