The Bible in Spain. Volume 1 of 2

171

Alcalá de Guadaira; Arabic, Al-Kal’ah, the fort, or castle. A name necessarily often repeated in Spain, where the Goths, who are so proudly remembered, have left so few records of their three hundred years’ dominion in the place-names of the Peninsula, and where the Arab, at all times detested, is yet remembered in the modern names of wellnigh every town, river, and headland in Southern Spain, and in many places throughout the entire Peninsula. The most celebrated of all these castles is, of course, Alcalá de Henares, the birthplace of Cervantes, the seat of the great university of Ximenes. This Alcalá is known as that of Guadaira, i. e. the river of Aira, the Arabic Wady al Aira. The town at the present day, though small, is a very important place, with some eight thousand inhabitants, and over two hundred flour-mills, and is known as the “oven of Seville,” El horno de Sevilla. Carmona – the Roman Carmo and Arab Karmanah – with double the population, was the last stronghold of Peter the Cruel, and is full of historic associations.

172

Madoz, in his Diccionario Geografico-estadistico, published in 1846, half a dozen years after the date of Borrow’s visit, says nothing under Carolina, Carlota, or Luisiana of this supposed German colonization. Yet Carolina and eighty-four neighbouring villages form a most interesting district, known as the Nuevas poblaciones de Sierra Morena, especially exempted from taxation and conscription on their foundation or incorporation by Olavides, the Minister of Charles III., in 1768. It is possible that some German colonists were introduced at that time. Among the eighty-five pueblos constituting this strange district is the historic Navas de Tolosa, where the Moors were so gloriously defeated in 1212.

173

Wellington.

174

Cordova was taken on October 1, 1836.

175

“Look you, what men they were!”

176

‘The king has come, the king has come, and disembarked at Belem.’ —Miguelite song.

177

Charles V., or Carlos Quinto, is the title all too meekly accorded even in Spain to their king Charles I., fifth only of German Karls on the imperial throne, the Holy Roman Emperor. If Charles himself was not unpopular in Spain, even though he kept his mother Joanna, the legitimate queen, under lock and key, that he might reign as Charles the First in Spain, his Germans and his Germanism were devoutly hated. The next Carlos who reigned in Spain, correctly styled the Second, was nearly a fool, but Charles III. was the best and most enlightened of the sovereigns of Spain until the days of Alfonso XII. Charles IV. abdicated under pressure of Napoleon in 1808, and then Don Carlos the Pretender naturally assumed the style and title of Charles the Fifth.

178

See Introduction.

179

The Genoese was presumably referring to the sister-in-law of Don Carlos, called La Beira. See Ford, Handbook of Spain, 1st edit., p. 822.

180

This is not strictly accurate. The Mezquita, as designed by Abdur Rahmán I. in 786, contained about 1200 pillars; when the mosque was enlarged by Almanzor at the end of the tenth century, the number was doubtless increased. Yet at the present day more than nine hundred are still standing in the building, which ranks second as regards area among the churches of Christendom, and in historic interest is surpassed only by the Mosque of Agia Sofia at Constantinople (see Burke’s History of Spain, vol. i. pp. 130–133).

181

Morocco.

182

The Abencerrages were a family, or perhaps a faction, that held a prominent position in the Moorish kingdom of Granada for some time before its fall in 1492. The name is said to be derived from Yusuf ben Cerrág, the head or leader of the family in the time of Mohammed VII., but nothing is known with any certainty of their origin. In the Guerras civiles de Granada of Gines Perez de Hita, the feuds of the Abencerrages with the rival family of the Zegris is an important incident, and Chateaubriand’s Les Aventures du dernier Abencerages is founded upon Hita’s work.

183

A haji is a man who has made the haj or pilgrimage to Mecca. As a title it is prefixed to the name. The Levantine Greeks who have made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem are also accustomed to use the same title, and their “Haji Michaeli” or “Haji Yanco” is as common a mode of address as “Haji Ali.” “Haji Stavros” in About’s Roi des Montagnes may be happily remembered.

184

The great city of Negroland is, I presume, Khartoum, capital of the Soudan, known to our fathers as Nigritia.

185

Philip II., eldest son of Carlos I. of Spain (the Emperor Charles V.), married Mary of England the 25th of July, 1555.

186

The Mystery of Udolpho, the once celebrated but now forgotten romance of Mrs. Radcliffe (1764–1823).

187

“Sir George of my soul,” i. e. “My dear Sir George.”

188

Puente. See The Zincali, part i. chap. ix.

189

See ante, note on p. 235.

190

The House of the Inquisition, or Holy Office.

191

“What do I know?”

192

“So pretty, so smart.”

193

Query, the Epistle to the Romans. – [Note by Borrow.]

194

Bad fellows, the French mauvais sujets.

195

Real, i. e. royal, the first coin of Christian Spain, as opposed to the Moorish maravedi. The first real of which we have any certain knowledge was struck by Henry II. on May 15, 1369. The value of the real is now about 2½d. English money, but as a unit of value and computation it has been officially supplanted since 1870 by the peseta or franc of 9¾d. See Burke’s History of Spain, vol. ii. pp. 281–286.

196

Carlist leaders.

197

There are at least three districts in Spain known as the Sagra: one in Alicante, one in Orense, and another near Toledo which includes 27 miles by 24 miles of country to the north of the city. Amongst the villages included in the district are Yuncler, Yunclillos, and Yuncos, whose names would seem to tell of some foreign origin. The origin of the word Sagra is most uncertain. It was commonly said to be Sacra Cereris, on account of the abundant harvests of the district, and has also been derived from the Arab Ṣaḥ = a field.

198

This was Don Vicente Lopez y Portaña, who was born at Valencia in 1772, and died at Madrid in 1850. His pictures were as a rule allegorical in subject, and his son, Don Bernardo Lopez, was also alive at this time, and died only in 1874.

199

Don Andrés Borrego, author of La Historia de las Córtes de España durante el siglo XIX. (1885), and other political works.

200

See vol. ii. p. 242.

201

V. p. 178.

202

Not Cabrera himself, but his subordinate Zariategui, an old friend and comrade of Zumalacarregui. This was on August 11, 1837. See Duncan, The English in Spain, p. 152.

203

Lord Carnarvon, of course, would not have endorsed these opinions. See Introduction, and Duncan ub. sup. passim.

204

Pera can hardly be said to be near Constantinople. It is the Franc quarter of the city, separated no doubt from Stambul by the Golden Horn, and undoubtedly very beautiful. Buchini is hardly a Greek name, and Antonio was no doubt like so many of his kind, of Italian origin. My own faithful Spiro Varipati was a Constantinopolitan Greek of Cerigo.

205

More usually spelt Syra.

206

This was possibly the period when Admiral Duckworth attempted to force the passage of the Dardanelles. – [Note by Borrow.]

207

Cean Bermudez, the celebrated art critic, traveller, and dilettante, the author of numerous works on art and architecture, more especially in the Peninsula, was born in 1749, exiled 1801–8, and died in 1829. C and z before e have the same sound in Castilian.

208

See Glossary.

209

Nowadays he would call himself a Έλλην.

210

“Good luck to thee, Antonio!”

211

Mr. Southern.

212

Romany chal = gypsy lad.

213

“Good horse! gypsy horse!Let me ride thee now.”

214

Céad mile fáille! Pronounce Kaydh meela faulthia.

215

Estremeño, a native of the province of Estremadura.

216

See note on p. 193.

217

The Colegio de Nobles Irlandeses, founded in 1792 by Philip II., is at present housed in a building of the earliest and best period of the Spanish cinquecento, founded in 1521 by Archbishop Fonseca as the Colegio Mayor del Apostol Santiago. It was built by Pedro de Ibarra.

218

As is recorded in the second chapter of Gil Blas.

219

I.e. el cura, the parish priest; Fr. curé. Our “curate” is rather el vicario; Fr. vicaire.

220

Arapiles is the name by which the great English victory of Salamanca is known to French and Spanish writers. It was fought on July 22, 1812, and the news reached Napoleon on the banks of the Borodino on September 7, inducing that strange hesitation and want of alacrity which distinguished his operations next day. The village of Arapiles is about four miles from Salamanca.

221

Savage mules.

222

“See the crossing! see what devilish crossing!” Santiguar is to make the sign of the cross, to cross one’s self. Santiguo is the action of crossing one’s self.

223

As late as 1521, Medina del Campo was one of the richest towns in Spain. Long one of the favourite residences of the Castilian court, it was an emporium, a granary, a storehouse, a centre of mediæval luxury and refinement. But the town declared for the Comuneros of Castile, and was so pitilessly sacked, burned, and ravaged by the Flemish Cardinal Adrian, acting for the absent Charles of Hapsburg (in 1521), that it never recovered anything of its ancient importance. The name, half Arab, half Castilian, tells of its great antiquity. To-day it is known only as a railway station!

224

“Carajo, what is this?”

225

We have adopted in English the Portuguese form Douro, which gave the title of Marquis to our great duke.. of Ciudad Rodrigo, as the Spaniards prefer to call him.

226

Madhouse.

227

“May the Virgin protect you, sir:” lit. “May you go with the Virgin.”

228

Valladolid, like so many place-names, not only in southern, but in central Spain, is Arabic, Balad al Walid, “the land of Walid,” the caliph in whose reign the Peninsula was overrun by the Moslems. The more ancient name of Pincia is lost.

229

A friend and comrade of Zumalacarregui, who came into notice after the death of the greater leader in June, 1835.

230

The Colegio de Ingleses was endowed by Sir Francis Englefield, a partisan of Mary Queen of Scots, who came to Spain after her execution. Philip II. granted certain privileges to the students in 1590. The number of students at the present day is about 45.

231

The Celegio de Escoceses was founded only in 1790.

232

I.e. uncontaminated with the black blood of Moorish or Jewish converts; possibly also referring to the use of “New Castilian” for “Gitano.” See The Zincali, part i. chap. i.

233

Temp. Elizabeth and James I.

234

Celebrated also for the great victory of Ferdinand of Aragon over Alfonso the African of Portugal (February, 1476), by which the succession of Isabella to the crown of Castile was assured, and the pretension of her niece Juana la Beltraneja for ever put an end to.

235

Alcayde, the Arabic governor of a castle, or fortress, is commonly used in modern Spanish for a jailer, a governor of a prison; the somewhat similar word, alcalde, also an Arabic word, meant, and still means, the mayor of a town.

236

It was at Dueñas that Ferdinand and Isabella held their little court immediately after their marriage in October, 1469.

237

Government requisition. See ante, p. 261.

238

The officers, no doubt, of the Spanish Legion and Contingent. See Introduction.

239

“Hold hard, you gypsy fellows! you forget that you are soldiers, and no longer swapping horses in a fair.”

240

See note on p. 120.

241

That is, gold onzas.

242

The Roman Pallantia; the seat of the first university in Castile, transferred in 1239 to the more celebrated city of Salamanca.

243

The cathedral was commenced in 1321, and finished about two hundred years later. As it now stands, the exterior is unsatisfactory; the interior is most picturesque, and full of remarkable monuments, including the tomb of the wicked Queen Urraca, who died in 1126.

244

These “paintings of Murillo” are imaginary. There are some good pictures now in the Sala capitular– one by Ribera, one by Zurbaran, and a third by Mateo Cerezo. The paintings in the church itself are unimportant, and are rather German than Spanish in character.

245

The Sierra de Oca, to the east of Burgos, about sixty miles as the crow flies to the north-east of Palencia.

246

Possibly Cisneros or Calzada. Sahagun, which lies just halfway between Palencia and Leon on the high-road, is rather a small town than a large village, and, though shorn of all its former splendour, would have afforded the travellers better quarters.

247

See Introduction.

248

A familiar Spanish locution – of which the meaning is sufficiently obvious – derived originally, no doubt, from the game of chess, a game of oriental origin, and no doubt introduced into Spain by the Arabs. Roque is the rook or castle; Rey, of course, the king.

249

The name of Leon has nothing to do with lions, but is a corruption of legionis, or the city of the 7th Legion, quartered here by Augustus to defend the Cantabrian frontier. The city is full of historic interest, and bears the records of the conquerors of many ages and nations.

The cathedral referred to by Borrow was finished about 1300, after having been at least a hundred years a-building, and is in the early pointed style of what we call Gothic, but the Spaniards Tudesque. The west front and the painted glass windows in the aisles are of unrivalled beauty.

The church of San Isidoro, with the tombs of that great metropolitan and of Alfonso el Batallador, of inferior æsthetic interest, is even more attractive to the antiquary.

250

Astorga is an old Roman town, Asturica Augusta, established after the Cantabrian war (b. c. 25), when the southern Astures first became subject to Rome. But a far more ancient origin is claimed for the city, which was traditionally founded by Astur, the son of Memnon (see Silius Italicus, iii. 334; Martial, xiv. 199). The surrounding country of the Astures was celebrated at once for the riches of its gold-mines and for its breed of horses, whence the Latin Asturco (see Petron., Sat., 86, and Seneca, Ep., 87; Pliny, viii. 42, s. 67).

251

Borrow has it Coruña, but it should be either La Coruña, if written in Spanish, or Corunna, if written in English. Our ancestors, who had good reason to know the place, called it The Groyne, but it would be pedantic to so call it now.

252

The origin of the Maragatos has never been ascertained. Some consider them to be a remnant of the Celtiberians, others of the Visigoths; most, however, prefer a Bedouin or caravan descent. It is in vain to question these ignorant carriers as to their history or origin, for, like the gypsies, they have no traditions and know nothing. Arrieros, at all events, they are, and that word, in common with so many others relating to the barb and carrier-caravan craft, is Arabic, and proves whence the system and science were derived by Spaniards. Where George Borrow and Richard Ford are so uncertain, it is assuredly unbecoming to dogmatize. Mariana (vol. i. lib. vii. cap. 7), speaking of King Mauregato, who is supposed, as much from his name as from anything else, to have been an illegitimate son of Alfonso I. by a Moorish lady, seeks to trace the origin of the Maragatos as being more especially the subjects of Mauregato, but it is rather an extravagant fancy than an explanation.

Monsieur Francisque Michel, in his Races Maudites de la France et de l’Espagne (Paris, 1847), has nothing to say of these Maragatos, though he notices (ii. 41–44) a smaller tribe, the Vaqueros, of the neighbouring Asturias, whose origin is also enveloped in mystery. See De Rochas, Les Parias de France et l’Espagne, p. 120. [The Cagots were also found in northwest Spain as well as in France, but not, as far as we know, to the west of Guipuzcoa. For an account of these Cagots and the various etymologies that have been suggested for their names, see De Rochas and F. Michel, ubi supra, tom. i. ch. i.]

253

A transliteration of the old Spanish Barrete, an old kind of helmet, then, generally, a cap.

254

A mute is the offspring of a stallion and a she-ass, a mule of a jackass and a mare.

255

Founded in 1471, on the site of one more ancient.

256

The name of this celebrated arriero was Pedro Mato; the statue is of wood.

257

The word Gog is not Hebrew, and, according to Renan and Kuöbel (Volkert, p. 63), is “mountain,” and Magog is “great mountain.” Maha, Sanskrit, and Koh or Goh, Persian. The legends concerning Gog and Magog are very numerous, and extend over many parts of Europe, Asia, and even Africa.

258

“The place of the apples.”

259

Caballero. As a mode of address in common life, equivalent merely to sir.

260

A Galician or Portuguese, but not a Spanish word, usually spelt corço. The Spanish equivalent is ciervo.

261

There is a delightful translation of Theocritus, who by the way described the scenery of Sicily rather than of Greece, into English verse by C. S. Calverley, published in 1869.

262

Bembibre lies on the southern confines of the district of El Vierzo, one of the most interesting and least explored parts of the Peninsula, the Switzerland of Leon, a district of Alpine passes, trout streams, pleasant meadows, and groves of chestnuts and walnuts. Bembibre, pop. 500, lies with its old castle on the trout-streams Noceda and Boeza, amid green meadows, gardens, and vineyards, whose wines were far more fatal to Moore’s soldiers than the French sabres. So much for Bembibre —bene bibere. Ponferrada (Interamnium Flavium), which is not entered, rises to the left on the confluence of the Sil and Boeza. The bridge (Pons-ferrata) was built in the eleventh century, for the passage of pilgrims to Compostella, who took the direct route along the Sil by Val de Orras and Orense. The town afterwards belonged to the Templars, and was protected by the miraculous image of the Virgin, which was found in an oak, and hence is called Nuestra Señora de la Encina; it is still the Patroness of the Vierzo (Murray’s Handbook of Spain, 1st edit. p. 595).

The Vierzo extends about 10 leagues east and west by 8 north and south. This amphitheatre is shut out from the world by lofty snow-capped mountains, raised, as it were, by the hand of some genii to enclose a simple valley of Rasselas. The great Asturian chain slopes from Leitariegos to the south-west, parting into two offshoots; that of El Puerto de Rabanal, and Fuencebadon (Fons Sabatonis) constitute the east barrier, and the other, running by the Puertos de Cebrero and Aguiar, forms the frontier; while to the south the chains of the Sierras de Segundera, Sanabria, and Cabrera complete the base of the triangle. Thus hemmed in by a natural circumvallation, the concavity must be descended into from whatever side it be approached; this crater, no doubt, was once a large lake, the waters of which have burst a way out, passing through the narrow gorge of the Sil by Val de Orras, just as the Elbe forms the only spout or outlet to hill-walled-in Bohemia, the kettle-land of Germany (Ibid., p. 597).

263

Rendered by Borrow rabble; the French canaille; Ital. canaglia, a pack of dogs —canes.

264

Known as Villafranca del Vierzo; said to have been one of the principal halting-places of the French pilgrims to Santiago, hence Villa Francorum; in any case, the abode of an important colony of monks from the French abbey of Cluny. See Burke’s History of Spain, vol. ii. p. 69, and App. II.

265

Query Guerrilleros (see Glossary). These Miguelets were originally the partisans or followers of the Infante Don Miguel, the absolutist leader in the dreary civil war which ravaged Portugal from 1823–1834. It was their custom to escape into Spain when attacked by the Constitutional forces in Portugal, and nothing but Mr. Canning’s bold action in sending an English army to Lisbon in December, 1826, prevented their being utilized by both Spain and France for the overthrow of Queen Maria in Portugal (see Alison, History of Europe, vol. iv. ch. xxi. s. 50). But as “Miguelets,” part refugees, part rebels, part brigands, these bands of military ruffians were the terror of the frontier districts of Spain and Portugal for many years after the conclusion of the civil war in Portugal.

266

Don Quixote, part ii. chap. ix.

267

Senhor is the Portuguese or Galician form. Borrow has now crossed the frontier.

268

It is possibly an older language than either. It resembles rather the Portuguese than the Spanish, and is of great interest in many ways. The great religious poem of Alfonso X., Los Loores y Milagros de Nuestra Señora, written between 1263 and 1284, when the national language was hardly formed, was written in Galician, though from the beginning of the fourteenth to the middle of the nineteenth century little attention was paid to the literary language. Within the last few years a species of provincial revival has taken place, and the following works among others have been published in and about the language of Galicia: (1) D. Juan Saco Arce, Gramatica Gallega (Lugo, 1868), with an appendix of proverbs and popular songs; (2) Fernandez y Morales, Ensayos poeticos, edited by Don Mariano Cubi y Soler; (3) A. G. Besada, Historia critica de la literatura gallega (La Coruña, 1887); the works of Manuel Murginà, also published at La Coruña; Don Juan Cuveiro Piñol’s Diccionario Gallego and El habla, both published at Barcelona in 1876; and, best of all, Don Manuel Nuñez Valladares’ Diccionario Gallego-Castillano (Santiago, 1884).