“Om Frands Gonzales, og Rodrik Cid,
End siunges i Sierra Murene!”
KrÖnike Riim. By Severin Grundtvig. Copenhagen, 1829. See Burke’s History of Spain, vol. i. p. 182, and vol. ii. pp. 87–95, 105. He reigned July—September, 1506. Known as los fueros. See Duncan, The English in Spain, p. 163. 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. 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). Of Mr. Lyon I can learn nothing of any interest. 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). Chili in 1810–1818; Paraguay in 1811–1814; La Plata in 1810–1816; Mexico in 1810–1821; Peru and Bolivia not until 1824. 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.” She was proclaimed in 1833; again on attaining her majority in 1843; and was formally deposed in 1868. She still (1895) lives in Paris. Queen Christina soon afterwards married her paramour, Ferdinand MuÑoz, created Duke of Rianzares. 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. See Duncan, The English in Spain, p. 26. In the words of an ancient chronicler, “Tuvose por muy cierto, que le fueron dadas yerbas” (Zurita, Anales de Aragon, lib. xviii. cap. 7). Villages between Madrid and Toledo. 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. Bethlehem. The church was founded on the spot where Vasco da Gama embarked for his memorable voyage, July 8, 1497. More correctly Caes do SodrÉ, now the PraÇa dos Romulares. Sir Charles Napier (1786–1860) defeated and destroyed the Miguelite squadron off Cape St. Vincent on July 3, 1833. 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. Henry Fielding, born 1707, died at Lisbon, 1754. Dr. Philip Doddridge, born 1702, died at Lisbon, 1751. 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. Tivoli (Tibur) is eighteen miles north-east of Rome. Born 1554, succeeded to the throne 1557, killed in battle in Africa in 1578. Alcazar-Kebir al-Araish, near Tangier or Larache, in Morocco. 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. 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. 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.) 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. He was killed in June, 1835. (See Introduction.) Alem, “beyond;” Tejo, the river Tagus. “I, who am a smuggler.” The Spanish version, “Yo que soy,” etc., is more familiar, and more harmonious. “When the king arrived.” So spelt by Borrow, but the correct Portuguese form is Dom. 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 (Phoen. “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.). May 26, 1834. The ballad of Svend Vonved, translated from the original Danish, was included by Borrow in his collection of Romantic Ballads, a thin demy 8vo volume of 187 pages—now very rare—published by John Taylor in 1826. The lines there read as follows:—
“A wild swine sat on his shoulders broad,
Upon his bosom a black bear snor’d.”
The original ballad may be found in the KjÆmpe Viser, and was translated into German by Grimm, who expressed the greatest admiration for the poem. Svend in Danish means “swain” or “youth,” and it is characteristic of Borrow’s mystification of proper names that he should, by a quasi-translation and archaic spelling, give the title of the Danish ballad the appearance of an actual English surname. The Spanish Seo = a cathedral. Serra is the Portuguese form of the Spanish Sierra = a saw. The barbarous seaman’s English transliteration of Setubal, the town of Tubal, a word which perpetuates one of the most ancient legends of Spanish antiquity (see Genesis x. 2, and Burke’s History of Spain, chap. i.). 1554–1578 (see note on p. 8). “The Fashion or ordering of the Chapel of the most illustrious and Christian prince, Henry VI. King of England and France, and lord of Ireland, described for the most serene prince, Alfonso the illustrious King of Portugal [Alfonso V., ‘The African’] by his humble servant William Sav., Dean of the aforesaid chapel.” This was William Saye of New College, Oxford, who was Proctor of the University in 1441, and afterwards D.D. and Dean of the Cathedral of St. Paul, and of the Chapel of Henry VI. (See Gutch, Appendix to Woods Fasti Oxonienses, p. 48). Portuguese oraÇÃo or oraÇam—a prayer. This, the correct Portuguese form, is that generally used in English, though the Spanish auto-de-fÉ is often referred to. Alecrim is usually supposed to be a word of Arab origin. The Spanish for rosemary is, however, quite different, romero. The Goths and Vandals have, it may be noticed in passing, scarcely enriched the modern vocabulary of the Peninsula by a single word. (See the Glossary.) The modern form of “Hymne Marseillaise” is less correct. Hymns of the kind are masculine in French; those that are sung in churches only are feminine! Spanish hidalgo. “Surrender, scoundrel, surrender!” The Portuguese form. The missing word would seem to be “Catholics.” Borrow was fond of such, apparently meaningless, mystery. Toreno (1786–1843), a statesman and historian, thrice banished on account of his liberal opinions, died in exile in Paris. His friend Martinez de la Rosa (1789–1862), who experienced a somewhat similar fate, was the author of some dramas and a satire entitled El Cementerio de Monco. See Kennedy, Modern Poets and Poetry of Spain, p. 169. Toreno’s historical works have been translated into French. When the Jews were banished from Spain by the Catholic sovereign in 1492, they were received into Portugal by the more liberal John II., on payment of a tax or duty of eight cruzados. Armourers and smiths paid four cruzados only. Before the marriage of his cousin, King Emmanuel, with the widowed Princess Isabella in 1497, the Jews were subject to renewed persecution in Portugal by arrangement between Isabella the Catholic and her son-in-law (see Burke’s History of Spain, chaps, xlvi., xlix.). See Appendix to this volume. A seaport town in North Africa, better known by the name of Mogadore (see chap. lii.). The name that may not be spoken; that is, Jehovah or Yahweh (see Glossary, sub verb.). Strange anecdotes, however, are told, tending to prove that Jews of the ancient race are yet to be found in Portugal: it is said that they have been discovered under circumstances the most extraordinary. I am the more inclined to believe in their existence from certain strange incidents connected with a certain race, which occurred within the sphere of my own knowledge, and which will be related further on.—Note by Borrow. Portuguese real = one-twentieth of an English penny. The lines, which Borrow, quoting from memory, has not given quite accurately, occur in the ballad of “The Cout of Keilder.” They are, according to the text in the edition of 1858, with “Life by Sir Walter Scott”—
“The hounds they howled and backward fled,
As struck by Fairy charm” (stan. 16).
John Leyden, M.D., was born in 1775, near Hawick, and died in Java in 1811, after an adventurous and varied life. His ballad of Lord Soulis is of the same character as that so highly praised by Borrow. The place of the brooks, or water-courses. Sp. arroyo = brook. The first Lusitanians of whom we have any record or tradition were almost certainly Celts. May you go with God; i.e. God be with you; good-bye. The modern Portuguese vossem or vossÉ has degenerated into a mode of address to inferiors, and not having any such vocable as the Spanish Vd nor using the second person plural in ordinary address, as in French and English, the Portuguese is forced to turn every sentence, “Is the gentleman’s health good?” “Will Mr. Continho pass the mustard?” “If Mr. Borrow smokes, will he accept this cigar?” In familiar speech the second person singular is universally used. Castellano afrancesado Diablo condenado. The proverb is of very general application. During the Peninsular war, Badajoz was besieged by the French in 1808 and in 1809, and again in 1811, when it surrendered, March 11, to Soult. It was thrice besieged by Wellington; first on April 20, 1811; next in May and June of the same year; and thirdly, in the spring of 1812, when he captured the city by storm, on the night of April 6, after a murderous contest, and a loss, during the twenty days’ siege, of 72 officers and 963 men killed, and 306 officers and 3483 men wounded. The province of Badajoz has an area of 8687 square miles, and a population of (1884) 457,365. See note on p. 11. It is uncertain where the missionary Joao Ferreira d’Almeida made this translation; probably in Ceylon. The place and date of his death are equally uncertain. His translation, revised by more than one Dutch scholar, was finally printed in 1712 at Amsterdam, at the cost of the Dutch East India Company. When the British and Foreign Bible Society first undertook the publication of the Bible in Portuguese in the years 1809–1810, this version of Almeida was selected; but the objections made to its accuracy were so numerous that in 1818, and again in 1821, a reprint of Pereira’s translation was adopted in its place. This was indeed treason, when the “1811’s” were in their prime, and the “1834’s” were already maturing. But ordinary port wine, as made up for the English market, was rather filthy, and as remade up by the grocer or small wine merchant in England, resembled blacking rather than the juice of the grape. This is certainly not true now. Perhaps, if Borrow’s explanation is the true one, in that we have not of late “roughly handled” our jealous neighbours, Sebastopol and Pekin and excuses for being in Egypt have dulled the friendly feelings generated by Vitoria and Waterloo! “Charity, Sir Cavalier, for the love of God, bestow an alms upon me, that I may purchase a mouthful of red wine.” “St. James and close Spain!” The battle-cry of Castilian chivalry for a thousand years. Every one who has gone from Portugal into Spain must understand and sympathize with Borrow’s feelings. I have even felt something of the same expansion in South America, when the Brazilian gave place to the Argentine. I have no doubt that the language has a great deal to say to it. In The Zincali, part ii. chap. i., the date is given as January 6, 1836. They are as old as the ancient Celtiberian times, and are mentioned as s???? in a treaty, over 150 years b.c., by Appian, in his Iberica. I suppose Portugal, Spain, and England. See The Zincali, part ii. chap. i. For the meaning of this and other gypsy words, see the Glossary. See The Zincali, part i. chap. vii., part ii. chap. vi., Romano Lavo-Lil, p. 244. See The Zincali, part ii. chap. vi. The Zincali, part ii. chap. i. “I do not understand.” Spirit of the old man. Deceived. An English termination added to a Spanish termination of a Romany word, jonjabar, q.v. in Glossary. El crallis ha nicobado la liri de los CalÉs. (See The Zincali part ii. chap. i.) “Doing business, doing business; he has much business to do.” “We have the horse.” See The Zincali, part ii. chap. vi. “Don’t trouble yourself,” “Don’t be afraid.” See vol. ii. p. 2. Cuidao is Andalusian and Gitano for cuidado. See The Zincali, part ii. chap. vi. Mother of the gypsies. See The Zincali, part ii. chap. vii. See The Zincali, part ii. chap. vi. = cauring in English Romany. Romano Lavo-Lil, p. 245. “Say nothing to him, my lad; he is a hog of an alguazil.” “At your service.” “Who goes there?” Fr. Qui vive? The proper answer to the challenge by a Spanish sentry is EspaÑa, “Spain,” or Piasano, “a civilian.” “Shut up;” “Hold your tongue.” Stealing a donkey. See The Zincali, part i. ch. v. See Introduction. El Serrador, a Carlist partisan, who about this period was much talked of in Spain. Note by Borrow (see the Glossary, s.v.). He is a man indeed; lit. very much a man. On foot. Estremadura was for long years a vast winter pasturage whither the flocks from the Castiles were driven each successive autumn, to return to their own cooler mountains on the return of summer. The flocks were divided into cabaÑas of about 10,000 sheep, in charge of fifty shepherds and fifty of their immense dogs. “All are taken.” No doubt Oropesa, where the Duke of Frias has an ancient and somewhat dilapidated palace. Las Batuecas is a valley in the south-west corner of the modern province of Salamanca, four leagues from the city of that name, eight leagues from Ciudad Rodrigo, and about six leagues from Bejar. The principal town or village in the remote valley itself was Alberca. The strange inhabitants of the valley of Batuecas are entirely legendary, as is the story of their discovery by a page of the Duke of Alva in the reign of Philip II. See Verdadera relacion de las Batuecas, by Manuel de Gonzalez (Madrid, 1693), Ponz, Viaje vii. 201; Feijoo, Teatro Critico, iv. 241, where the valley is compared with the equally mythical island of Atlantis. More commonly spelt ticking. See Lavengro, chap. 1. The conventional diminutive of Pepa, which is itself the diminutive of Josefa, as is Pepe of Josefe. This is, of course, a fancy name. Borrow has chosen that of a Spanish Jew, one of the great Rabbinical commentators. See The Zincali, part i. chap. ii. This concession to local prejudice is delightful. But it must be remembered that barraganeria or recognized concubinage was approved by Church and State in Spain for many hundred years. See Burke’s History of Spain, vol. i., Appendix ii. Ferdinand the Catholic and his wife Isabella. Their systematic persecution and banishment of the Jews—the edict was dated March 30, 1492—are well known. The street of the Bramble. See the Introduction, and Duncan, The English in Spain, passim. Juan Alvarez y Mendizabal was a more or less Christianized Jew, who began his career as a commissariat contractor to the national army on the French invasion in 1808. Born in 1790, he rendered important services to Spain, until in 1823 he was compelled, like so many of his liberal compatriots, to take refuge in England from the tyranny of Ferdinand VII. Abroad as well as at home, he displayed his great talent for finance for the benefit of Spain, and returned in 1835 as Minister of Finance in the Toreno Administration. He resigned in 1837, was again called to power in 1841, and died in 1853. The honourable George Villiers was our Minister at Madrid from 1833 to March, 1838, when, having succeeded to the title of his uncle as Earl of Clarendon, he returned to England, where in course of time he became Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and Foreign Minister. I have been so far unable to discover the name of this gentleman. Mendizabal, as has been said, was a Jew by race. The word “cigarette” was not yet naturalized in England. The thing itself was practically unknown; even cigar was sometimes spelt segar. Ojalateros, criers of ojala; Arab. Inshallah, “if it please God,” “would to God.” Pasteleros, pastry-cooks, “wishers and dishers.” See the Glossary. “A gypsy matron without honour spoke to her man of blood.” These are not fanciful names. Francisco Montes, who was born in 1805, was not only a celebrated matador, but the author of a work on Tauromachia; he appeared in the ring for the last time in 1850, and died in 1851. Sevilla was the name borne by many less distinguished toreadores; Francisco Sevilla, the picador, who appeared for the last time in 1838, is perhaps the man referred to. Poquito Pan, or Bit of Bread, was the Tauromachian nickname of Antonio Sanchez, one of the favourite picadores in the cuadrilla or band of Montes. A gallows-show. Yet, as will be seen in the text, the gallows or furca itself is no longer used. Peace, pity, and tranquillity. Manolo is a somewhat difficult word to translate; it is applied to the flash or fancy man and his manola in Madrid only, a class fond of pleasure, of fine clothes, of bull-fights, and of sunshine, with a code of honour of their own; men and women rather picturesque than exemplary, and eminently racy of the soil. In 1808. At the last attack on Warsaw, when the loss of the Russians amounted to upwards of twenty thousand men, the soldiery mounted the breach, repeating, in measured chant, one of their popular songs, “Come, let us cut the cabbage,” etc.—[Note by Borrow.] See the Glossary, s.v. Mujik. “Another glass; come on, little Englishman, another glass.” See note on chap. x. p. 138. Montero in Spanish means “a hunter;” and a montero cap, which every reader of Sterne is familiar with at least by name, is a cap, generally of leather, such as was used by hunters in the Peninsula. Twelve ounces of bread, small pound, as given in the prison. [Note by Borrow.] According to the late Marquis de Santa Coloma, as reported by Mr. Wentworth Webster (Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, vol. i. p. 151), “in Madrid Borrow used to ride a fine black Andalusian horse (v. p. 261), with a Russian skin for a saddle, and without stirrups.” This was, however, during his second visit, and Don Jorge may have changed his practice. That he could ride without stirrups, or saddle either, is certain (p. 308, and Lavengro, chap. xiii.). General Cordova had been entrusted from the beginning of the war with high command in the queen’s armies. He succeeded Valdez as commander-in-chief immediately after the death of Zumalacarregui, at the end of June, 1835, to the end of August, 1836, when he was succeeded by Espartero. See Duncan, The English in Spain, pp. 58, 72. See Introduction, and Revue des Deux Mondes, 15 fevrier, 1851. May, 1836. Don Francisco Xavier de Isturitz was born in 1790, and after taking part in the various liberal governments from 1808 to 1823, was forced to fly to England on the absolutist counter-revolution in that year. He returned to Spain on the amnesty in 1834, and on the fall of his old friend Mendizabal in 1836, he became minister for foreign affairs, and lived to negotiate the “Spanish marriages,” and to occupy many high political and diplomatic posts under Isabella II. See Introduction, p. xxiii. “He will do what you want for you: will gratify your fancy.” “Stuff and nonsense.” Charles III. of Spain (1759–1788). See The Zincali, part i. chap. xii. “How goes it?” Whether this episode of Benedict Mol has any foundation in fact I cannot say. I was on the point of starting for Compostella, where I might have investigated the incident detailed, vol. ii. p. 183, and I had actually paid for my ticket to Irun (May 2, 1895), when I was summoned to a more distant shrine on the slopes of the Southern Pacific. A cuarto, a trifle over an English farthing, being almost exactly 4/34 of 2½d. “In short.” Borrow writes indifferently Saint James, St. Jago, and Santiago. The last is the correct Spanish form, while the English usually speak of the place as Compostella. It has been thought best to retain the form used by the author in each case. Witch. Ger. Hexe.—[Note by Borrow.] “Thanks be to God!” See note on p. 340. SeÑor Menendez Pelayo remarks that the government was too busy with Carlists in the country and revolutionaries in the city to care very much about Borrow or the Bible, and they therefore allowed him for the moment to do pretty much as he pleased (Heterodoxos EspaÑoles, tom. iii. p. 662). Or San Ildefonso. This was August 14, 1836. The General Post-office. Gypsy fellows. A compound of the modern Greek p?ta???, and the Sanscrit kara, the literal meaning being Lord of the horse-shoe (i.e. maker); it is one of the private cognominations of “The Smiths,” an English gypsy clan.—[Note by Borrow.] See The Zincali, vol. i. p. 31; Romano Lavo-Lil, p. 226, and the Glossary. Of these lines the following translation, in the style of the old English ballad, will, perhaps, not be unacceptable:—
“What down the hill comes hurrying there?—
With a hey, with a ho, a sword and a gun!
Quesada’s bones, which a hound doth bear.
Hurrah, brave brothers!—the work is done.”
—[Note by Borrow.] “One night I was with thee.” Don Rafael, son of D. Eugenio Antonio del Riego y NuÑez, whose poems were published in 1844 by D. Miguel del Riego, Canon of Oviedo, was born at Oviedo on the 24th October, 1785. On the 1st January, 1820, he began the revolt against Ferdinand VII. (see Introduction, p. xvi.), at Las Cabezas de San Juan. He was finally hanged at Madrid on the 7th November, 1823. El Himno de Riego, the Spanish Marseillaise, was composed by Huerta in 1820, the words being written by Evariste San-Miguel. “Au revoir, Sir George!” 1836. Dom JosÉ Agostinho Freire was minister of war to Dom Pedro, and subsequently minister of the interior under the Duke of Terceira. In 1836 he was murdered at Lisbon by the National Guard, while driving in his carriage. The Carlist leader. See Duncan, The English in Spain, p. 88. Latin, BÆtis = the river afterwards named by the Arabs Wady al Kebir, the Guadalquivir. The vane, porque gira. The modern tower is about 275 feet high. See Girault de Prangey, Essai sur l’Architecture des Maures et Arabes (1841), pp. 103–112. The largest and perhaps the grandest of the mediÆval cathedrals, not only of Spain, but of Europe. It was commenced in 1403, and completed about 1520.
1350–1369. Triana, for long the Whitefriars or Alsatia of Seville, the resort of thieves, gypsies, and mala gente of every description. See Zincali, pt. ii. chap. ii. The Arabic Tarayana is said to perpetuate the name of the Emperor Trajan, who was certainly born in the neighbourhood, and who would not be proud of his supposed conciudadanos! The modern suburb was almost entirely destroyed by the overflowing of the Guadalquivir in 1876. There is now (1895) a permanent bridge across the river. This is, I think, a good English word. The Spanish form would be desesperados. King of the gypsies in Triana. Isidore Justin Severin, Baron Taylor, was born at Brussels in 1789. His father was an Englishman, and his mother half Irish, half Flemish. Isidore was naturalized as a Frenchman, and after serious studies and artistic travels throughout Europe, he returned to France on the Restoration with a commission in the Royal Guard. His Bertram, written in collaboration with Charles Nodier, had a great success on the Paris stage in 1821. In 1823 he accompanied the French army to Spain, and on his return was made Commissaire Royal du ThÉÂtre FranÇais, in which capacity he authorized the production of Hernani and the Mariage de Figaro. In 1833 he arranged for the transport of the two obelisks from Luxor to Paris, and in 1835 he was commissioned by Louis Philippe with an artistic mission to Spain to purchase pictures for the Louvre, and on his return, having transferred the Standish collection of paintings from London to Paris, he was named Inspecteur-GÉnÉral des beaux arts in 1838. He died in 1879. 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. 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. Wellington. Cordova was taken on October 1, 1836. “Look you, what men they were!” ‘The king has come, the king has come, and disembarked at Belem.’—Miguelite song. 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. See Introduction. 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. 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). Morocco. 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. 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. The great city of Negroland is, I presume, Khartoum, capital of the Soudan, known to our fathers as Nigritia. Philip II., eldest son of Carlos I. of Spain (the Emperor Charles V.), married Mary of England the 25th of July, 1555. The Mystery of Udolpho, the once celebrated but now forgotten romance of Mrs. Radcliffe (1764–1823). “Sir George of my soul,” i.e. “My dear Sir George.” Puente. See The Zincali, part i. chap. ix. See ante, note on p. 235. The House of the Inquisition, or Holy Office. “What do I know?” “So pretty, so smart.” Query, the Epistle to the Romans.—[Note by Borrow.] Bad fellows, the French mauvais sujets. 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. Carlist leaders. 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 ?a? = a field. 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. Don AndrÉs Borrego, author of La Historia de las CÓrtes de EspaÑa durante el siglo XIX. (1885), and other political works. See vol. ii. p. 242. V. p. 178. 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. Lord Carnarvon, of course, would not have endorsed these opinions. See Introduction, and Duncan ub. sup. passim. 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. More usually spelt Syra. This was possibly the period when Admiral Duckworth attempted to force the passage of the Dardanelles.—[Note by Borrow.] 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. See Glossary. Nowadays he would call himself a ?????. “Good luck to thee, Antonio!” Mr. Southern. Romany chal = gypsy lad. “Good horse! gypsy horse!
Let me ride thee now.” CÉad mile fÁille! Pronounce Kaydh meela faulthia. EstremeÑo, a native of the province of Estremadura. See note on p. 193. 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. As is recorded in the second chapter of Gil Blas. I.e. el cura, the parish priest; Fr. curÉ. Our “curate” is rather el vicario; Fr. vicaire. 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. Savage mules. “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. 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! “Carajo, what is this?” 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. Madhouse. “May the Virgin protect you, sir:” lit. “May you go with the Virgin.” 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. A friend and comrade of Zumalacarregui, who came into notice after the death of the greater leader in June, 1835. 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. The Celegio de Escoceses was founded only in 1790. 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. Temp. Elizabeth and James I. 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. 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. It was at DueÑas that Ferdinand and Isabella held their little court immediately after their marriage in October, 1469. Government requisition. See ante, p. 261. The officers, no doubt, of the Spanish Legion and Contingent. See Introduction. “Hold hard, you gypsy fellows! you forget that you are soldiers, and no longer swapping horses in a fair.” See note on p. 120. That is, gold onzas. The Roman Pallantia; the seat of the first university in Castile, transferred in 1239 to the more celebrated city of Salamanca. 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. 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. The Sierra de Oca, to the east of Burgos, about sixty miles as the crow flies to the north-east of Palencia. 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. See Introduction. 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. 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. 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). 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. 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.] A transliteration of the old Spanish Barrete, an old kind of helmet, then, generally, a cap. A mute is the offspring of a stallion and a she-ass, a mule of a jackass and a mare. Founded in 1471, on the site of one more ancient. The name of this celebrated arriero was Pedro Mato; the statue is of wood. 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. “The place of the apples.” Caballero. As a mode of address in common life, equivalent merely to sir. A Galician or Portuguese, but not a Spanish word, usually spelt corÇo. The Spanish equivalent is ciervo. 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. 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). Rendered by Borrow rabble; the French canaille; Ital. canaglia, a pack of dogs—canes. 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. 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. Don Quixote, part ii. chap. ix. Senhor is the Portuguese or Galician form. Borrow has now crossed the frontier. 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). “I believe it!” This is a curious blunder. Lucus Augusti was not only never capital of Roman Spain, but the capital only of Northern Gallaecia, or Galicia; as Bracara Augusta, or Braga, was the chief town and seat of a Conventus Juridicus of southern Galicia, the Minho being the boundary of the northern and southern divisions of the province.
Roman Spain was at no time a province, but included, from b.c. 205 to a.d. 325, many provinces, each with its own provincial capital. In the division of the Roman world by Constantine, Hispania first became an administrative unit as a diocese in the Prefecture of Gaul, with its capital at Hispalis or Seville, the residence of the Imperial Vicar (see Burke’s History of Spain, vol. i. pp. 31, 35, 36). “Woe is me, O God!” Combats with young bulls, usually by amateur fighters. Although the animals are immature, and the tips of their horns, moreover, sawn off to make the sport less dangerous, accidents are far more common than in the more serious corridas, where the professionals take no step without due deliberation and secundum artem. Novillo, of course, means only a young bull; but in common parlance in Spain los toros means necessarily a serious bull-fight, and los novillos an amateur exhibition. See note on p. 340. Span. anis (see Glossary). An onza (see Glossary). The real word, of which this is a modification, is Carajo—a word which, used as an adjective, represents the English “bloody,” and used as a substantive, something yet more gross. In decent society the first syllable is considered quite strong enough as an expletive, and, modified as Caramba, may even fall from fair lips. At Seville Borrow seems to have been known as El brujo (v. p. 178). On the north shore of this bay is built the town of El Ferrol (el farol = the lighthouse), daily growing in importance as the great naval arsenal of Spain. More commonly written puchero = a glazed earthenware pot. But it is the contents rather than the pot that is usually signified, just as in the case of the olla, the round pot, whose savoury contents are spoken of throughout southern Spain as an olla, and in England as olla podrida. Santiago de Compostella (see note on p. 193). As usual I preserve the author’s original spelling, though St. James is a purely fanciful name. The Holy Place is known in common Spanish parlance as Santiago, in classical English more usually as Compostella. Probably Norwich. See Wild Wales, chap. xxiv. For the etymology of Guadalete, and many references to the river and to the battle that is said to have been fought on its banks between the invading Arabs and Roderic, “the last of the Goths,” see Burke’s History of Spain, vol. i. pp. 110, 111, and notes.
Borrow, in fact, followed almost exactly the line of the celebrated retreat of Sir John Moore, as may be seen by referring to the map. Moore, leaving the plain country, and provoked by the ignorant taunts of Frere to abandon his own plan of marching in safety south-west into Portugal, found himself on the 28th of December, 1808, at Benavente; on the 29th, at Astorga; on the 31st, at Villafranca del Vierzo; and thence, closely pressed day by day by the superior forces of Soult, he passed through Bembibre, Cacabelos, Herrerias, Nogales, to Lugo, whence, by way of Betanzos, he arrived on the 11th of January at Corunna. The horrors of that winter march over the frozen mountains will never fully be known; they are forgotten in the glorious, if bootless, victory on the sea-coast, and the heroic death of Moore. The most authoritative account of Sir John Moore’s retreat, and of the battle of Corunna, is to be found in the first volume of Napier’s Peninsular War; but the raciest is certainly that in the first edition of Murray’s Handbook of Spain, by Richard Ford. A shepherd, we are told, watching his flock in a wild mountain district in Galicia, was astonished at the appearance of a supernatural light. The Bishop of Iria Flavia (Padron) was consulted. The place so divinely illuminated was carefully searched, and in a marble sarcophagus, the body of Saint James the Greater was revealed to the faithful investigators. The king, overjoyed at the discovery, at once erected upon the ground thus consecrated a church or chapel dedicated to the apostle—the forerunner of the noble cathedral of Santiago de Compostella, and from the first, the favourite resort of the pilgrims of Christian Europe. For it was not only a relic, but a legend that had been discovered by the pious doctors of the church.
Saint James, it was said, had certainly preached and taught in Spain during his lifetime. His body, after his martyrdom at Jerusalem in the year of Christ 42, had been placed by his disciples on board a ship, by which it was conveyed to the coast of his beloved Spain, miraculously landed in Galicia, and forgotten for eight hundred years, until the time was accomplished when it should be revealed to the devoted subjects of King Alfonso the Chaste. The date of the discovery of the precious remains is given by Ferreras as 808, by Morales as 835. But as it was Charlemagne who obtained from Leo III. the necessary permission or faculty to remove the Episcopal See of Iria Flavia to the new town of Compostella, the discovery or invention must have taken place at least before 814, the year of the death of the emperor. Whatever may have been the actual date of its first establishment; the mean church with mud walls soon gave place to a noble cathedral, which was finished by the year 874, consecrated in 899, and destroyed by the Arabs under Almanzor, nigh upon a hundred years afterwards, in 997. See also Murray’s Handbook of Spain, 1st edit., p. 660, Santiago. Or Jet-ery. Azabache is jet or anthracite, of which a great quantity is found in the Asturias. The word—of Arabic origin—is also used figuratively for blackness or darkness generally in modern Spanish. “Oh, my God, it is the gentleman!” From the German betteln, to beg. May, 1823. Meiga is not a substantive either in Spanish or Portuguese (though it is in Galician), but the feminine of the adjective meigo, or mego, signifying “kind,” “gentle.” Haxweib is a form of the German Hexe Weib, a witch or female wizard. Or El Padron (Iria Flavia), the ancient seat of the bishopric, transferred to the more sacred Santiago de Compostella before the year 814. French, sur le tapis. More correctly, Caldas de Reyes. Branches of vines supported on or festooned from stakes. Borrow uses the word for the stakes themselves. The dictionary of the Spanish Academy has it, “La vid que se levanta Á lo alto y se extiende mucho en vÁstagos,” and derives the word from the Arabic par = extension or spreading. “What folly! what rascality!” The names of the ambassadors or envoys actually sent by King Henry III. to Tamerlane were, in 1399, Pelayo Gomez de Sotomayor and Herman Sanchez de Palazuelos, and on the second mission in 1403, Don Alfonso de Santa Maria and Gonzalez de Clavijo, whose account of the voyage of the envoys has been published both in Spanish and English, and is one of the earliest and most interesting books of travel in the world. Lord Cobham’s expedition in 1719; the town was taken on October 21. Vigo Street, in London, is called after the Spanish port, in memory of the Duke of Ormond’s capture of the plate ships in the bay in 1702. Vigo was also captured by the English under Drake in 1585 and in 1589. See the Glossary, s.v. Cura.
