See note, vol. i. p. 120. A fanciful word of Portuguese etymology from nuvem, cloud = the cloud-man. Inha, when affixed to words, serves as a diminutive. It is much in use amongst the Gallegans. It is pronounced Ínia, the Portuguese and Galician nh being equivalent to the Spanish Ñ. “Flock of drunkards.” Fato, in Gal. as in Port. = a herd or flock. Span. hato. San Martin de Duyo, a village, according to Madoz, of sixty houses. There are no remains of the ancient Duyo. Galician; lit. the shore of the outer sea. “By God! I am going too.” Who served as a subordinate general in the Carlist armies. “The good lad.” In Spanish, guardacostas. More correctly, el Ferrol or farol, the lighthouse. Nothing can more strikingly give the lie to the conventional taunt that Spain has made no progress in recent years than the condition of the modern town of el Ferrol compared with the description in the text. It is now a flourishing and remarkably clean town of over 23,000 inhabitants, with an arsenal not only magnificent in its construction, but filled with every modern appliance, employing daily some 4000 skilled workmen, whose club (el liceo de los artesanos) might serve as a model for similar institutions in more “advanced” countries. It comprises a library, recreation-room, casino, sick fund, benefit society, and school; and lectures and evening parties, dramatic entertainments, and classes for scientific students, are all to be found within its walls. A little town charmingly situated on a little bay at the mouth of the river Eo, which divides Galicia from Asturias, famous for oysters and salmon. Signifying in Portugese or Galician, “A thing of gold.” Tertian ague, or intermittent three-day fever. “Come along, my little Parrot!” A town on the sea-coast about half-way between Rivadeo and Aviles. Query. See note, p. 45. On the right bank of the Eo, over against Rivadeo. The port of Oviedo. See the Glossary, s.v. Copla. “God bless me!” I.e. Bascuence, or Vascuence, the Basque language. Query, Aviles? Job xxxix. 25: “. . . the thunder of the captains, and the shouting.” “Good heavens!” I.e. jacas. The cathedral at Oviedo is one of the oldest and most interesting foundations in Spain. The first stone was laid by Alfonso II. in 802; the greater part of the existing edifice is of the fourteenth century.
But the great glory of Oviedo, entitling it to rank as second among the holy cities of Christian Spain, is the Camara Santa, and the relics therein contained (see Burke’s History of Spain vol. i. pp. 122–124, 140, 141, 147–150, 165, 275; vol. ii. pp. 8–11; and Murray’s Handbook, sub. Oviedo). Benito Feyjoo was born in 1676, and having assumed the Benedictine habit early in life, settled at length in a convent of his order at Oviedo, where he lived for hard on fifty years. He died in 1764.
A strange mixture of a devout Catholic and a scientific innovator, he was an earnest student of Bacon, Newton, Pascal, Leibnitz, and others, whose opinions he embodied in his own works. Learned, judicious, and diligent rather than a man of genius, he was original at least as regards his conceptions of the nature and limits of scientific research in Spain. He kept on good terms with the Inquisition, while he continued to publish in his Teatro Critico and his Cartas Eruditas y Curiosas all that the Inquisitors would desire to remain unread; attacked the dialectics and metaphysics then taught everywhere in Spain; maintained Bacon’s system of induction in the physical sciences; ridiculed the general opinion as regards eclipses, comets, magic, and divination; and laid down canons of historical criticism which would exclude many of the most cherished traditions of his country and his Church. The best edition of his works is that by Campomanes, the minister of the enlightened Charles III., with a Life of the author. 16 vols. Madrid, 1778. Charles III. of Spain (1759–1788), the most enlightened of the Bourbon kings. Literally, dry. George Dawson Flinter began life in an English West India regiment, served in the Spanish American forces, and afterwards obtained a commission in the Spanish army. In 1833, on the outbreak of the civil war, he declared for Isabella, and served with considerable distinction in the constitutional army. A prisoner in 1836, he was entrusted with a high command at Toledo in 1837, but having failed to satisfy the Cortes in an engagement in September, 1838, he cut his throat (see Gentl. Mag., 1838, vol. ii. p. 553, and Duncan, The English in Spain, pp. 13, 189). There is still a fairly frequented high-road from Santander to Burgos, inasmuch as the railway from Santander to Madrid takes a more westerly route through Palencia, the actual junction with the main line from Irun being at Venta de BaÑos, a new creation of the railway not even mentioned in the guidebooks a few years ago, and now one of the most important stations in Spain.
Yet in railway matters Spain has still some progress to make. From Santander to Burgos vi Venta de BaÑos is just 120 English miles; but the time occupied in the journey by train in this year 1895 is just seventeen hours, the traveller having to leave Santander at 1 p.m. in order to reach Burgos at 6 o’clock the following morning! See Introduction. “Office of the Biblical and Foreign Society,” rather an odd rendering of the original title! The briefest of all abbreviations and modifications of the objectionable Carajo. Rather south-south-west. Domenico Theotocoupoulis, a Greek or Byzantine who settled at Toledo in 1577. He is said to have been a pupil of Titian. The picture so highly praised in the text is said by Professor Justi to be in “his worst manner,” and is indeed a very stiff performance. There are many of El Greco’s pictures in Italy, where his work is often assigned to Bassano, Paul Veronese, and Titian. His acknowledged masterpiece is the Christ on Mount Calvary in the cathedral of Toledo. El Greco died in 1625, after an uninterrupted residence of nearly forty years in Spain. See The Zincali, part. ii. chap. vi. Borrow’s translation of St. Luke into Spanish gypsy was published with the following title: EmbÉo e MajarÓ Lucas. Brotoboro randado andrÉ la chipe griega, acÁna chibado andrÉ o RomanÓ Ó chipe es Zincales de SesÉ. (No place) 1837. A new edition was published five and thirty years later by the British and Foreign Bible Society, as Criscote e MajarÓ Lucas chibado andrÉ o Romano Ó chipe es Zincales de SesÉ. Lundra, 1872. Both these works are now out of print, but I have had the advantage of seeing a copy of each in the library of the Society in Queen Victoria Street. The Zincali, part ii. ch. viii. Modern linguistic science is so entirely at variance with these theories that it is difficult to add a note at once modest, instructive, or of reasonable length. On the whole it is perhaps better to leave the chapter entirely alone. See the Glossary. Evangelioa San Lucasen Guissan. El Evangelio Segun S. Lucas. Traducido al vascuence. Madrid: Imprenta de la CompaÑia Tipografica. 1838. See Proverbes Basques suivis des PoÉsies Basques, by Arnauld Oihenart, 1847. See F. Michel, Le Pays Basque, p. 213, and the Glossary, s.v. Ichasoa. No one who has ever read the work of this AbbÉ would ever think of citing it as a serious authority. It is entitled, L’histoire des Cantabres par l’AbbÉ d’Iharce de Bidassouet. Paris, 1825. Basque, according to the author, was the primÆval language; Noah being still the Basque for wine is an etymological record of the patriarch’s unhappy inebriety! This work is entitled, Euscaldun anciÑa anciÑaco, etc. Donostian, 1826, by Juan Ignacio de Iztueta, with an Introduction in Spanish, and many Basque songs with musical notation, but without accompaniment. See further as to the Basques, Burke’s History of Spain, vol. i. App. I. 1838. See ante, p. 100, and Introduction. Ofalia was prime minister from November 30, 1837, to August, 1838, when he was succeeded by the Duke of Frias. The mayor or chief magistrate. Politico is here used in the old sense of civic, p???t????, of the p????; gefe, now spelt jefe = chief. In The Zincali, part ii. ch. iv., Borrow places his imprisonment in March. Rather civic; see note on p. 127. “The city prison.” La Corte is the capital, as well as the court. “My master! the constables, and the catchpolls, and all the other thieves . . . ” See the Glossary, s.v. Jargon. “He is very skilful.” “Are there no more?” More like the French Juge d’Instruction. “Come along, Sir George; to your house, to your lodgings!” Acts xvi. 37. People of renown. “Mashes” and mistresses. Majo is a word of more general signification than manolo. The one is a dandy, or smart fellow, all over Spain; the other is used only of a certain class in Madrid. More correctly, Carabanchel or Carabancheles, two villages a few miles south of Madrid. This in prison! E.g. in the citadel of Pampeluna. See Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, i. 152. Perhaps Waterloo.—[Note by Borrow.] “It distresses me.” Robbing the natives. See chap. xiii. The sun was setting, and Demos commands. “Bring water, my children, that ye may eat bread this evening.” Borrow has translated this song in the Targum (v. p. 343). The treasure-digger. See The Zincali, part ii. chap. iv. The duke became prime minister in August, 1838. In Gams’ Series Episcoporum, the standard authority on the subject, the archiepiscopal see of Toledo is noted as vacant from 1836 to 1847. Nor is any hint given of how the duties of the office were performed. Don Antonio Perez Hirias figures only as Bishop of Mallorca, or Majorca, from December, 1825, to December, 1847. Kicks from behind. “I do not know.” See note, p. 103. “To the gallows! To the gallows!” “To the country! To the country!” “Ride on, because of the word of truth, of meekness, and righteousness” (Ps. xlv. 5, P.B.V.). A nickname, unhappily too commonly justified in Southern Spain, where ophthalmia and oculists are equally dangerous.
It is remarkable how many of the great men in Spanish history, however, have been distinguished by this blemish: Hannibal, Viriatus, TÁric, Abdur Rahman I., and Don Juan el Tuerto in the reign of Alfonso XI. Byron, Don Juan, xiii. 11. Borrow probably knew well enough where the lines came from. Don Juan had not been published more than fifteen years at the time, and was in the zenith of its popularity. But Byron and his ways were alike odious to the rough manliness of Borrow (see Lavengro, ch. xxxix.), and, in good truth, however much the poet “deserves to be remembered,” it is certainly not for this line, which contains as many suggestiones falsi as may be packed into one line. Yet the “sneer” is not in the original, but in Borrow’s misquotation; Byron wrote “smiled.” The idea of the poet having spent a handful of gold ounces in a Genoese posada at Seville and at a bull-fight at Madrid, that he might be competent to tell the world that Cervantes sneered Spain’s chivalry away, is superlatively Borrovian—and delicious. The entire passage runs thus—
“Cervantes smiled Spain’s chivalry away;
A single laugh demolish’d the right arm
Of his own country;—seldom since that day
Has Spain had heroes.”
About thirty pounds, at the exchange of the day. “I wish to enlist with you.” “Gee up, donkey!” From this arrhÉ, of Arabic origin, is derived the word arriero, a muleteer. “Blessed be God!” See note, ante, p. 190. See vol. i. p. 257. Aranjuez, the Roman Ara Jovis, was, until the absorption of the great military order by the Crown under Isabella and Ferdinand, a favourite residence of the Grand Masters of Santiago. “Die schÖnen Tage in Aranjuez
Sind nun zu Ende.”
The opening lines of Don Carlos. An exceedingly ancient town, celebrated in the days before the Roman dominion. See Glossary, sub. verb. Schophon. As to rabbits in Spain, see note, vol. i. p. 25. The modern La Granja or San Ildefonso is, in the season, anything but desolate: the beautiful, if somewhat over-elaborate gardens, are admirably kept up, and the general atmosphere of the plain is bright and cheerful, though the Court of to-day prefers the sea-breezes of Biscay to the air of the Guadarrama, when Madrid becomes, as it does, well-nigh uninhabitable in summer. A particular scoundrel. His massacre of prisoners, November 9, 1838, was remarkable for its atrocity, when massacre was of daily occurrence. See Duncan, The English in Spain, pp. 247, 248. See note, vol. i. p. 164. August 31, 1838. Don Carlos, who probably died a natural death in 1568. The etymology of Andalusia is somewhat of a crux; the various authorities are collected and reviewed in an appendix to Burke’s History of Spain, vol. i. p. 379. The true etymology may be Vandalusia, the abiding-place of the Vandals, though they abode in Southern Spain but a very short time; but the word certainly came into the Spanish through the Arabic, and not through the Latin, long years after Latin was a spoken language. The young lady was quite right in speaking of it as Betica or Boetica; though the Terra would be superfluous, if not incorrect. He had succeeded to that title on the death of his uncle, December 22, 1838. I.e. “My Lord the Sustainer of the Kingdom.” See preface to The Zincali, second edition. Tio. A common method of address, conveying no reference to real relationship. So the Boers in South Africa speak of “Oom (uncle) Paul.” “What beautiful, what charming reading!” No hay otro en el mundo. See note on p. 147. ?at? t?? t?p?? ?a? ? t??p??, as Antonio said.—[Note by Borrow]. I.e. “As is the place, such is the character (of the people).” AlcalÁ de Henares. See note, vol. i. p. 223. “Good night!” “Good night to you!” Or Nevski = of the Neva; as we have a Thames Street. Spanish, duende. See p. 238. Oddly enough in GermanÍa, or thieves’ slang, duende = ronda, a night patrol. Madrid is not a city or ciudad, but only the chief of villas. In Romany, Chuquel sos pirela cocal terela. El Nuevo Testamento Traducido al EspaÑol de la Vulgata Latino por el Rmo. P. Phelipe Scio de S. Miguel de las Escuelas Pias Obispo Electo de Segovia. Madrid. Imprenta Á cargo de D. Joaquin de la Barrera. 1837. The church of San Gines is in the Calle del Arenal; the chapel of Santa Cruz in the Concepcion JerÓnima. This is a curious slip; the spelling is found in the first and all subsequent editions. The true name of the defile—it is between Velez el Rubio and Lorca—is, as might be supposed, La Rambla, but the narrowest part of the pass is known as the Puerto de Lumbreras (the Pass of Illumination), and from Rambla and Lumbrera Borrow or the printer of 1843 evolved the strange compound Rumblar! This would naturally mean, “Most reverend sir, art thou still saying, or, dost thou still say Mass?” which seems somewhat irrelevant. Possibly what “the prophetess” meant to ask was, “Most reverend sir, hast thou yet said Mass?” “Knowest thou the land where the lemon-trees bloom?” The song of Mignon in Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister, introduced in the opera of Faust. See note, vol. i. p. 216. Born at Amalfi, 1623, a simple fisherman. He headed the rebellion of the Neapolitans against the Spanish viceroy, in 1647. His success as a leader led to a revulsion of popular feeling, and he was executed or murdered within a few days of his greatest triumph. Chiefly in their pronunciation of the characteristic G and Z of the Castilian as S instead of TH. The South-American Spaniards, so largely recruited from Andalusia, maintain the same sibilation, which is about as offensive to a true Castilian as the dropping of an H is to an educated Englishman. Safacoro is the Romany name for Seville; and Len Baro for the great river, arabicÉ Wady al Kebir, the Guadalquivir. See Glossary. For further information about Manuel and Luis Lobo, who compiled a manuscript collection of the pseudo-gypsy writings of los del aficion, or those addicted to the Gitanos and their language, see The Zincali, part iii. chap. ii. ????e, voc. of ??????, the usual mode of address, “sir.” The name of a famous family of Dutch printers (1594–1680). Priests. Greek, pap??; not Spanish, in which language Papa means the Pope (of Rome). ??p?te = nothing at all. The secondary signification of “prosperity” or “good fortune” is more familiar to English ears; the word having come to us by way of the Spanish, American, and Californian mining camps. “The Illustrious Scullion.” Lit. a butterfly. This was Mr. John Brackenbury. The great Danish poet, born in 1779, died 1850; see ante, note, vol. i. p. 29. October 21, 1805. It is an American in our own day, Captain Mahan, U.S.N., who has called attention, in his masterly influence of Sea Power upon History, to the transcendent importance of the battle of Trafalgar, hardly realized by the most patriotic Englishman, who had well-nigh forgotten Trafalgar in celebrating the more attractive glories of Waterloo. Storm of east wind; wind from the Levant. I.e. Kafirs, the Arabic term of reproach, signifying an unbeliever; one who is not a Moslem! The title formally granted to this Alonzo Perez de Guzman, under the sign-manual of King Sancho the Bravo, was that of “The Good.” His son was not crucified, but stabbed to death by the Infante Don John, with the knife that had been flung over the battlements of the city by the poor lad’s father, a.d. 1294 (see Documentos Ineditos para la Historia de EspaÑa, tom. xxxix. pp. 1–397). Rather of Muza, the commander-in-chief of the army that conquered Gothic Spain in 711. Tarifa similarly perpetuates the memory of one of his lieutenants, TÁrif; and Gibraltar is Gibil Tarik, after Tarik, his second in command (see Burke’s History of Spain, vol. i. pp. 110–120). The hill of the baboons. Rather, “The Island;” Al Jezirah. According to Don Pascual de Gayangos, Thursday, April 30, 711. In more modern slang, “a rock scorpion.” ??? ????? sa?, a polite locution in modern Greek, signifying “you,” “your good self, or, selves.” More correctly, the Preobazhenski, Semeonovski, and Findlandski polks. The first is a very crack regiment, and was formed by Peter the Great in 1682. In 1692 it took part in the capture of Azov (Toll, “Nastolny Slovar,” Encyclop. tom. iii.). This would have been General Sir A. Woodford, K.C.B., G.C.M.G. “A holy man this, from the kingdoms of the East.” A street in West Hamburg, near the port and the notorious Heiligegeist, frequented by a low class of Jews and seafaring men. The living waters. Into the hands of some one else—manÛ alicujus. Peluni is the Fulaneh of the Arabs, the Don Fulano of the Spaniards; Mr. So-and-So; Monsieur Chose. I.e. “The Hill of the English,” near Vitoria. Here, in the year 1367, Don Tello, with a force of six thousand knights, cut to pieces a body of four hundred men-at-arms and archers, under the command of Sir Thomas Felton, Seneschal of Guienne, and his brother Sir William. See Froissart, i. chap. 239; Ayala, Cronicas de los Reyes de Castilla, i. p. 446; MÉrimÉe, Histoire de Don PÈdre Ier, p. 486. The popular name for Etna—an etymology most suggestive, Mons (Latin) and gibil (Arabic) each signifying “a mountain.” The book Zohar (Hebrew, “Brilliancy”) is, next to the canonical Scripture, one of the ablest books in Hebrew literature, having been written by the Rabbi Simeon bar JochaÏ, “The Great Light” and “Spark of Moses,” early in the second century of our era. The mysteries contained in the Zohar are said to have been communicated to JochaÏ during his twelve years’ seclusion in a cave; and they are specially revered by a sect of modern Jews known as Zoharites, or Sabbathians, from their founder SabbataÏ Zevi, who was born at Smyrna in 1625, and claimed to be the true Messiah, but who, to save himself from death as an impostor, embraced the faith of IslÁm at Adrianople, and died a Moslem in 1676. Yet a hundred years later another Zoharite pretender, Jankiev Lejbovicz, who acquired the name of Jacob Frank, of Offenbach, near Frankfort, and died only in 1792, made himself famous in Germany. The Zoharites were Cabalistic, as opposed to Talmudic, in their theology or theosophy, and in later times have claimed to have much in common with Christianity.—See M. J. Mayers (of Yarmouth), A Brief Account of the Zoharite Jews (Cambridge, 1826); and Graetz, History of the Jews, vol. v. pp. 125, 289. Rabat. 1 Kings xix. 11–13. On as a termination is usually indicative of size without admiration, bigness rather than greatness, as in the Italian one. The tomato was hardly known in England in 1839, and was not common for forty years after, so Borrow may be excused for giving the word in its Spanish form. The plant was introduced into Spain from Peru in the sixteenth century. “Lord of the World.” Adun or Adon is the well-known Hebrew word for Lord, and is said to be the origin of the Spanish title Don. Oulem is the Arab ‘Olam. The following lines are the first poem in the Targum, a collection of translations by Borrow from thirty languages, printed at St. Petersburg in 1835:—
“Reigned the universe’s Master, ere were earthly things begun:
When his mandate all created Ruler was the name he won;
And alone he’ll rule tremendous when all things are past and gone,
He no equal has, nor consort, he, the singular and lone,
Has no end and no beginning; his the sceptre, might and throne.
He’s my God and living Saviour, rock to whom in need I run;
He’s my banner and my refuge, fount of weal when called upon;
In his hand I place my spirit at nightfall and rise of sun,
And therewith my body also; God’s my God—I fear no one.”
In 1684, on the familiar official plea of “economy.” “Good morning, O my lord.” “There is no God but one.” “Buy here, buy here.” This youth followed Borrow to England, where he was introduced to Mr. Petulengro as a pal, but rejected by him as “no Roman.” See The Zincali, Preface to Second Edition. “Hail, Mary, full of grace, pray for me.” “Remove the faithless race from the borders of the believers, that we may gladly pay due praises to Christ.” This has been already alluded to as regards Southern Spain. Algiers. Essence of white flowers. The Arabic attar = essence is well known in combination as otto or attar of roses. Nuar is a form of Nawar = flowers. This was still market-day in 1892. Nowhere has the destruction of locusts been undertaken in a more systematic manner, or carried to greater perfection than in the island of Cyprus, where a special tax is levied by the British Government to defray the expenses of what is called “the war.” The system is the invention of a Cypriote gentleman, Mr. Mattei. More commonly known as the prickly pear (Opuntia vulgaris). The house of the trades [Borrow], or rather “of the handicrafts.” Seashore. See the Glossary. Friday. The etymology of Granada is doubtful. Before the invasion of Spain by the Arabs, a small town of Phoenician origin, known as Karnattah, existed near Illiberis (Elvira), and probably on the site of the more modern city of Granada. The syllable Kar would, in Phoenician, signify “a town.” The meaning of nattah is unknown (Gayangos, i. 347; Casiri, Bib. Ar. Hisp. Esc., ii. 251; Conde, Hist. Dom., i. pp. 37–51). The supposition that the city owes its name to its resemblance to a ripe pomegranate (granada) is clearly inadmissible. As in the case of Leon, the device was adopted in consequence of its appropriateness to an existing name—although the modern city of Granada is probably not older than 1020. The Arabic word, moreover, for a pomegranate is romÀn; and Soto de Roma, the name of the Duke of Wellington’s estate in Andalusia, means “the wood of the pomegranates;” and an ensalada romana is not a Roman, but a pomegranate salad (see Pedaza, Hist. Eccl. de Granada [1618], fol. 21, 22; Romey, Hist., i. 474, 475).—Burke’s Hist. of Spain, vol. i. p. 116. The most powerful, or the most respected, man in Tangier. Power and respect are usually enjoyed by the same individual in the East. “It does not signify.” See note, vol. i. p. 240. “Algerine,
Moor so keen,
No drink wine,
No taste swine.” “That is not lawful.” “Everything is lawful.” “Hail, star of the sea, benign Mother of God, and for ever virgin, blessed gate of heaven.” Andalusian for ciego.
