Borrow’s chief regret at leaving Russia was that his active life was interrupted, perhaps at an end. He was dreading the old life of unprofitable study with no complete friends. But luckily, when he had only been a month in England, the Bible Society resolved to send him to Lisbon and Oporto, to look for openings for circulating the Bible in Portugal and perhaps in Spain. After this they had thoughts of sending him to China by sea. In November, 1835, he sailed for Lisbon.
Spain was at this time the victim of private quarrels which had been allowed to assume public importance. King Ferdinand VII. had twice been restored to an unloving people by foreign, especially English, aid. This King had for heir his brother Carlos, until his fourth wife, Maria Christina, bore him a daughter, Isabella, in 1830; and to secure her succession he set aside the Salic law. In 1833 he died. Isabella II. was proclaimed Queen, and Christina Regent. Christinists and Carlists were soon at war, and very bloody war. The English intervened, once diplomatically, once with a foreign legion. The war wavered, with success now to the Carlist Generals Zumalacarregui and Cabrera and now to the Christinist Espartero. There were new Prime Ministers about twice yearly. The parties were divided amongst themselves, and treachery was common. The only result that could always be foreseen was that the people and the country would suffer. Not until 1841 did Espartero finally defeat Cabrera.
Portugal, in 1835, had just had its eight years of civil war between the partisans of a child—Maria II.—aged seven, and her uncle, Miguel, ending in the departure of Miguel. Borrow made a preliminary journey in the forlorn country and decided for Spain instead. Escaping the bullets of Portuguese soldiers, he crossed the boundary at the beginning of 1836 and entered Badajoz. There he met the Gypsies, and put off his journey to Madrid to see more of them and translate the fifteenth chapter of St. Luke into their tongue. At Merida he stopped again for a Gypsy wedding. His guide was the Gypsy, Antonio Lopez, who sold him the donkey which he rode as far as Talavera. At Madrid his business was to print the New Testament in a Spanish Catholic translation. He had to wait; but with a new Cabinet permission was obtained and arrangements for the printing were made. The Revolution of La Granja, which he describes in “The Bible in Spain,” caused another delay. Then, in October, after a visit to the Gypsies of Granada, he returned to London.
He had written long letters to the Bible Society, and one which was combined and published in the “AthenÆum” with that written from Moscow. It is dated, Madrid, July 19, 1836, but describes his visit to Badajoz on January 6. He says, on entering Badajoz:
“I instantly returned thanks to God, who had protected me during a journey of five days through the wilds of the Alemtejo, the province of Portugal the most infested by robbers and desperate characters, and which I had traversed with no other human companion than a lad, nearly idiotic, who was to convey back the mules which carried myself and luggage.”
Two men were passing him in the street, and seeing the face of one he touched his arm: “I said a certain word, to which, after an exclamation of surprise, he responded in the manner I expected.” They were Gypsies. He continues:
“They left me in haste and went about the town informing the rest that a stranger had arrived who spoke Rommany as well as themselves, who had the eyes and face of a Gitano, and seemed to be of the ‘cratti’ or blood. In less than half an hour the street before the inn was filled with the men, women and children of Egypt. I went out amongst them, and my heart sank within me as I surveyed them; so much squalidness, dirt and misery I had never before seen amongst a similar number of human beings; but the worst of all was the evil expression of their countenances, denoting that they were familiar with every species of crime, and it was not long before I found that their countenances did not belie them. After they had asked me an infinity of questions, and felt my hands, face, and clothes, they returned to their homes.”
He stayed with them nearly three weeks, he says; about ten days, says Dr. Knapp. Borrow continues:
“The result of my observations was a firm belief that the Spanish Gitanos are the most vile, degraded and wretched people upon the earth. The great wickedness of these outcasts may, perhaps, be attributed to their having abandoned their wandering life and become inmates of the towns, where, to the original bad traits of their character, they have superadded the evil and vicious habits of the rabble. . . . They listened with admiration, but alas, not of the truths, the eternal truths I was telling them, but at finding that their broken jargon could be written and read; the only words of assent to the heavenly doctrine which I ever obtained, and which were rather of the negative kind, were the following, from a woman—‘Brother! you tell us strange things, though perhaps you do not lie; a month since I would sooner have believed these tales than that I should this day have seen one who could write Rommany.’ . . .”
He preserves the clergyman, but deepens the Gypsy stain. The “AthenÆum” was “not at liberty on this occasion” to publish the name of this man whom Gypsies called “Brother,” but apparently it would not be the name of any writer hitherto known to readers of the “AthenÆum.”
He was a month in England, and then left for Spain to print and distribute Testaments. He had hardly put his feet on Spanish soil than, said the Marquis of Santa Colona, {137} he “looked round, saw some Gypsies lounging there, said something that the Marquis could not understand, and immediately ‘that man became une grappe de Gitanos.’ They hung round his neck, clung to his knees, seized his hands, kissed his feet, so that the Marquis hardly liked to join his comrade again, after such close embraces by so dirty a company.” At Cordova he was very well received by the Gypsies “on the supposition that he was one of their own race.” He says in “The Gypsies of Spain”:
“As for myself, I was admitted without scruple to their private meetings, and was made a participator of their most secret thoughts. During our intercourse, some remarkable scenes occurred: one night more than twenty of us, men and women, were assembled in a long low room on the ground floor, in a dark alley or court in the old gloomy town of Cordova. After the Gitanos had discussed several jockey plans, and settled some private bargains amongst themselves, we all gathered round a huge brasero of flaming charcoal, and began conversing sobre las cosas de Egypto, when I proposed that, as we had no better means of amusing ourselves, we should endeavour to turn into the Calo language some piece of devotion, that we might see whether this language, the gradual decay of which I had frequently heard them lament, was capable of expressing any other matters than those which related to horses, mules, and Gypsy traffic. It was in this cautious manner that I first endeavoured to divert the attention of these singular people to matters of eternal importance. My suggestion was received with acclamations, and we forthwith proceeded to the translation of the Apostle’s Creed. I first recited in Spanish, in the usual manner and without pausing, this noble confession, and then repeated it again, sentence by sentence, the Gitanos translating as I proceeded. They exhibited the greatest eagerness and interest in their unwonted occupation, and frequently broke into loud disputes as to the best rendering—many being offered at the same time. In the meanwhile, I wrote down from their dictation, and at the conclusion I read aloud the translation, the result of the united wisdom of the assembly, whereupon they all raised a shout of exultation, and appeared not a little proud of the composition.”
In his desire to see the Gypsies and the ways of the people he more than doubled his difficulties, and suffered from cold and the rudeness of the roads and of the people. But in spite of the internecine civil war he got safe to Madrid. Printing was begun in 1837, and when copies were ready Borrow advertised them and arranged for their distribution. He himself set out with his servant, Antonio Buchini, a Greek of Constantinople, who had served an infinity of masters, and once been a cook to the overbearing General Cordova, and answered the General’s sword with a pistol. They travelled to Salamanca, Valladolid, Leon, Astorga, Villafranca, Lugo, CoruÑa, to Santiago, Vigo, and again to CoruÑa, to Ferrol, Oviedo, Santander, Burgos, Valladolid, and so back to Madrid in October. He had suffered from fever, dysentery and ophthalmia on the journey. According to Dr. Knapp it was the most unpropitious country possible. If chosen by anything but ignorance, it must have been by whim and the unconscious desire to delight posterity and amaze Dr. Knapp. Borrow had met, among others, Benedict Mol, the Swiss seeker after treasure hidden in the earth under the Church of San Roque at St. James’ of Compostella. This traveller was not his only acquaintance. He formed a friendship at Madrid with the Spanish scholar, Luis de Usoz, afterwards editor of “The Early Spanish Reformers,” who became a member of the Bible Society, helped Borrow in editing the Spanish Testament, and looked after his interests while he was away from Madrid. At St. James’ itself he made a friend and a co-operator of the old bookseller, Rey Romero, who knew Benedict Moll.
Borrow returned to the sale of Testaments at Madrid, and to his own favourite project of printing his Spanish Gypsy translation of the Gospel of St. Luke. To advertise his Testaments he posted up and sent about flaming tricoloured placards. This was too much for the Moderate Government which had followed the Liberals: the sale of Testaments was stopped, and that for thirty years after. The officials had been irritated by the far graver indiscretions of another but irregular agent of the Bible Society, Lieutenant Graydon, R.N., “a fervid Irish Protestant.” {139} Apparently this man had advertised Bibles in Valencia as to be sold at very low prices and even given away; had printed abuse of the Spanish clergy and Government, and had described himself as co-operating with Borrow. Except at Madrid, the Bibles and Testaments in Borrow’s depÔts throughout Spain were seized by the Government. The books had at last to be sent out of the country, British Consuls were forbidden to countenance religious agents; and in the opinion of the Consul at Seville, J. M. Brackenbury, this was directly due to Graydon’s indiscretions. The Society were kind to him. They cautioned him not to attack Popery, but to leave the Bible to speak for itself. The caution was vain, but in spite of the harm done to Borrow and themselves they recalled Graydon with but a qualified disavowal of his conduct. Borrow did not conceal from the Society his opinion that this man, with his “lunatic vagaries,” had been the “evil genius” of the Bible cause and of himself. The incident did no good to the already bickering relations between Borrow and the Rev. A. Brandram, the Secretary. Evidently Borrow’s character jarred upon Brandram, who took revenge by a tone of facetious cavil and several criticisms upon Borrow’s ways, upon his confident masculine tone, for example, his “passionate” prayer, and his confession of superstitious obedience to an ominous dream. Brandram even took the trouble to remind Borrow that when it came to distribution in Russia his success had ended: which was true but not through any fault of his. Borrow took the criticism as if applied to his Spanish work also, saying: “It was unkind and unjust to taunt me with having been unsuccessful in distributing the Scriptures. Allow me to state that no other person under the same circumstances would have distributed the tenth part. Yet had I been utterly unsuccessful, it would have been wrong to charge me with being so, after all I have undergone—and with how little of that are you acquainted.” {140} If Borrow had been as revengeful as Dr. Knapp believed him, he would not have allowed Brandram to escape an immortality of hate in “Lavengro” or “The Romany Rye.”
Borrow irritated the Spanish Government yet a little more by issuing his Gypsy “Luke,” and in May, 1838, he was illegally imprisoned in the Carcel de Corte, where he insisted upon staying until he was set free with honour and the payment of his expenses. He vindicated his position by a letter to a newspaper, pointing out that his Society was neither sectarian nor political, and that he was their sole authorised agent. This led directly to the breaking of his connection with the Bible Society, who reprimanded him for his letter and virtually recalled him from Spain.
Nevertheless Borrow made a series of excursions into the country to sell his Testaments, until in August he was definitely recalled. He returned to England, as he says himself, for “change of scene and air” after an attack of fever. He obtained a new lease from the Bible Society and was back in Spain at the end of 1838. Early in 1839 he made further excursions with Antonio Lopez to sell his Testaments, until he had to stop. Thereupon he went to Seville. He was still forming plans on behalf of the Society. He wished to go to La Mancha, the worst part of Spain, then through Saragossa and into France.
At Seville it was, in May, 1839, that Colonel Napier met him. Nobody knew who, or of what nationality, he was—this “mysterious Unknown,” the white-haired young man, with dark eyes of almost supernatural penetration and lustre, who gave himself out to be thirty instead of thirty-five, who spoke English, French, Italian, Spanish, German, and Romaic to those who best understood these languages. Borrow and Napier rode out together to the ruins of Italica:
“We sat down,” he says, “on a fragment of the walls; the “Unknown” began to feel the vein of poetry creeping through his inward soul, and gave vent to it by reciting, with great emphasis and effect, the following well-known and beautiful lines:
“Cypress and ivy, weed and wallflower, grown
Matted and massed together, hillocks heap’d
On what were chambers, arch crush’d, column strown
In fragments, choked up vaults, and frescoes steep’d
In subterranean damps, where the owl peep’d,
Deeming it midnight:—Temples, baths, or halls—
Pronounce who can; for all that Learning reap’d
From her research hath been, that these are walls.”
“I had been too much taken up with the scene, the verses, and the strange being who was repeating them with so much feeling, to notice the approach of a slight female figure, beautiful in the extreme, but whose tattered garments, raven hair, swarthy complexion, and flashing eyes, proclaimed her to be of the wandering tribe of Gitanos. From an intuitive sense of politeness she stood with crossed arms and a slight smile on her dark and handsome countenance, until my companion had ceased, and then addressed us in the usual whining tone of supplication—‘Gentlemen, a little charity; God will repay it to you!’ The Gypsy girl was so pretty and her voice so sweet, that I involuntarily put my hand in my pocket.
“‘Stop!’ said the ‘Unknown.’ ‘Do you remember what I told you of the Eastern origin of these people? You shall see I am correct.’ ‘Come here, my pretty child,’ said he in Moultanee, ‘and tell me where are the rest of your tribe.’ The girl looked astounded, and replied in the same tongue, but in broken language; when, taking him by the arm, she said in Spanish: ‘Come, Caballero, come to one who will be able to answer you’; and she led the way down among the ruins towards one of the dens formerly occupied by the wild beasts, and disclosed to us a set of beings scarcely less savage. The sombre walls of this gloomy abode were illumined by a fire, the smoke from which escaped through a deep fissure in the mossy roof, whilst the flickering flames threw a blood-red glare on the bronzed features of a group of children, two men, and a decrepit old hag who appeared busily engaged in some culinary operations.
“On our entrance, the scowling glance of the males of the party, and a quick motion of the hand towards the folds of the faja (where the clasp-knife is concealed), caused in me, at least, anything but a comfortable sensation; but their hostile intentions were immediately removed by a wave of the hand from our conductress, who, leading my companion towards the sibyl, whispered something in her ear. The old crone appeared incredulous. The ‘Unknown’ uttered one word; but that word had the effect of magic. She prostrated herself at his feet, and in an instant, from an object of suspicion, he became one of worship to the whole family, to whom on taking leave he made a handsome present, and departed with their united blessings.
“I was, as the phrase goes, dying with curiosity, and as soon as we mounted our horses, exclaimed: ‘Where, in the name of goodness, did you pick up your acquaintance with the language of these extraordinary people?’ ‘Some years ago, in Moultan,’ he replied. ‘And by what means do you possess such apparent influence over them?’ But the ‘Unknown’ had already said more than he perhaps wished on the subject. He dryly replied that he had more than once owed his life to Gypsies and had reason to know them well; but this was said in a tone which precluded all further queries on my part.”
This report is a wonderful testimony to Borrow’s power, for he seems to have made the Colonel write almost like himself and produce a picture exactly like those which he so often draws of himself.
From Seville Borrow took a journey of a few weeks to Tangier and Barbary. There he met the strongest man in Tangier, one of the old Moors of Granada, who waved a barrel of water over his head as if it had been a quart pot. There he and his Jewish servant, Hayim Ben Attar, sold Testaments, and, says he, “with humble gratitude to the Lord,” the blessed Book was soon in the hands of most of the Christians in Tangier. But with an account of his first day in the city he concluded “The Bible in Spain.”
When he was back again in Seville he had the society of Mrs. Clarke and her daughter; Henrietta, who had come to Spain to avoid some legal difficulties and presumably to see Borrow. Before the end of 1839 the engagement of Borrow and Mrs. Clarke was announced without surprising old Mrs. Borrow at Norwich. In November Borrow wrote almost his last long letter to the Bible Society. He had the advantage of a singular address, being for the moment in the prison of Seville, where he had been illegally thrown, after a quarrel with the Alcalde over the matter of a passport. He told them how this “ruffian” quailed before his gaze of defiance. He told them how well he was treated by his fellow prisoners:
The Summer House, Oulton Cottage. Photo: C. Wilson, Lowestoft
“The black-haired man who is now looking over my shoulder is the celebrated thief Palacio, the most expert housebreaker and dexterous swindler in Spain—in a word, the modern Guzman Dalfarache. The brawny man who sits by the brasero of charcoal, is Salvador, the highwayman of Ronda, who has committed a hundred murders. A fashionably dressed man, short and slight in person, is walking about the room: he wears immense whiskers and mustachios; he is one of that most singular race of Jews of Spain; he is imprisoned for counterfeiting money. He is an atheist, but like a true Jew, the name which he most hates is that of Christ: . . .” {144} So well did Borrow choose his company, even in prison. Some of his letters to the Society went astray at this time and he was vainly expected in England. He was able to send them a very high testimony to his discretion from the English Consul at Seville, and he himself reminded them that he had been “fighting with wild beasts” during this last visit. The Society several times repeated his recall, but he did not return, apparently because he wished to remain with Mrs. Clarke in Seville, and because he no longer felt himself at their beck and call. He was also at work on “The Gypsies of Spain.” Nevertheless he wrote to the Society in March, 1840, a letter which would have been remarkable from another man about to marry a wife, for he said that he wished to spend the remaining years of his life in the northern parts of China, as he thought he had a call, and still hoped “to die in the cause of my Redeemer.” In April he left Spain with Mrs. and Miss Clarke. Fifty or sixty years later Mrs. Joseph Pennell “saw the sign, ‘G. Borrow, Agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society,’ high upon a house in the Plaza de la Constitucion, in Seville.” Borrow was never again in Spain. After reporting himself for the last time to the Society, and making a suggestion which Brandram answered by saying, “the door seems shut,” he married Mrs. Clarke on April 23, 1840. She had £450 a year and a home at Oulton. Fifteen or sixteen years later he spoke of his wife and daughter thus: “Of my wife I will merely say that she is a perfect paragon of wives—can make puddings and sweets and treacle posset, and is the best woman of business in Eastern Anglia—of my step daughter—for such she is, though I generally call her daughter, and with good reason, seeing that she has always shown herself a daughter to me—that she has all kinds of good qualities, and several accomplishments, knowing something of conchology, more of botany, drawing capitally in the Dutch style, and playing remarkably well on the guitar—not the trumpery German thing so called—but the real Spanish guitar.” His wife wrote letters for him, copied his manuscripts, and helped to correct his proofs. She remained at Oulton, or Yarmouth, while he went about; if he went to Wales or Ireland she sometimes accompanied him to a convenient centre and there remained while he did as he pleased. She admired him, and she appears to have become essential to his life, apart from her income, and not to have resented her position at any time, though grieved by his unconcealed melancholy.
A second time he praised her in print, saying that he had an exceedingly clever wife, and allowed her “to buy and sell, carry money to the bank, draw cheques, inspect and pay tradesmen’s bills, and transact all my real business, whilst I myself pore over old books, walk about the shires, discoursing with Gypsies, under hedgerows, or with sober bards—in hedge alehouses.”
