When Borrow had almost finished “The Romany Rye” he went on a visit to his cousins in Cornwall. The story of his saving a man’s life in a stormy sea had reached them, and they sent him an invitation, which he accepted at Christmas time in 1853. He stayed for a fortnight with a cousin’s married daughter, Mrs. Anne Taylor, at Penquite Farm, near Liskeard, and then several days again after a fortnight spent on a walk to Land’s End and back. In his last week he walked to Tintagel and Pentire. He was welcomed with hospitality and admiration. He in turn seems to have been pleased and at his ease, though he only understood half of what was said. Those who remember his visit speak of his tears in the house where his father was born, of his sitting in the centre of a group telling stories of his travels and singing a Gypsy song, of his singing foreign songs all day out of doors, of his fit of melancholy cured by Scotch and Irish airs played on the piano, of his violent opinions on sherry and “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” of his protesting against some sign of gentility by using a filthy rag as a pocket handkerchief, and that in a conspicuous manner, of his being vain and not proud, of his telling the children stories, of one child crying out at sight of him: “That is a man!” He made his mark by unusual ways and by intellectual superiority to his rustic cousins. He rode about with one of his cousin’s grandchildren. He walked hither and thither alone, doing as much as twenty-five miles a day with the help of “Look out, look out, Svend Vonved,” which he sang in the last dark stretches of road. Mr. Walling was “told that he roamed the Caradons in all weathers without a hat, in search of sport and specimens, antiquities and dialects,” but I should think the “specimens” were for the table. He talked to the men by the wayside or dived into the slums of Liskeard for disreputable characters. He visited remarkable and famous places, and was delighted with “Druidic” remains and tales of fairies.

Thus Borrow made “fifty quarto pages” of notes, says Knapp, about people, places, dialect, and folk lore. Some of the notes are mere shorthand; some are rapid gossipy jottings; and they include; a verse translation of a Cornish tale.

A book on Cornwall, to have grown out of these notes, was advertised; but it was never written. Perhaps he found it hard to vivify or integrate his notes. In any case there could hardly have been any backbone to the book, and it would have been tourist’s work, however good. He was not a man who wrote about everything; the impulse was lacking and he went on with the furious Appendix to “The Romany Rye.”

In 1854 he paid a much longer visit to Wales. He took his wife and daughter as far as Llangollen, which he used as a centre during August. Then he had ten days walking through Corwen, Cerrig-y-Drudion, Capel Curig, Bangor, Anglesey, Snowdon, Beth Gelert, Festiniog, and Bala. After three weeks more at Llangollen, he had his boots soled and his umbrella mended, bought a leather satchel with a lock and key, and put in it a white linen shirt, a pair of worsted stockings, a razor, and a prayer book, and with twenty pounds in his pocket and his umbrella grasped in the middle, set out on a tour of three weeks. He travelled through the whole length of Wales, by Llangarmon, Sycharth, Bala, Machynlleth, Devil’s Bridge, Plinlimmon, Pont Rhyd Fendigaid, Strata Florida, Tregaron, Lampeter, Pumpsaint, Llandovery, Llangadog, Gwynfe, Gutter Fawr (Brynamman), Swansea, Neath, Merthyr, Caerphilly, Newport, and Chepstow. He had loved the Welsh bards and Wales from his boyhood up, and these three months kept him occupied and happy. When at Llangollen he walked during the day, and in the evening showed his wife and stepdaughter a view, if he had found one. His wife reported to his mother that she had reason to praise God for his condition.

Borrow was happy at seeing the places mentioned by the bards and the houses where some of them were born. “Oh, the wild hills of Wales,” he exclaimed, “the land of old renown and of wonder, the land of Arthur and Merlin!” These were the very tones of his Spanish enthusiasm nearly twenty years ago. He travelled probably without maps, and with no general knowledge of the country or of what had been written of it, so that he did not know how to spell Manorbier or recognise it as the birthplace of Gerald of Wales. He remembered his youth, when he translated the bards, with complacent melancholy. He sunned himself in the admiration of his inferiors, talking at great length on subjects with which he was acquainted and repeating his own execrable verse translations. “Nice man”—“civil man”—“clever man . . . has been everywhere,” the people said. In the South, too, he had the supreme good fortune to meet Captain Bosvile for the first time for thirty years, and not being recognised, said, “I am the chap what certain folks calls the Romany Rye.” Bejiggered if the Captain had not been thinking it was he, and goes on to ask after that “fine young woman and a vartuous” that he used to keep company with, and Borrow in his turn asked after Jasper—“Lord!” was the answer, “you can’t think what grand folks he and his wife have become of late years, and all along of a trumpery lil which somebody has written about them.” He also met an Italian whose friends he had last seen at Norwich, one whom he had found at Corunna. It is no wonder that it seemed to him he had always had “the health of an elephant,” and could walk thirty-four miles a day, and the last mile in ten minutes. He took his chance for a night’s lodging, content to have someone else’s bed, but going to the best inn where he had a choice, as at Haverfordwest.

He was very much moved by the adventure. “I have a wonderful deal to say if I once begin; I have been everywhere,” he said to the old man at Gutter Fawr. He gave the shepherd advice about his sheep. “I am in the habit,” he said to the landlord at Pont Erwyd, “of talking about everything, being versed in all matters, do you see, or affecting to be so, which comes much to the same thing.” Even in the company of his stepdaughter—as they were not in Hyde Park—he sang in Welsh at the top of his voice. The miller’s hospitality in Mona brought tears to his eyes; so did his own verse translation of the “Ode to Sycharth,” because it made him think “how much more happy, innocent and holy I was in the days of my boyhood when I translated Iolo’s ode than I am at the present time.” He kissed the silver cup at Llanddewi Brefi and the tombstone of Huw Morus at Llan Silin. When the chair of Huw Morus was wiped and he was about to sit down in it, he uncovered and said in his best Welsh:

“‘Shade of Huw Morus, supposing your shade haunts the place which you loved so well when alive—a Saxon, one of the seed of the Coiling Serpent, has come to this place to pay that respect to true genius, the Dawn Duw, which he is ever ready to pay. He read the songs of the Nightingale of Ceiriog in the most distant part of Lloegr, when he was a brown-haired boy, and now that he is a grey-haired man he is come to say in this place that they frequently made his eyes overflow with tears of rapture.’

“I then sat down in the chair, and commenced repeating verses of Huw Morus. All which I did in the presence of the stout old lady, the short, buxom, and bare-armed damsel, and of John Jones, the Calvinistic weaver of Llangollen, all of whom listened patiently and approvingly though the rain was pouring down upon them, and the branches of the trees and the tops of the tall nettles, agitated by the gusts from the mountain hollows, were beating in their faces, for enthusiasm is never scoffed at by the noble, simple-minded, genuine Welsh, whatever treatment it may receive from the coarse-hearted, sensual, selfish Saxon.”

Unless we count the inn at Cemmaes, where he took vengeance on the suspicious people by using his note-book in an obvious manner, “now skewing at an object, now leering at an individual,” he was only once thoroughly put out, and that was at Beth Gelert by a Scotchman: which suggests a great deal of amiability, on one side, considering that Borrow’s Welsh was book-Welsh, execrably pronounced.

He filled four books with notes, says Knapp, who has printed from them some parts which Borrow did not use, including the Orange words of “Croppies lie down,” and Borrow’s translation of “the best ghost story in the world,” by Lope de Vega. The book founded on these Welsh notes was advertised in 1857, but not published until 1862.

In the September after his Welsh holiday, 1855, Borrow took his wife and daughter to the Isle of Man, deposited them at Douglas, and travelled over the island for seven weeks, with intervals at Douglas. He took notes that make ninety-six quarto pages in Knapp’s copy. He was to have founded a book on them, entitled, “Wanderings in Quest of Manx Literature.” Knapp quotes an introduction which was written. This and the notes show him collecting in manuscript or viva voce the carvals or carols then in circulation among the Manx; and he had the good fortune to receive two volumes of them as gifts. Some he translated during his visit. He went about questioning people concerning the carvals and a Manx poet, named George Killey. He read a Manx prayer-book to the poet’s daughter at Kirk Onchan, and asked her a score of questions. He convinced one woman that he was “of the old Manx.” Finding a Manxman who spoke French and thought it the better language, he made the statement that “Manx or something like it was spoken in France more than a thousand years before French.” He copied Runic inscriptions, and took down several fairy tales and a Manx version of the story of “Finn McCoyle” and the Scotch giant. He went to visit a descendant of the ballad hero, Mollie Charane. When he wished to know the size of some old skeletons he inquired if the bones were as large as those of modern ones. As he met people to compliment him on his Manx, so he did on his walking. Knapp speaks of a “terrible journey” over the mountain from Ramsay to Braddan and Douglas in October, but does not make any quotation relating to it. In his opinion the notes “seldom present any matter of general interest save to the islanders of Man and the student of Runic inscriptions.” Enough, however, is quoted to show that Borrow was delighted with the country and the people, finding plenty to satisfy his curiosity in languages and customs. But he was irritable, and committed to paper some sarcastic remarks about Sir John Bowring and Lord Raglan, “the secret friend” of Russia; while the advancement of an enemy and the death of a cousin caused him to reflect: “William Borrow, the wonderful inventor, dead, and Leicester Curzon . . . a colonel. Pretty justice!” In 1862, in the pages of “Once a Week,” he published two of his Manx translations, the ballads—“Brown William” and “Mollie Charane.” In August and September, 1857, Borrow was walking again in Wales, covering four hundred miles, as he told John Murray, and once, at least, between Builth and Mortimer’s Cross, making twenty-eight miles in a day. His route was through Laugharne, Saundersfoot, Tenby, Pembroke, Milford and Milford Haven, Stainton, Johnston, Haverfordwest, St. Davids, Fishguard, Newport, Cardigan, Llechryd, Cilgerran, Cenarth, Newcastle Emlyn, Lampeter, Llanddewi Brefi, Builth, Presteign, Mortimer’s Cross, and so to Shrewsbury, and to Uppington, where Goronwy Owen was curate in the middle of the eighteenth century. Knapp transcribed part of Borrow’s journal for Messrs. T. C. Cantrill and J. Pringle, remarking that the rubbed pencil writing took him eight days to decipher. With the annotations of Messrs. Cantrill and Pringle it was printed in “Y Cymmrodor,” {270a} the journal of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion. I will quote one day’s entries, with the annotations, which are the fruit of the most patient devotion:

“Haverfordwest—little river—bridge; {270b} steep ascent {270c}—sounds of music—young fellows playing—steep descent—strange town—Castle Inn. H.W. in Welsh Hool-fordd.

“[August] 27th, Thursday.—Burning day as usual. Breakfasted on tea, eggs, and soup. Went up to the Castle. St. Mary’s Church—river—bridge—toll—The two bridge keepers—River Dun Cledi {270d}—runs into Milford Haven—exceedingly deep in some parts—would swallow up the largest ship ever built {270e}—people in general dislike and despise the Welsh.

“Started for St. David’s. Course S.W. {270f}After walking about 2 m. crossed Pelkham Bridge {271a}—it separates St. Martin’s from Camrwyn {271b} parish, as a woman told me who was carrying a pipkin in which were some potatoes in water but not boiled. In her other hand she had a dried herring. She said she had lived in the parish all her life and could speak no Welsh, but that there were some people within it who could speak it. Rested against a shady bank, {271c} very thirsty and my hurt foot very sore. She told me that the mountains to the N. were called by various names. One the [Clo---?] mountain. {271d}

“The old inn {271e}—the blind woman. {271f} Arrival of the odd-looking man and the two women I had passed on the road. The collier [on] {271g} the ass gives me the real history of Bosvile. Written in Roche Castle, a kind of oblong tower built on the rock—there is a rock within it, a huge crag standing towards the East in what was perhaps once a door. It turned out to be a chapel. {271h}

“The castle is call’d in Welsh Castel y Garn, a translation of Roche. The girl and water—B---? (Nanny) Dallas. {272a} Dialogue with the Baptist {272b} who was mending the roads.

“Splendid view of sea—isolated rocks to the South. Sir las {272c} headlands stretching S. Descent to the shore. New Gall Bridge. {272d} The collier’s wife. Jemmy Remaunt {272e} was the name of man on the ass. Her own husband goes to work by the shore. The ascent round the hill. Distant view of Roche Castle. The Welshers, the little village {272f}—all looking down on the valley appropriately called Y Cwm. Dialogue with tall man Merddyn? {272g}—The Dim o Clywed.”

Not much of this second tour can be shown to have been used in “Wild Wales,” where he alludes to it in the ninety-third chapter, saying that he “long subsequently” found some of the wildest solitudes and most romantic scenery among the mountains about Tregaron; but the collier may have given him the suggestion for the encounter with Bosvile in the ninety-eighth chapter. The spelling points to Borrow’s ignorance of the relation of pronunciation and orthography.

In 1858 Borrow’s mother died at Oulton and was buried in Oulton churchyard. During October and November in that year, partly to take his mind from his bereavement, he was walking in the Scottish Highlands and Islands. His note-book contains “nothing of general interest,” says Knapp, except an imperfect outline of the journey, showing that he was at Oban, Tobermory, the Mull of Cantire, Glasgow, Perth, Aberdeen, Inverness, Dingwall, Tain, Dornoch, Helmsdale, Wick, John o’Groats, Thurso, Stromness, Kirkwall, and Lerwick.

In 1860, after taking a house at 20, Hereford Square, West Brompton, he and his wife and stepdaughter went to Dublin, and himself walked to Connemara and the Giant’s Causeway. His wife thought this journey “full of adventure and interest,” but he left no record of it. They were again in Ireland in 1866, Miss Clarke having lately married a Dr. MacOubrey, of Belfast. Borrow himself crossed over to Stranraer and had a month’s walking in Scotland, to Glen Luce, Castle Douglas, Dumfries, Ecclefechan, Carlisle, Gilnochie, Hawick, Jedburgh, Yetholm, Kelso, Melrose, Coldstream, Berwick, and Edinburgh. He talked to the people, admired the scenery, bathed, and enjoyed his meals. He left the briefest of journals, but afterwards, in “Romano Lavo-Lil,” published an account of the “Gypsy toon” of Kirk Yetholm and how he was introduced to the Gypsy Queen. He dropped his umbrella and flung his arms three times up into the air and asked her in Romany what her name was, and if she was a mumper or a true Gypsy. She asked him what was the meaning of this “gibberish,” but he describes how gradually he made her declare herself, and how she examined him in Gypsy and at last offered him a chair, and entered into “deep discourse” about Gypsy matters. He talked as he did to such people, saying “Whoy, I calls that a juggal,” etc. He found fault with her Romany, which was thin and mixed with Gaelic and cant words. She told him that he reminded her of her grandfather, Will Faa, “being a tall, lusty man like himself, and having a skellying look with the left eye, just like him.” He displayed his knowledge of the affairs of the tribe, both in her country and in England. She told him that she had never heard so much Romany before. She promised to receive him next day, but was out when he called. He found her at St. George’s Fair, near Roxburgh Castle, and she pointed him out several other Gypsies, but as she assured him they knew not a word of Romany and would only be uncivil to him, he left them to “pay his respects at the tomb of Walter Scott, a man with whose principles he had no sympathy, but for whose genius he had always entertained the most intense admiration.”

In 1868 he took an autumn walk through Sussex and Hampshire while his wife was at Bognor. In the next year his wife died, after being afflicted for some time by troubles connected with her property, by dropsy, valvular disease of the heart, and “hysteria.” Borrow was melancholy and irritable, but apparently did not go for another walk in Scotland as was suggested for a cure; nor ever again did he get far afield on foot.