The Bible in Spain Volume I Part 34

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).

{360} "Woe is me, O G.o.d!"

{361} 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.

{363} See note on p. 340.

{365} Span. _anis_ (see Glossary).

{366a} An _onza_ (see Glossary).

{366b} The real word, of which this is a modification, is _Carajo_-a word which, used as an adjective, represents the English "b.l.o.o.d.y," 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.

{366c} At Seville Borrow seems to have been known as _El brujo_ (_v._ p.

178).

{368} On the north sh.o.r.e of this bay is built the town of El Ferrol (_el farol_ = the lighthouse), daily growing in importance as the great naval a.r.s.enal of Spain.

{369a} 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_.

{369b} 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 cla.s.sical English more usually as Compostella.

{370a} Probably Norwich.

{370b} See _Wild Wales_, chap. xxiv.

{375} 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 pa.s.sed 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.

{378} 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 n.o.ble 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 s.h.i.+p, 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 n.o.ble 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.

{380} Or Jet-ery. _Azabache_ is jet or anthracite, of which a great quant.i.ty is found in the Asturias. The word-of Arabic origin-is also used figuratively for blackness or darkness generally in modern Spanish.

{382a} "Oh, my G.o.d, it is the gentleman!"

{382b} From the German _betteln_, to beg.

{384} May, 1823.

{386} _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.

{389} Or El Padron (_Iria Flavia_), the ancient seat of the bishopric, transferred to the more sacred Santiago de Compostella before the year 814.

{393} French, _sur le tapis_.

{394} More correctly, _Caldas de Reyes_.

{395} 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 a lo alto y se extiende mucho en vastagos_," and derives the word from the Arabic _par_ = extension or spreading.

{397} "What folly! what rascality!"

{399} The names of the amba.s.sadors 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.

{401a} 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 s.h.i.+ps in the bay in 1702.

Vigo was also captured by the English under Drake in 1585 and in 1589.

{401b} See the Glossary, _s.v. Cura_.