Numerous as are the escapes, recaptures are also frequent. That fine corps, the guardias civiles, which constitutes the rural police of Spain, always so active in the prevention and suppression of crime, has been highly successful in the pursuit of fugitives, few of whom remain at large for any length of time. Travellers in Spain, especially in the country districts, must have been struck with the fine appearance of these stalwart champions of the law. They are all old soldiers, well trained and disciplined, ever on the side of order, never mixing in politics, and conspicuous for their loyalty to the existing régime.
The most disgraceful of the old prisons were in Madrid. The Saladero which survived until very recently had been once an abattoir and salting place of pigs. But it replaced one more ancient and even worse in every aspect. The earlier construction is described by a Spanish writer, Don Francisco Lastres, as the most meagre, the darkest, dirtiest place imaginable. It had yet a deeper depth, an underground dungeon, commonly called "el Infierno," hell itself, in which light was so scarce that when new comers arrived, the old occupants could only make out their faces by striking matches, manufactured from scraps of linen steeped in grease saved from their soup or salad oil. When the gaol was emptied it was so encrusted with abominable filth that to clean it was out of the question and the whole place was swept bodily out of existence.
This must have been the prison in which George Borrow was confined when that enterprising Englishman was arrested for endeavouring to circulate the Bible in Spain, as the agent and representative of the British Bible Society in 1835 and the following years. His experiences as told by himself constitute one of the most thrilling books of adventure in the English language, and his strangely interesting personality will long be remembered and admired. He had led a very varied life, had wandered the world over as the friend and associate of those curious people, the gipsies, whose "crabbed" language he spoke with fluency and to whose ways and customs he readily conformed. Readers whom his "Lavengro" and "The Romany Rye" have delighted will bear witness to the daring and intrepid character which carried him safely through many difficult and dangerous situations. He was a man of great stature, well trained in the art of self defence, as he proved by his successful contest with the "Flaming Tinker" described in "Lavengro." The bigoted Spanish authorities caught a Tartar in Borrow. It was easy to arrest him as he was nothing loth to go to gaol; he had long been thinking, as he tells us, "of paying a visit to the prison, partly in the hope of being able to say a few words of Christian instruction to the criminals and partly with a view to making certain investigations in the robber language of Spain." But, once in, he refused to come out. He took high ground; his arrest had been unlawful; he had never been tried or condemned and nothing would satisfy him but a full and complete apology from the Spanish government. He was strongly backed up by the British Ambassador and he was gratified in the end by the almost abject surrender of the authorities. But he spent three weeks within the walls and we have to thank his indomitable spirit for a glimpse into the gloomy recesses of the Carcel de la Corte, the chief prison, at that time, of the capital of Spain.
The arrest was made openly in one of the principal streets of Madrid by a couple of alguazils who carried their prisoner to the office of the corregidor, or chief magistrate, where he was abruptly informed that he was to be forthwith committed to gaol. He was led across the Plaza Mayor, the great square so often the scene in times past of the autos da fé. Borrow, as he went, cast his eyes at the balcony of the city hall where, on one occasion, "the last of the Austrian line in Spain (Philip II) sat, and, after some thirty heretics of both sexes had been burnt by fours and fives, wiped his face perspiring with heat and black with smoke and calmly inquired, 'No hay mas?'" (No more to come?) for which exemplary proof of patience he was much applauded by his priests and confessors, who subsequently poisoned him.
"We arrived at the prison," Borrow goes on, "which stands in a narrow street not far from the great square. We entered a dusty passage at the end of which was a wicket. There was an exchange of words and in a few moments I found myself within the prison of Madrid, in a kind of corridor which overlooked at a considerable altitude what appeared to be a court from which arose a hubbub of voices and occasional wild shouts and cries...." Several people sat here, one of whom received the warrant of committal, perused it with attention and, rising, advanced towards Borrow.
"What a figure! He was about forty years of age and ... in height might have been some six feet two inches had his body not been curved much after the fashion of the letter S. No weasel ever appeared lanker; his face might have been called handsome, had it not been for his extraordinary and portentous meagreness; his nose was like an eagle's bill, his teeth white as ivory, his eyes black (oh, how black!) and fraught with a strange expression; his skin was dark and the hair of his head like the plumage of a raven. A deep quiet smile dwelt continually on his features, but with all the quiet it was a cruel smile, such a one as would have graced the countenance of a Nero.
"'Caballero,' he said, 'allow me to introduce myself as the alcaide of this prison.... I am to have the honour of your company for a time, a short time doubtless, beneath this roof; I hope you will banish every apprehension from your mind. I am charged to treat you with all respect, a needless charge and Caballero, you will rather consider yourself here as a guest than as a prisoner. Pray issue whatever commands you may think fit to the turnkeys and officials as if they were your own servants. I will now conduct you to your apartment. We invariably reserve it for cavaliers of distinction. No charge will be made for it although the daily hire is not unfrequently an ounce of gold.'
"This speech was delivered in pure sonorous Castilian with calmness, gravity and almost dignity and would have done honour to a gentleman of high birth. Now, who in the name of wonder, was this alcaide? One of the greatest rascals in all Spain. A fellow who more than once by his grasping cupidity and his curtailment of the miserable rations of the prisoners caused an insurrection in the court below only to be repressed by bloodshed and the summoning of military aid; a fellow of low birth who five years previously had been a drummer to a band of Royalist volunteers."
The room allotted to Borrow was large and lofty, but totally destitute of any kind of furniture except a huge wooden pitcher containing the day's allowance of water. But no objection was made to Borrow's providing for himself and a messenger was forthwith despatched to his lodgings to fetch bed and bedding and all necessaries, with which came a supply of food, and the new prisoner soon made himself fairly comfortable. He ate heartily, slept soundly and rejoiced next day to hear that this illegal arrest and confinement of a British subject was already causing the high-handed minister who had ordered it, much uneasiness and embarrassment. Borrow steadfastly refused to go free without full and ample reparation for the violence and injustice done to him. "Take notice," he declared, "that I will not quit this prison till I have received full satisfaction for having been sent hither uncondemned. You may expel me if you please, but any attempt to do so shall be resisted with all the bodily strength of which I am possessed." In the end the amende was made in an official document admitting that he had been imprisoned on insufficient grounds, and Borrow went out after three weeks' incarceration, during which he learned much concerning the prison and the people it contained.
He refrains from a particular description of the place. "It would be impossible," he says, "to describe so irregular and rambling an edifice. Its principal features consisted of two courts, the one behind the other, in which the great body of the prisoners took air and recreation. Three large vaulted dungeons or calabozos occupied the three sides of the (first) court ... roomy enough to contain respectively from one hundred to one hundred and fifty prisoners who were at night secured with lock and bar, but during the day were permitted to roam about the courts as they thought fit. The second court was considerably larger than the first, though it contained but two dungeons, horribly filthy and disgusting, used for the reception of the lower grades of thieves. Of the two dungeons one was if possible yet more horrible than the other. It was called the gallinería or 'chicken coop' because within it every night were pent up the young fry of the prison, wretched boys from seven to fifteen years of age, the greater part almost in a state of nudity. The common bed of all the inmates of these dungeons was the ground, between which and their bodies nothing intervened save occasionally a manta or horse cloth or perhaps a small mattress; this latter luxury was however of exceedingly rare occurrence.