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”: