[327a] The word Gog is not Hebrew, and, according to Renan and Kuöbel (Volkert, p. 63), is “mountain,” and Magog is “great mountain.” Maha, Sanskrit, and Koh or Goh, Persian. The legends concerning Gog and Magog are very numerous, and extend over many parts of Europe, Asia, and even Africa.
[327b] “The place of the apples.”
[329] Caballero. As a mode of address in common life, equivalent merely to sir.
[331a] A Galician or Portuguese, but not a Spanish word, usually spelt corço. The Spanish equivalent is ciervo.
[331b] There is a delightful translation of Theocritus, who by the way described the scenery of Sicily rather than of Greece, into English verse by C. S. Calverley, published in 1869.
[333] Bembibre lies on the southern confines of the district of El Vierzo, one of the most interesting and least explored parts of the Peninsula, the Switzerland of Leon, a district of Alpine passes, trout streams, pleasant meadows, and groves of chestnuts and walnuts. Bembibre, pop. 500, lies with its old castle on the trout-streams Noceda and Boeza, amid green meadows, gardens, and vineyards, whose wines were far more fatal to Moore’s soldiers than the French sabres. So much for Bembibre—bene bibere. Ponferrada (Interamnium Flavium), which is not entered, rises to the left on the confluence of the Sil and Boeza. The bridge (Pons-ferrata) was built in the eleventh century, for the passage of pilgrims to Compostella, who took the direct route along the Sil by Val de Orras and Orense. The town afterwards belonged to the Templars, and was protected by the miraculous image of the Virgin, which was found in an oak, and hence is called Nuestra Señora de la Encina; it is still the Patroness of the Vierzo (Murray’s Handbook of Spain, 1st edit. p. 595).
The Vierzo extends about 10 leagues east and west by 8 north and south. This amphitheatre is shut out from the world by lofty snow-capped mountains, raised, as it were, by the hand of some genii to enclose a simple valley of Rasselas. The great Asturian chain slopes from Leitariegos to the south-west, parting into two offshoots; that of El Puerto de Rabanal, and Fuencebadon (Fons Sabatonis) constitute the east barrier, and the other, running by the Puertos de Cebrero and Aguiar, forms the frontier; while to the south the chains of the Sierras de Segundera, Sanabria, and Cabrera complete the base of the triangle. Thus hemmed in by a natural circumvallation, the concavity must be descended into from whatever side it be approached; this crater, no doubt, was once a large lake, the waters of which have burst a way out, passing through the narrow gorge of the Sil by Val de Orras, just as the Elbe forms the only spout or outlet to hill-walled-in Bohemia, the kettle-land of Germany (Ibid., p. 597).
[337a] Rendered by Borrow rabble; the French canaille; Ital. canaglia, a pack of dogs—canes.
[337b] Known as Villafranca del Vierzo; said to have been one of the principal halting-places of the French pilgrims to Santiago, hence Villa Francorum; in any case, the abode of an important colony of monks from the French abbey of Cluny. See Burke’s History of Spain, vol. ii. p. 69, and App. II.
[340] Query Guerrilleros (see Glossary). These Miguelets were originally the partisans or followers of the Infante Don Miguel, the absolutist leader in the dreary civil war which ravaged Portugal from 1823–1834. It was their custom to escape into Spain when attacked by the Constitutional forces in Portugal, and nothing but Mr. Canning’s bold action in sending an English army to Lisbon in December, 1826, prevented their being utilized by both Spain and France for the overthrow of Queen Maria in Portugal (see Alison, History of Europe, vol. iv. ch. xxi. s. 50). But as “Miguelets,” part refugees, part rebels, part brigands, these bands of military ruffians were the terror of the frontier districts of Spain and Portugal for many years after the conclusion of the civil war in Portugal.