[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 á lo alto y se extiende mucho en vástagos,” and derives the word from the Arabic par = extension or spreading.
[397] “What folly! what rascality!”
[399] The names of the ambassadors 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 ships 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.