On his return to London, early in October, Borrow wrote a report [184] upon his labours, roughly sketching out his work since he left Badajos. He repeated his view that the Papal See had lost its power over Spain, and that the present moment was a peculiarly appropriate one in which to spread the light of the Gospel over the Peninsula. Forgetting the thievish propensities of the race, he wrote glowingly of the Spaniards and their intellectual equipment, the clearness with which they expressed themselves, and the elegance of their diction. The mind of the Spaniard was a garden run to waste, and it was for the British and Foreign Bible Society to cultivate it and purge it of the rank and bitter weeds.
He foresaw no difficulty whatever in disposing of 5000 copies of the New Testament in a short time in the capital and provincial towns, in particular Cadiz and Seville where the people were more enlightened. He was not so confident about the rural districts, where those who assured him that they were acquainted with the New Testament said that it contained hymns addressed to the Virgin which were written by the Pope.
CHAPTER XII
NOVEMBER 1836–MAY 1837
Borrow remained in England for a month (3rd October/4th November), during which time he conferred with the Committee and Officials at Earl Street as to the future programme in Spain. On 4th November, having sent to his mother £130 of the £150 he had drawn as salary, and promising to write to Mr Brandram from Cadiz, he sailed from London in the steamer Manchester, bound for Lisbon and Cadiz.
In a letter to his mother, he describes his fellow passengers as invalids fleeing from the English winter. “Some of them are three parts gone with consumption,” he writes, “some are ruptured, some have broken backs; I am the only sound person in the ship, which is crowded to suffocation. I am in a little hole of a berth where I can scarcely breathe, and every now and then wet through.”
The horrors of the voyage from Falmouth to Lisbon he has described with terrifying vividness; [185a] how the engines broke down and the vessel was being driven on to Cape Finisterre; how all hope had been abandoned, and the Captain had told the passengers of their impending fate; how the wind suddenly “veered right about, and pushed us from the horrible coast faster than it had previously driven us towards it.” [185b]
During the whole of that terrible night Borrow had remained on deck, all the other passengers having been battened down below. He was almost drowned in the seas that broke over the vessel, and, on one occasion, was struck down by a water cask that had broken away from its lashings. Even after he had escaped Cape Finisterre, the ordeal was not over; for the ship was in a sinking condition, and fire broke out on board. Eventually the engines were repaired, the fire extinguished, and Lisbon was reached on the 13th, where Borrow landed with his water-soaked luggage, and found on examination that the greater part of his clothes had been ruined. In spite of this experience, he determined to continue his voyage to Cadiz in the Manchester, probably for reasons of economy, indifferent to the fact that she was utterly unseaworthy, and that most of the other passengers had abandoned her. During his enforced stay in Lisbon, whilst the ship was being patched up, Borrow saw Mr Wilby and made enquiry into the state of the Society’s affairs in Portugal. Many changes had taken place and the country was in a distracted state.
After a week’s delay at Lisbon the Manchester continued her voyage to Cadiz, where she arrived without further mishap on the 21st. During this voyage a fellow passenger with Borrow was the Marqués de Santa Coloma. “According to the expression of the Marqués, when they stepped on to the quay at Cadiz, Borrow looked round, saw some Gitanos lounging there, said something that the Marqués 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 Marqués hardly liked to join his comrade again after such close embraces by so dirty a company.” [186]
Borrow now found himself in his allotted field—unhappy, miserable, distracted Spain. Gomez, the Carlist leader, had been sweeping through Estremadura like a pestilence, and Borrow fully expected to find Seville occupied by his banditti; but Carlists possessed no terrors for him. Unless he could do something to heal the spiritual wounds of the wretched country, he assured Mr Brandram, he would never again return to England.
On 1st December Mr Brandram wrote to Borrow expressing deep sympathy with all he had been through, and adding: “If you go forward . . . we will help you by prayer. If you retreat we shall welcome you cordially.” He appears to have written before consulting with the Committee, who, on hearing of the actual state of affairs in Spain, became filled with misgiving and anxiety for the safety of their agent, who seemed to be destitute of fear. Mr Brandram had been content for Borrow to go forward if he so decided, but, as he wrote later, “your prospective dangers, while they created an absorbing interest, were viewed in different lights by the Committee,” who thought they had “no right to commit you to such perils. My own feeling was that, while I could not urge you forward, there were peculiarities in your history and character that I would not keep you back if you were minded to go. A few felt with me—most, however, thought that you should have been restrained.” [187] It was decided therefore to forbid him to proceed on his hazardous adventure, and accordingly a letter was addressed to him care of the British Consul at Cadiz. If Borrow received this he disregarded the instructions it contained.