"A queer book will be this same 'Bible in Spain,' containing all my queer adventures in that queer country whilst engaged in distributing the Gospel, but neither learning, nor disquisition, fine writing, or poetry. A book with such a Bible and of this description can scarcely fail of success. It will make two nice foolscap octavo volumes of about 500 pages each. I have not heard from Ford since I had last the pleasure of seeing you. Is his book out? I hope that he will not review the 'Zincali' until the Bible is forthcoming, when he may, if he please, kill two birds with one stone. I hear from Saint Petersburg that there is a notice of the 'Zincali' in the Revue Britannique; it has been translated into Russian. Do you know anything about it?"
Mr. George Borrow to John Murray. OULTON HALL, LOWESTOFT, January 1842.
MY DEAR SIR,
We are losing time. I have corrected seven hundred consecutive pages of MS., and the remaining two hundred will be ready in a fortnight. I do not think there will be a dull page in the whole book, as I have made one or two very important alterations; the account of my imprisonment at Madrid cannot fail, I think, of being particularly interesting…. During the last week I have been chiefly engaged in horse-breaking. A most magnificent animal has found his way to this neighbourhood—a half-bred Arabian. He is at present in the hands of a low horse-dealer, and can be bought for eight pounds, but no one will have him. It is said that he kills everybody who mounts him. I have been charming him, and have so far succeeded that he does not fling me more than once in five minutes. What a contemptible trade is the author's compared with that of the jockey's!
Mr. Borrow prided himself on being a horse-sorcerer, an art he learned among the gypsies, with whose secrets he claimed acquaintance. He whispered some unknown gibberish into their ears, and professed thus to tame them.
He proceeded with "The Bible in Spain." In the following month he sent to Mr. Murray the MS. of the first volume. To the general information as to the contents and interest of the volume, he added these words:
Mr. George Borrow to John Murray.
February, 1842.
"I spent a day last week with our friend Dawson Turner at Yarmouth. What capital port he keeps! He gave me some twenty years old, and of nearly the finest flavour that I ever tasted. There are few better things than old books, old pictures, and old port, and he seems to have plenty of all three."
May 10, 1842.