Borrow and his wife and stepdaughter settled at Oulton Cottage before the
spring of 1840 was over. This house, the property of Mrs. Borrow, was
separated from Oulton Broad only by a slope of lawn, at the foot of which
was a private boat. Away from the house, but equally near lawn and water
stood Borrow's library--a little peaked octagonal summer house, with
toplights and windows. The cottage is gone, but the summer house, now
mantled with ivy, where he wrote "The Bible in Spain" and "Lavengro," is
still to be seen. Here, too, he arranged and completed the book written
"at considerable intervals during a period of nearly five years passed in
Spain--in moments snatched from more important pursuits--chiefly in
ventas and posadas (inns), whilst wandering through the country in the
arduous and unthankful task of distributing the Gospel among its
children,"--"The Zincali: or the Gypsies of Spain." It was published in
April, 1841.
This book is a description of Gypsies in Spain and wherever else he has
met them, with some history, and, as Borrow says himself, with "more
facts than theories." It abounds in quotations from out of the way
Spanish books, but was by far "less the result of reading than of close
observation." It is patched together from scattered notes with little
order or proportion, and cannot be regarded as a whole either in
intention or effect. Nor is this wholly due to the odd times and places
in which it was written. Borrow had never before written a continuous
original work of any length. He had formed no clear idea of himself, his
public, or his purpose. Personality was strong in him and it had to be
expressed. He was full also of extraordinary observation, and this he
could not afford to conceal. It was not easy to satisfy the two needs in
one coherent book; he hardly tried, and he certainly did not succeed.
Ford described it well in his review of "The Bible in Spain": {148}
"'The Gypsies of Spain' was a Spanish olla--a hotchpotch of the jockey
tramper, philologist, and missionary. It was a thing of shreds and
patches--a true book of Spain; the chapters, like her bundle of
unamalgamating provinces, were just held together, and no more, by the
common tie of religion; yet it was strange and richly flavoured with
genuine _borracha_. It was the first work of a diffident, inexperienced
man, who, mistrusting his own powers, hoped to conciliate critics by
leaning on Spanish historians and Gypsy poets."
Nevertheless, "The Zincali" is a book that is still valuable for these
two separate elements of personality and extraordinary observation.
Probably Borrow, his publisher, and the public, regarded it chiefly as a
work of information, picturesquely diversified, and this it still is,
though the increase and systematization of Gypsy studies are said to have
superseded it. A book of spirit cannot be superseded. But pure
information does not live long, and the fact that its information is
inaccurate or incomplete does not rot a book like "The Compleat Angler"
or the "Georgics." Thus it may happen that the first book on a subject
is the best, and its successors mere treatises destined to pave the way
for other treatises. "The Gypsies of Spain" is still read as no other
book on the Gypsy is read. It is still read, not only by those just
infected with Gypsy fever, but by men as men. It does not, indeed,
survive as a whole, because it never was a whole, but there is a spirit
in the best parts sufficiently strong to carry the reader on over the
rest.
To-day very few will do more than smile when Borrow says of the Gypsies,
that there can be no doubt "they are human beings and have immortal
souls," and that the chief object of his book is to "draw the attention
of the Christian philanthropist towards them, especially that degraded
and unhappy portion of them, the Gitanos of Spain." In 1841 many of the
Christian public probably felt a slight glow of satisfaction at starting
on a book that brought the then certain millenium, of a Christian and
English cast, definitely nearer. Probably they liked to know that this
missionary called pugilistic combats "disgraceful and brutalising
exhibitions"; and they were almost as certainly, as we are to-day,
delighted with the descriptions that followed, because it brought for the
first time clearly before them a real prize-fighting scene, and the
author, a terrible child of fourteen, looking on--"why should I hide the
truth?" says he. This excellent moral tone accompanied the reader of
1841 with satisfaction to the end. For example, Borrow describes the
Gypsies at Tarifa swindling a country man and woman out of their donkey.
When he sees them being treated and fondled by their intending robbers,
he exclaims: "Behold, poor humanity, thought I to myself, in the hands of
devils; in this manner are human souls ensnared to destruction by the
fiends of the pit." When he sees them departing penniless and without
their donkey, the woman bitterly lamenting it, he comments: "Upon the
whole, however, I did not much pity them. The woman was certainly not
the man's wife. The labourer had probably left his village with some
strolling harlot, bringing with him the animal which had previously
served to support himself and a family." Borrow was a man who pronounced
the Bible to be "the wonderful Book which is capable of resolving every
mystery." He was a man, furthermore, who called sorcery simply "a thing
impossible," and thus addressed a writer on chiromancy: "We . . . believe
that the lines of the hand have as little connection with the events of
life as with the liver and stomach, notwithstanding Aristotle, who you
forget was a heathen and cared as little for the Scriptures as the
Gitanos, whether male or female."
Another satisfactory side to Borrow's public character, as revealed in
"The Zincali," was his contempt for "other nations," such as Spain--"a
country whose name has long and justly been considered as synonymous with
every species of ignorance and barbarism." His voice rises when he says
that "avarice has always been the dominant passion in Spanish minds,
their rage for money being only to be compared to the wild hunger of
wolves for horseflesh in the time of winter; next to avarice, envy of
superior talent and accomplishment is the prevailing passion." These
were the people whom he had gone to convert. His contempt for those who
were not middle-class Englishmen seemed unmitigated. Speaking of the
Gypsies, to whom the schools were open and the laws kinder, he points out
that, nevertheless, they remain jockeys and blacksmiths, though it is
true they have in part given up their wandering life. But "much," he
says, "will have been accomplished if, after the lapse of a hundred
years, one hundred human beings shall have been evolved from the Gypsy
stock who shall prove sober, honest, and useful members of society,"
_i.e._, resembling the Spaniards whom he so condemned.
But if men love a big fellow at the street corner bellowing about sin and
the wrath to come, they love him better if he was a black sinner before
he became white as the driven snow. Borrow reprimanded Spaniard and
Gypsy, but he also knew them: there is even a suspicion that he liked
them, though in his public black-coated capacity he had to condemn them
and regret that their destiny was perdition. Had he not said, in his
preface, that he had known the Gypsies for twenty years and that they
treated him well because they thought him a Gypsy? and in another place
referred to the time when he lived with the English Gypsies? Had he not,
in his introductions, spoken of "my brethren, the Smiths," a phrase then
cryptic and only to be explained by revealing his sworn brotherhood with
Ambrose Smith, the Jasper Petulengro of later books? He had said,
moreover, in a perfectly genuine tone, with no trace of missionary
declamation:
"After the days of the great persecution in England against the Gypsies,
there can be little doubt that they lived a right merry and tranquil
life, wandering about and pitching their tents wherever inclination led
them: indeed, I can scarcely conceive any human condition more enviable
than Gypsy life must have been in England during the latter part of the
seventeenth, and the whole of the eighteenth century, which were likewise
the happy days for Englishmen in general; there was peace and plenty in
the land, a contented population, and everything went well."
If a man wishes to condemn the seven deadly sins we tolerate him if in
the process they are sufficiently well described. If Borrow described
the tinker family as wretched, and their donkey as miserable, he added,
"though life, seemingly so wretched, has its charms for these outcasts,
who live without care and anxiety, without a thought beyond the present
hour, and who sleep as sound in ruined posadas and ventas, or in ravines
amongst rocks and pines, as the proudest grandee in his palace at Seville
or Madrid." If he condemned superstition, he yet thought it possibly
"founded on a physical reality"; he regarded the moon as the true "evil
eye," and bade men "not sleep uncovered beneath the smile of the moon,
for her glance is poisonous, and produces insupportable itching in the
eye, and not infrequently blindness." If he believed in the immortality
of the soul, he did not disdain to know the vendor of poisons who was a
Gypsy. If he stayed three weeks in Badajoz because he knew he should
never meet any people "more in need of a little Christian exhortation"
than the Gypsies, he did not fill his pages with three weeks of Christian
exhortation, but told the story of the Gypsy soldier, Antonio--how he
recognised as a Gypsy the enemy who was about to kill him, and saved
himself from the uplifted bayonet by crying "Zincalo, Zincalo!" and then,
having been revived by him, sat for hours with his late enemy, who said:
"Let the dogs fight and tear each other's throats till they are all
destroyed, what matters it to the Zincali? they are not of our blood, and
shall that be shed for them?" This man who, if he had his way, would
have washed his face in the blood of the Busne (those who are not
Gypsies), this man called Borrow "brother!" If Borrow distributed
Testaments, he knew little more of the recipients than a bolt from the
blue, or if he did he cared to tell but little. That little is the story
of the Gypsy soldier, Chaleco, who came to him at Madrid in 1838 with a
copy of the Testament. He told his story from his cradle up; he imposed
himself on Borrow's hospitality, eating "like a wolf of the Sierra," and
drinking in proportion. Borrow could only escape from him by dining out.
When Borrow was imprisoned the fellow drew his sword at the news and
vowed to murder the Prime Minister "for having dared to imprison his
brother." In what follows, Borrow reveals in a consummate manner his
power of drawing into his vicinity extraordinary events:
"On my release, I did not revisit my lodgings for some days, but lived at
an hotel. I returned late one afternoon, with my servant Francisco, a
Basque of Hernani, who had served me with the utmost fidelity during my
imprisonment, which he had voluntarily shared with me. The first person
I saw on entering was the Gypsy soldier, seated by the table, whereon
were several bottles of wine which he had ordered from the tavern, of
course on my account. He was smoking, and looked savage and sullen;
perhaps he was not much pleased with the reception he had experienced. He
had forced himself in, and the woman of the house sat in a corner looking
upon him with dread. I addressed him, but he would scarcely return an
answer. At last he commenced discoursing with great volubility in Gypsy
and Latin. I did not understand much of what he said. His words were
wild and incoherent, but he repeatedly threatened some person. The last
bottle was now exhausted--he demanded more. I told him in a gentle
manner that he had drunk enough. He looked on the ground for some time,
then slowly, and somewhat hesitatingly, drew his sword and laid it on the
table. It was become dark. I was not afraid of the fellow, but I wished
to avoid any thing unpleasant. I called to Francisco to bring lights,
and obeying a sign which I made him, he sat down at the table. The Gypsy
glared fiercely upon him--Francisco laughed, and began with great glee to
talk in Basque, of which the Gypsy understood not a word. The Basques,
like all Tartars, and such they are, are paragons of fidelity and good
nature; they are only dangerous when outraged, when they are terrible
indeed. Francisco to the strength of a giant joined the disposition of a
lamb. He was beloved even in the patio of the prison, where he used to
pitch the bar and wrestle with the murderers and felons, always coming
off victor. He continued speaking Basque. The Gypsy was incensed; and,
forgetting the languages in which, for the last hour, he had been
speaking, complained to Francisco of his rudeness in speaking any tongue
but Castilian. The Basque replied by a loud carcajada, and slightly
touched the Gypsy on the knee. The latter sprang up like a mine
discharged, seized his sword, and, retreating a few steps, made a
desperate lunge at Francisco.
"The Basques, next to the Pasiegos, are the best cudgel-players in Spain,
and in the world. Francisco held in his hand part of a broomstick, which
he had broken in the stable, whence he had just ascended. With the
swiftness of lightning he foiled the stroke of Chaleco, and, in another
moment, with a dexterous blow, struck the sword out of his hand, sending
it ringing against the wall.
"The Gypsy resumed his seat and his cigar. He occasionally looked at the
Basque. His glances were at first atrocious, but presently changed their
expression, and appeared to me to become prying and eagerly curious. He
at last arose, picked up his sword, sheathed it, and walked slowly to the
door, when there he stopped, turned round, advanced close to Francisco,
and looked him steadfastly in the face. 'My good fellow,' said he, 'I am
a Gypsy, and can read baji. Do you know where you will be this time to-
morrow?' {154} Then laughing like a hyena, he departed, and I never saw
him again.
"At that time on the morrow, Francisco was on his death-bed. He had
caught the jail fever, which had long raged in the Carcel de la Corte,
where I was imprisoned. In a few days he was buried, a mass of
corruption, in the Campo Santo of Madrid."
Having attracted the event, he recorded it with a vividness well set off
by his own nonchalance. Again and again he was to repeat this triumph of
depicting the wild, and the wild in a condition of activity and often
fury.
His success is all the greater because it is unexpected. He sets out "to
direct the attention of the public towards the Gypsies; but he hopes to
be able to do so without any romantic appeals on their behalf." He is
far from having a romantic tone. He wields, as a rule, with any amount
of dignity the massive style of the early Victorian "Quarterly Review"
and Lane's so-called "Arabian Nights." Thus, speaking of Gypsy fortune-
tellers, he says: "Their practice chiefly lies among females, the portion
of the human race most given to curiosity and credulity." Sentences like
this always remind me of Lord Melbourne's indignation at the thought of
religion intruding on private life. His indignation is obviously of the
same period as the sentence: "Among the Zingari are not a few who deal in
precious stones, and some who vend poisons; and the most remarkable
individual whom it has been my fortune to encounter amongst the Gypsies,
whether of the Eastern or Western world, was a person who dealt in both
these articles." A style like this resembles a paunchy man who can be
relied on not to pick the daisies. At times Borrow writes as if he were
translating, as in "The anvil rings beneath the thundering stroke, hour
succeeds hour, and still endures the hard sullen toil." He adds a little
vanity of no value by a Biblical echo now and again, as in the clause:
"And it came to pass, moreover, that the said Fajardo . . . " or in "And
the chief of that camp, even Mr. Petulengro, stood before the
encampment. . . ."
This is a style for information, instruction, edification, and intervals
of sleep. It is the style of an age, a class, a sect, not of an
individual. Deeds and not words are what count in it. Only by big,
wild, or extraordinary things can it be compelled to a semblance of life.
Borrow gives it such things a hundred times, and they help one another to
be effective. The reader does not forget the Gypsies of Granada:
"Many of them reside in caves scooped in the sides of the ravines which
lead to the higher regions of the Alpujarras, on a skirt of which stands
Granada. A common occupation of the Gitanos of Granada is working in
iron, and it is not infrequent to find these caves tenanted by Gypsy
smiths and their families, who ply the hammer and forge in the bowels of
the earth. To one standing at the mouth of the cave, especially at
night, they afford a picturesque spectacle. Gathered round the forge,
their bronzed and naked bodies, illuminated by the flame, appear like
figures of demons; while the cave, with its flinty sides and uneven roof,
blackened by the charcoal vapours which hover about it in festoons, seems
to offer no inadequate representation of fabled purgatory."
The picture of the Gitana of Seville hands on some of its own power to
the quieter pages, and at length, with a score of other achievements of
the same solid kind, kindles well-nigh every part of the shapeless book.
I shall quote it at length:
"If there be one being in the world who, more than another, deserves the
title of sorceress (and where do you find a word of greater romance and
more thrilling interest?), it is the Gypsy female in the prime and vigour
of her age and ripeness of her understanding--the Gipsy wife, the mother
of two or three children. Mention to me a point of devilry with which
that woman is not acquainted. She can at any time, when it suits her,
show herself as expert a jockey as her husband, and he appears to
advantage in no other character, and is only eloquent when descanting on
the merits of some particular animal; but she can do much more; she is a
prophetess, though she believes not in prophecy; she is a physician,
though she will not taste her own philters; she is a procuress, though
she is not to be procured; she is a singer of obscene songs, though she
will suffer no obscene hands to touch her; and though no one is more
tenacious of the little she possesses, she is a cutpurse and a shoplifter
whenever opportunity shall offer. . . . Observe, for example, the Gitana,
even her of Seville.
"She is standing before the portals of a large house in one of the narrow
Moorish streets of the capital of Andalusia; through the grated iron
door, she looks in upon the court; it is paved with small marble slabs of
almost snowy whiteness; in the middle is a fountain distilling limpid
water, and all around there is a profusion of macetas, in which flowering
plants and aromatic shrubs are growing, and at each corner there is an
orange tree, and the perfume of the azahar may be distinguished; you hear
the melody of birds from a small aviary beneath the piazza which
surrounds the court, which is surrounded by a toldo or linen awning, for
it is the commencement of May, and the glorious sun of Andalusia is
burning with a splendour too intense for its rays to be borne with
impunity. It is a fairy scene such as nowhere meets the eye but at
Seville, or perhaps at Fez and Shiraz, in the palaces of the Sultan and
the Shah. The Gypsy looks through the iron-grated door, and beholds,
seated near the fountain, a richly dressed dame and two lovely delicate
maidens; they are busied at their morning's occupation, intertwining with
their sharp needles the gold and silk on the tambour; several female
attendants are seated behind. The Gypsy pulls the bell, when is heard
the soft cry of 'Quien es'; the door, unlocked by means of a string,
recedes upon its hinges, when in walks the Gitana, the witch-wife of
Multan, with a look such as the tiger-cat casts when she stealeth from
her jungle into the plain.
"Yes, well may you exclaim, 'Ave Maria purissima,' ye dames and maidens
of Seville, as she advances towards you; she is not of yourselves, she is
not of your blood, she or her fathers have walked to your clime from a
distance of three thousand leagues. She has come from the far East, like
the three enchanted kings to Cologne; but unlike them she and her race
have come with hate and not with love. She comes to flatter, and to
deceive, and to rob, for she is a lying prophetess, and a she-Thug; she
will greet you with blessings which will make your heart rejoice, but
your heart's blood would freeze, could you hear the curses which to
herself she murmurs against you; for she says, that in her children's
veins flows the dark blood of the 'husbands,' whilst in those of yours
flows the pale tide of the 'savages,' and therefore she would gladly set
her foot on all your corses first poisoned by her hands. For all her
love--and she can love--is for the Romas; and all her hate--and who can
hate like her?--is for the Busnees; for she says that the world would be
a fair world were there no Busnees, and if the Romamiks could heat their
kettles undisturbed at the foot of the olive trees; and therefore she
would kill them all if she could and if she dared. She never seeks the
houses of the Busnees but for the purpose of prey; for the wild animals
of the sierra do not more abhor the sight of man than she abhors the
countenances of the Busnees. She now comes to prey upon you and to scoff
at you. Will you believe her words? Fools! do you think that the being
before ye has any sympathy for the like of you?
"She is of the middle stature, neither strongly nor slightly built, and
yet her every movement denotes agility and vigour. As she stands erect
before you, she appears like a falcon about to soar, and you are almost
tempted to believe that the power of volation is hers; and were you to
stretch forth your hand to seize her, she would spring above the house-
tops like a bird. Her face is oval, and her features are regular but
somewhat hard and coarse, for she was born amongst rocks in a thicket,
and she has been wind-beaten and sun-scorched for many a year, even like
her parents before her; there is many a speck upon her cheek, and perhaps
a scar, but no dimples of love; and her brow is wrinkled over, though she
is yet young. Her complexion is more than dark, for it is almost that of
a Mulatto; and her hair, which hangs in long locks on either side of her
face, is black as coal, and coarse as the tail of a horse, from which it
seems to have been gathered.
"There is no female eye in Seville can support the glance of hers, so
fierce and penetrating, and yet so artful and sly, is the expression of
their dark orbs; her mouth is fine and almost delicate, and there is not
a queen on the proudest throne between Madrid and Moscow who might not,
and would not, envy the white and even rows of teeth which adorn it,
which seem not of pearl but of the purest elephant's bone of Multan. She
comes not alone; a swarthy two-year old bantling clasps her neck with one
arm, its naked body half extant from the coarse blanket which, drawn
round her shoulders, is secured at her bosom by a skewer. Though tender
of age it looks wicked and sly, like a veritable imp of Roma. Huge rings
of false gold dangle from wide slits in the lobes of her ears; her nether
garments are rags, and her feet are cased in hempen sandals. Such is the
wandering Gitana, such is the witch-wife of Multan, who has come to spae
the fortune of the Sevillian countess and her daughters.
"'O may the blessing of Egypt light upon your head, you high-born Lady!
(May an evil end overtake your body, daughter of a Busnee harlot!) and
may the same blessing await the two fair roses of the Nile here flowering
by your side! (May evil Moors seize them and carry them across the
water!) O listen to the words of the poor woman who is come from a
distant country; she is of a wise people, though it has pleased the God
of the sky to punish them for their sins by sending them to wander
through the world. They denied shelter to the Majari, whom you call the
queen of heaven, and to the Son of God, when they flew to the land of
Egypt, before the wrath of the wicked king; it is said that they even
refused them a draught of the sweet waters of the great river when the
blessed two were athirst. O you will say that it was a heavy crime; and
truly so it was, and heavily has the Lord punished the Egyptians. He has
sent us a-wandering, poor as you see, with scarcely a blanket to cover
us. O blessed lady (accursed be thy dead as many as thou mayest have),
we have no money to purchase us bread; we have only our wisdom with which
to support ourselves and our poor hungry babes; when God took away their
silks from the Egyptians, and their gold from the Egyptians, he left them
their wisdom as a resource that they might not starve. O who can read
the stars like the Egyptians? and who can read the lines of the palm like
the Egyptians? The poor woman read in the stars that there was a rich
ventura for all of this goodly house, so she followed the bidding of the
stars and came to declare it. O blessed lady (I defile thy dead corse),
your husband is at Granada, fighting with King Ferdinand against the wild
Corahai! (May an evil ball smite him and split his head!) Within three
months he shall return with twenty captive Moors, round the neck of each
a chain of gold. (God grant that when he enter the house a beam may fall
upon him and crush him!) And within nine months after his return God
shall bless you with a fair chabo, the pledge for which you have sighed
so long! (Accursed be the salt placed in its mouth in the church when it
is baptized!) Your palm, blessed lady, your palm, and the palms of all I
see here, that I may tell you all the rich ventura which is hanging over
this good house; (May evil lightning fall upon it and consume it!) but
first let me sing you a song of Egypt, that the spirit of the Chowahanee
may descend more plenteously upon the poor woman.'
"Her demeanour now instantly undergoes a change. Hitherto she has been
pouring forth a lying and wild harangue, without much flurry or agitation
of manner. Her speech, it is true, has been rapid, but her voice has
never been raised to a very high key; but she now stamps on the ground,
and placing her hands on her hips, she moves quickly to the right and
left, advancing and retreating in a sidelong direction. Her glances
become more fierce and fiery, and her coarse hair stands erect on her
head, stiff as the prickles of the hedgehog; and now she commences
clapping her hands, and uttering words of an unknown tongue, to a strange
and uncouth tune. The tawny bantling seems inspired with the same fiend,
and, foaming at the mouth, utters wild sounds, in imitation of its dam.
Still more rapid become the sidelong movements of the Gitana. Movements!
she springs, she bounds, and at every bound she is a yard above the
ground. She no longer bears the child in her bosom; she plucks it from
thence, and fiercely brandishes it aloft, till at last, with a yell, she
tosses it high into the air, like a ball, and then, with neck and head
thrown back, receives it, as it falls, on her hands and breast,
extracting a cry from the terrified beholders. Is it possible she can be
singing? Yes, in the wildest style of her people; and here is a snatch
of the song, in the language of Roma, which she occasionally screams:
"En los sastos de yesque plai me diquelo,
Doscusanas de sonacai terelo,--
Corojai diquelo abillar,
Y ne asislo chapescar, chapescar."
"On the top of a mountain I stand,
With a crown of red gold in my hand,--
Wild Moors come trooping o'er the lea,
O how from their fury shall I flee, flee, flee?
O how from their fury shall I flee?
Such was the Gitana in the days of Ferdinand and Isabella, and much the
same is she now in the days of Isabel and Christina. . . ."
Here, it is true, there is a substantial richly-coloured and strange
subject matter, such as could hardly be set down in any way or by anyone
without attracting the attention. Borrow makes it do more than this. The
word "extant" may offend a little, but the writer can afford many such
blemishes, for he has life in his pen. He is, as it were himself
substantial, richly-coloured, strange and with big strokes and splashes
he suggests the thing itself. There have been writers since Borrow's day
who have thought to use words so subtly that they are equivalent to
things, but in the end their words remain nothing but words. Borrow uses
language like a man, and we forget his words on account of the vividness
of the things which they do not so much create as evoke. I do not mean
that it can be called unconscious art, for it is naively conscious and
delighting in itself. The language is that of an orator, a man standing
up and addressing a mass in large and emphatic terms. He succeeds not
only in evoking things that are very much alive, but in suggesting an
artist that is their equal, instead of one, who like so many more refined
writers, is a more or less pathetic admirer of living things. In this he
resembles Byron. It may not be the highest form of art, but it is the
most immediate and disturbing and genial in its effect. Finally, the
whole book has body. It can be browsed on. It does not ask a particular
mood, being itself the result of no one mood, but of a great part of one
man's life. Turn over half a dozen pages and a story, or a picture, or a
bit of costume, or of superstition, will invariably be the reward. It
reads already like a book rather older than it really is, but not because
it has faded. There was nothing in it to fade, being too hard, massive
and unvarnished. It remains alive, capable of surviving the Gypsies
except in so far as they live within it and its fellow books.