Some people, perhaps, on perusing these details, will be tempted to exclaim, "These are small matters, and scarcely worthy of being mentioned." But let such bethink them, that till within a few months previous to the time of which I am speaking, the very existence of the gospel was almost unknown in Spain, and that it must necessarily be a difficult task to induce a people like the Spaniards, who read very little, to purchase a work like the New Testament, which, though of paramount importance to the soul, affords but slight prospect of amusement to the frivolous and carnally minded.I hoped that the present was the dawning of better and more enlightened times, and rejoiced in the idea that Testaments, though but few in number, were being sold in unfortunate benighted Spain, from Madrid to the furthermost parts of Galicia, a distance of nearly four hundred miles.
Coruna stands on a peninsula, having on one side the sea, and on the other the celebrated bay, generally called the Groyne.It is divided into the old and new town, the latter of which was at one time probably a mere suburb.The old town is a desolate ruinous place, separated from the new by a wide moat.The modern town is a much more agreeable spot, and contains one magnificent street, the Calle Real, where the principal merchants reside.One singular feature of this street is, that it is laid entirely with flags of marble, along which troop ponies and cars as if it were a common pavement.
It is a saying amongst the inhabitants of Coruna, that in their town there is a street so clean, that puchera may be eaten off it without the slightest inconvenience.This may certainly be the fact after one of those rains which so frequently drench Galicia, when the appearance of the pavement of the street is particularly brilliant.Coruna was at one time a place of considerable commerce, the greater part of which has latterly departed to Santander, a town which stands a considerable distance down the Bay of Biscay.
"Are you going to Saint James, Giorgio? If so, you will perhaps convey a message to my poor countryman," said a voice to me one morning in broken English, as I was standing at the door of my posada, in the royal street of Coruna.
I looked round and perceived a man standing near me at the door of a shop contiguous to the inn.He appeared to be about sixty-five, with a pale face and remarkably red nose.He was dressed in a loose green great coat, in his mouth was a long clay pipe, in his hand a long painted stick.
"Who are you, and who is your countryman?" I demanded; "Ido not know you."
"I know you, however," replied the man; "you purchased the first knife that I ever sold in the marketplace of N-."MYSELF.- Ah, I remember you now, Luigi Piozzi; and well do I remember also, how, when a boy, twenty years ago, I used to repair to your stall, and listen to you and your countrymen discoursing in Milanese.
LUIGI.- Ah, those were happy times to me.Oh, how they rushed back on my remembrance when I saw you ride up to the door of the posada.I instantly went in, closed my shop, lay down upon my bed and wept.
MYSELF.- I see no reason why you should so much regret those times.I knew you formerly in England as an itinerant pedlar, and occasionally as master of a stall in the market-place of a country town.I now find you in a seaport of Spain, the proprietor, seemingly, of a considerable shop.I cannot see why you should regret the difference.
LUIGI (dashing his pipe on the ground).- Regret the difference! Do you know one thing? England is the heaven of the Piedmontese and Milanese, and especially those of Como.We never lie down to rest but we dream of it, whether we are in our own country or in a foreign land, as I am now.Regret the difference, Giorgio! Do I hear such words from your lips, and you an Englishman? I would rather be the poorest tramper on the roads of England, than lord of all within ten leagues of the shore of the lake of Como, and much the same say all my countrymen who have visited England, wherever they now be.
Regret the difference! I have ten letters, from as many countrymen in America, who say they are rich and thriving, and principal men and merchants; but every night, when their heads are reposing on their pillows, their souls AUSLANDRA, hurrying away to England, and its green lanes and farm-yards.And there they are with their boxes on the ground, displaying their looking-glasses and other goods to the honest rustics and their dames and their daughters, and selling away and chaffering and laughing just as of old.And there they are again at nightfall in the hedge alehouses, eating their toasted cheese and their bread, and drinking the Suffolk ale, and listening to the roaring song and merry jest of the labourers.Now, if they regret England so who are in America, which they own to be a happy country, and good for those of Piedmont and of Como, how much more must I regret it, when, after the lapse of so many years, I find myself in Spain, in this frightful town of Coruna, driving a ruinous trade, and where months pass by without my seeing a single English face, or hearing a word of the blessed English tongue.
MYSELF.- With such a predilection for England, what could have induced you to leave it and come to Spain?