Throughout The Whole Day The House Resounded
With Their Excellent Basque And Very Bad Castilian.
The Genoese,
on the contrary, spoke little, for which he might have assigned a
good reason; he had lived thirty years in Spain, and had forgotten
his own language without acquiring Spanish, which he spoke very
imperfectly.
We found Coruna full of bustle and life, owing to the arrival of
the English squadron. On the following day, however, it departed,
being bound for the Mediterranean on a short cruise, whereupon
matters instantly returned to their usual course.
I had a depot of five hundred Testaments at Coruna, from which it
was my intention to supply the principal towns of Galicia.
Immediately on my arrival I published advertisements, according to
my usual practice, and the book obtained a tolerable sale - seven or
eight copies per day on the average. 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.
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