In 1843, no doubt, what first recommended this book to so many thousands was the Protestant fervour and purpose of the book, and the romantic reputation of Spain. At this day Borrow's Bible distribution is mainly of antiquarian and sectarian interest. We should not estimate the darkness of Madrid by the number of Testaments there in circulation and daily use, nor on the other hand should we fear, like Borrow, to bring them into contempt by making them too common. Yet his missionary work makes the necessary backbone of the book. He was, as he justly said, "no tourist, no writer of books of travels." His work brought him adventure as no mere wandering could have done. What is more, the man's methods are still entertaining to those who care nothing about the distribution itself. Where he found the remains of a robber's camp he left a New Testament and some tracts. To carry the Bibles over the flinty hills of Galicia and the Asturias he bought "a black Andalusian stallion of great power and strength, . . . unbroke, savage and furious": the cargo, he says, would tame the animal. He fixed his advertisement on the church porch at Pitiegua, announcing the sale of Testaments at Salamanca. He had the courage without the ferocity of enthusiasm, and in the cause of the Bible Society he saw and did things which little concerned it, which in fact displeased it, but keep this book alive with a great stir and shout of life, with a hundred pages where we are shown what the poet meant by "forms more real than living men." We are shown the unrighteous to the very life. What matters it then if the author professes the opinion that "the friendship of the unrighteous is never of long duration"? Nevertheless, these pious ejaculations are not without their value in the composition of the author's amazing character.