I had a depôt of five hundred Testaments at Corunna, 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, 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 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. Corunna stands on a peninsula, having on one side the sea, and on the other the celebrated bay, generally called the Groyne. {368} 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 Corunna, that in their town there is a street so clean that _puchera_ {369a} 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. Corunna was at one time a place of considerable commerce, the greater part of which has lately departed to Santander, a town which stands a considerable distance down the Bay of Biscay. “Are you going to St. James, {369b} _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 Corunna. 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. “I do not know you.”