{9b} João or John de Castro, the _Castro forte_ of Camoens, second only to Vasco da Gama, among the great Portuguese discoverers and warriors of the sixteenth century, was born in 1500, appointed governor-general of the Portuguese Indies in 1546, and died in 1548. After a deadly battle with the Moslems near Goa, in which his son Ferdinand was killed, he pledged the hairs of the moustache and beard of his dead son to provide funds, not to defend, but to re-fortify the city of Goa. The money was cheerfully provided on this slender security, and punctually repaid by the borrower. {9c} William Beckford of Fonthill, the author of _Vathek_. His _Quinta de Montserrat_, with perhaps the most beautiful gardens in Europe, lies about three miles from the palace at Cintra, and is now in the possession of Sir Francis Cook, Bart., better known by his Portuguese title of Visconde de Montserrat. {11} A version of the entire Scriptures from the Vulgate was published in twenty-three volumes 12mo at Lisbon, 1781–83 by Dr. Antonio Pereira de Figueiredo. This was re-edited and published at Lisbon, 1794–1819. An earlier version was that of Almeida, a Portuguese missionary in Ceylon, who became a convert to Protestantism at the close of the seventeenth century. (See note on p. 98.) {12} If Cintra is the Alhambra of Portugal, Mafra is the Escurial. The famous convent was, moreover, founded by John V. in fulfilment of a vow. The building was commenced in 1717, and the church consecrated only in 1730. {14b} He was killed in June, 1835. (See Introduction.) {16} _Alem_, “beyond;” _Tejo_, the river Tagus. {18} “I, who am a smuggler.” The Spanish version, “_Yo que soy_,” etc., is more familiar, and more harmonious. {19} “When the king arrived.” {25a} So spelt by Borrow, but the correct Portuguese form is _Dom_. {25b} Rabbits were so numerous in the south of the Peninsula in Carthaginian and Roman times, that they are even said to have given their name (_Phœn._ “Pahan”) to Hispania. Strabo certainly speaks of their number, and of the mode of destroying them with ferrets, and the rabbit is one of the commonest of the early devices of Spain (see Burke’s _History of Spain_, chap. ii.). {28} May 26, 1834. {29} The ballad of Svend Vonved, translated from the original Danish, was included by Borrow in his collection of _Romantic Ballads_, a thin demy 8vo volume of 187 pages—now very rare—published by John Taylor in 1826. The lines there read as follows:— “A wild swine sat on his shoulders broad, Upon his bosom a black bear snor’d.” The original ballad may be found in the _Kjæmpe Viser_, and was translated into German by Grimm, who expressed the greatest admiration for the poem. Svend in Danish means “swain” or “youth,” and it is characteristic of Borrow’s mystification of proper names that he should, by a quasi-translation and archaic spelling, give the title of the Danish ballad the appearance of an actual English surname.