Monsieur Francisque Michel, in his _Races Maudites de la France et de l’Espagne_ (Paris, 1847), has nothing to say of these Maragatos, though he notices (ii. 41–44) a smaller tribe, the _Vaqueros_, of the neighbouring Asturias, whose origin is also enveloped in mystery. See De Rochas, _Les Parias de France et l’Espagne_, p. 120. [The _Cagots_ were also found in northwest Spain as well as in France, but not, as far as we know, to the west of Guipuzcoa. For an account of these Cagots and the various etymologies that have been suggested for their names, see De Rochas and F. Michel, _ubi supra_, tom. i. ch. i.] {322} A transliteration of the old Spanish _Barrete_, an old kind of helmet, then, generally, a cap. {323} A mute is the offspring of a stallion and a she-ass, a mule of a jackass and a mare. {324a} Founded in 1471, on the site of one more ancient. {324b} The name of this celebrated _arriero_ was Pedro Mato; the statue is of wood. {327a} The word _Gog_ is not Hebrew, and, according to Renan and Kuöbel (_Volkert_, p. 63), is “mountain,” and Magog is “great mountain.” _Maha_, Sanskrit, and _Koh_ or _Goh_, Persian. The legends concerning Gog and Magog are very numerous, and extend over many parts of Europe, Asia, and even Africa. {327b} “The place of the apples.” {329} _Caballero_. As a mode of address in common life, equivalent merely to _sir_. {331a} A Galician or Portuguese, but not a Spanish word, usually spelt _corço_. The Spanish equivalent is _ciervo_. {331b} There is a delightful translation of Theocritus, who by the way described the scenery of Sicily rather than of Greece, into English verse by C. S. Calverley, published in 1869. {333} Bembibre lies on the southern confines of the district of El Vierzo, one of the most interesting and least explored parts of the Peninsula, the Switzerland of Leon, a district of Alpine passes, trout streams, pleasant meadows, and groves of chestnuts and walnuts. Bembibre, pop. 500, lies with its old castle on the trout-streams Noceda and Boeza, amid green meadows, gardens, and vineyards, whose wines were far more fatal to Moore’s soldiers than the French sabres. So much for Bembibre—_bene bibere_. Ponferrada (_Interamnium Flavium_), which is not entered, rises to the left on the confluence of the Sil and Boeza. The bridge (_Pons-ferrata_) was built in the eleventh century, for the passage of pilgrims to Compostella, who took the direct route along the Sil by Val de Orras and Orense. The town afterwards belonged to the Templars, and was protected by the miraculous image of the Virgin, which was found in an oak, and hence is called _Nuestra Señora de la Encina_; it is still the Patroness of the Vierzo (Murray’s _Handbook of Spain_, 1st edit. p. 595).