Saint James, it was said, had certainly preached and taught in Spain during his lifetime. His body, after his martyrdom at Jerusalem in the year of Christ 42, had been placed by his disciples on board a ship, by which it was conveyed to the coast of his beloved Spain, miraculously landed in Galicia, and forgotten for eight hundred years, until the time was accomplished when it should be revealed to the devoted subjects of King Alfonso the Chaste. The date of the discovery of the precious remains is given by Ferreras as 808, by Morales as 835. But as it was Charlemagne who obtained from Leo III. the necessary permission or faculty to remove the Episcopal See of _Iria Flavia_ to the new town of Compostella, the discovery or invention must have taken place at least before 814, the year of the death of the emperor. Whatever may have been the actual date of its first establishment; the mean church with mud walls soon gave place to a noble cathedral, which was finished by the year 874, consecrated in 899, and destroyed by the Arabs under Almanzor, nigh upon a hundred years afterwards, in 997. See also Murray’s _Handbook of Spain_, 1st edit., p. 660, Santiago. {380} Or Jet-ery. _Azabache_ is jet or anthracite, of which a great quantity is found in the Asturias. The word—of Arabic origin—is also used figuratively for blackness or darkness generally in modern Spanish. {382a} “Oh, my God, it is the gentleman!” {382b} From the German _betteln_, to beg. {384} May, 1823. {386} _Meiga_ is not a substantive either in Spanish or Portuguese (though it is in Galician), but the feminine of the adjective _meigo_, or _mego_, signifying “kind,” “gentle.” _Haxweib_ is a form of the German _Hexe Weib_, a witch or female wizard. {389} Or El Padron (_Iria Flavia_), the ancient seat of the bishopric, transferred to the more sacred Santiago de Compostella before the year 814. {393} French, _sur le tapis_. {394} More correctly, _Caldas de Reyes_. {395} Branches of vines supported on or festooned from stakes. Borrow uses the word for the stakes themselves. The dictionary of the Spanish Academy has it, “_La vid que se levanta á lo alto y se extiende mucho en vástagos_,” and derives the word from the Arabic _par_ = extension or spreading. {397} “What folly! what rascality!” {399} The names of the ambassadors or envoys actually sent by King Henry III. to Tamerlane were, in 1399, Pelayo Gomez de Sotomayor and Herman Sanchez de Palazuelos, and on the second mission in 1403, Don Alfonso de Santa Maria and Gonzalez de Clavijo, whose account of the voyage of the envoys has been published both in Spanish and English, and is one of the earliest and most interesting books of travel in the world.