* * * * *

It was not without reason that the Latins gave the name of Finis terrae to this district.  We had arrived exactly at such a place as in my boyhood I had pictured to myself as the termination of the world, beyond which there was a wild sea, or abyss, or chaos.  I now saw far before me an immense ocean, and below me a long and irregular line of lofty and precipitous coast.  Certainly in the whole world there is no bolder coast than the Gallegan shore, from the debouchment of the Minho to Cape Finisterre.  It consists of a granite wall of savage mountains for the most part serrated at the top, and occasionally broken, where bays and firths like those of Vigo and Pontevedra intervene, running deep into the land.  These bays and firths are invariably of an immense depth, and sufficiently capacious to shelter the navies of the proudest maritime nations.

There is an air of stern and savage grandeur in everything around, which strongly captivates the imagination.  This savage coast is the first glimpse of Spain which the voyager from the north catches, or he who has ploughed his way across the wide Atlantic:  and well does it seem to realize all his visions of this strange land.  ‘Yes,’ he exclaims, ’this is indeed Spain—­stern, flinty Spain—­land emblematic of those spirits to which she has given birth.  From what land but that before me could have proceeded those portentous beings who astounded the Old World and filled the New with horror and blood?  Alva and Philip, Cortez and Pizzaro—­stern colossal spectres looming through the gloom of bygone years, like yonder granite mountains through the haze, upon the eye of the mariner.  Yes, yonder is indeed Spain, flinty, indomitable Spain, land emblematic of its sons!’

As for myself, when I viewed that wide ocean and its savage shore, I cried, ’Such is the grave, and such are its terrific sides, those moors and wilds, over which I have passed, are the rough and dreary journey of life.  Cheered with hope, we struggle along through all the difficulties of moor, bog, and mountain, to arrive at—­what?  The grave and its dreary sides.  Oh, may hope not desert us in the last hour—­hope in the Redeemer and in God!’

* * * * *

A propos of bull-fighters:—­Shortly after my arrival, I one day entered a low tavern in a neighbourhood notorious for robbery and murder, and in which for the last two hours I had been wandering on a voyage of discovery.  I was fatigued, and required refreshment.  I found the place thronged with people, who had all the appearance of ruffians.  I saluted them, upon which they made way for me to the bar, taking off their sombreros with great ceremony.  I emptied a glass of val de penas, and was about to pay for it and depart, when a horrible-looking fellow, dressed in a buff jerkin, leather breeches, and jackboots, which came halfway up his thighs, and having on his head a white hat, the rims of which were at least a yard and a half in circumference, pushed through the crowd, and confronting me, roared:—­