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We hastened on to Corcuvion, where I bade my guide make inquiries respecting Finisterra. He entered the door of a wine-house, from which proceeded much noise and vociferation, and presently returned, informing me that the village of Finisterra was distant about a league and a half. A man, evidently in a state of intoxication, followed him to the door.
On his journey in Galicia, when he was nearing Finisterra, the men of the cabin where he rested took him for a Catalan, and "he favoured their mistake and began with a harsh Catalan accent to talk of the fish of Galicia, and the high duties on salt." When at this same cabin he found there was no bed, he went up into the loft and lay down on the boards' without complaint.
I repeated my demand in a louder voice; when, after a considerable pause, he somewhat elevated his eyes, without however looking me in the face, and said that he believed that I entertained the idea that he himself was to guide me to Finisterra, which if I did, he was very sorry for, the thing being quite impossible, as he was perfectly ignorant of the way, and, moreover, incapable of performing such a journey over rough and difficult ground, as he was no longer the man he had been, and over and above all that, he was engaged that day to accompany a gentleman to Pontevedra, who was at that moment expecting him.
He would have come to trade, to buy; but nobody knows him in Finisterra, nor does he know anybody: and the first thing, moreover, that he does when he reaches this place is to inspect the fort, and to ascend the mountain where, no doubt, he has been marking out a camp. What brings him to Finisterra if he is neither Calros nor a bribon of a faccioso?"
These huts were all that the roaring sea and the tooth of time had left of Duyo, the great city! Onward now to Finisterra." He spends little time on such declamatory description, but it is essential to the whole effect.
Certainly in the whole world there is no bolder coast than the Gallegan shore, from the debouchement of the Minho to Cape Finisterra. 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.
He then informed me that he was a native of Padron, and a mariner by profession, having spent the greater part of his life in the Spanish navy, in which service he had visited Cuba and many parts of the Spanish Americas, adding, "when my master told you that I should bear you pleasant company by the way, it was the only word of truth that has come from his mouth for a month; and long before you reach Finisterra you will have rejoiced that the servant, and not the master, went with you: he is dull and heavy, but I am what you see."
We passed on, and striking across a sandy peninsula at the back of the town, soon reached the shore of an immense bay, the north- westernmost end of which was formed by the far-famed cape of Finisterra, which we now saw before us stretching far into the sea. Along a beach of dazzling white sand, we advanced towards the cape, the bourne of our journey.
"That man was a greater wizard than myself," whispered Sebastian, my guide, "who told us that the drunkards of Finisterra would play us a trick." At length the old hero of the Cape slowly rose, saying, that we must hasten on to Corcuvion, or the night would overtake us by the way. "What kind of person is the alcalde to whom you are conducting me?" said I.
One of my principal motives in visiting Finisterra was to carry this book to that wild place. Alcalde. Ha, ha! how very singular. Yes, I remember. I have heard that the English highly prize this eccentric book. How very singular that the countrymen of the grand Baintham should set any value upon that old monkish book.
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