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When the Cid first began to lay seige to the city of Valencia, this Martin Pelaez came unto him; he was a knight, a native of Santillana in Asturias, a hidalgo, great of body and strong of limb, a well-made man and of goodly semblance, but withal a right coward at heart, which he had shown in many places when he was among feats of arms.
He determined, however, first to carry out his project of visiting Santander, which he reached by way of Villa Viciosa, Colunga, Riba de Sella, Llanes, Colombres, San Vicente, Santillana. Instructions had been given in a letter to Borrego to forward to Santander two hundred copies of the New Testament; but, much to Borrow's disappointment, he found that they had not arrived.
In 1511, Castillo printed at Valencia the "Cancionero General," which contained poems attributed to about a hundred different poets, from the time of Santillana to the period in which it was made. Ten editions of this remarkable book followed, and in it we find the poetry most in favor at the court and with the refined society of Spain.
No adventure, however, befell us, and we reached Santillana at about six in the evening. We did not enter the town, but halted at a large venta or posada at the entrance, before which stood an immense ash tree.
Santillana contains four thousand inhabitants, and is six short leagues' distance from Santander, where we arrived early the next day.
The inns of the town, like all the rest of them in Spain, have not improved since the days of the immortal Santillana they were all more or less filled with the lowest of the rabble, and a set of bravos, whose calling was robbery, and who cared little if murder were its accompaniment. The cookery was execrable. Garlic and oil were its principal ingredients.
Finally, the contours are occasionally thrown into prominence by scraping away the surface of the rock around, so as to give to the figures the appearance of being in low relief." These wall paintings are by no means unique. They have been found as well at Pair-sur-Pair in Gironde, and in the grotto of Altamira at Santillana del Mar, in the north of Spain.
He liked to think that out of his adventures in distributing Bibles in Spain, out of letters describing his work to his employers, the Bible Society, he had made a narrative to be compared with the fictitious life and adventures of that gentle Spanish rogue, Gil Blas of Santillana. No wonder that he saw himself a public figure to be treated reverently, nay! heroically.
When the Cid first began to lay siege to the city of Valencia, this Martin Pelaez came unto him; he was a knight, a native of Santillana in Asturias, a hidalgo, great of body and strong of limb, a well made man and of goodly semblance, but withal a right coward at heart, which he had shown in many places when he was among feats of arms.
Even Lesage, so exact in his description of all that is exterior, lacked this literary truthfulness. His Spain is a land of fancy; his Spaniards are not Spanish; Gil Blas, albeit he comes from Santillana, is a Frenchman. Marivaux was wiser in placing his Vie de Marianne and his Paysan parvenu in France.
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