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The Valencians sailed for home, carrying the Shrine back like a trophy. The chief of the blanquers saluted the lion, courteously offering him the guild house, near the towers of Serranos, which he could consider as his own. Many thanks; the beast was accustomed to the sun of Africa and feared a change of climate.
The inhabitants of these three provinces detested each other cordially, and nothing less than the bond of a common hatred was necessary to make them act simultaneously against France. Such was their animosity in 1807 that I could scarcely make use at the same time of Catalonians, Aragons, and Valencians, when I moved with my instruments from one station to another.
For the most part the little parties of cavalry were well received by the populace; the majority of Valencians were in favor of King Charles, and that night, when they halted, the weary horses obtained ample supplies of grain and forage, and the troopers were made welcome to the best the villages afforded.
"Apart from the recent doings of the French army Arragon would have preferred Philip to Charles. Moreover, Charles is looked upon as the choice of the Catalans and Valencians, and why should the men of Arragon take the king others have chosen?
Galdos, for example, can make the common people talk; Azorin can portray the villages of Castile, set on their arid heights, against backgrounds of blue skies; Blasco Ibanez can paint the life of the Valencians in vivid colours with a prodigality that carries with it the taint of the cheap, but none of them has penetrated into the popular soul. That would require a great poet, and we have none.
They are constitutionally phlegmatic, and it is very difficult to arouse their anger; but they are dangerous and desperate when once incensed; and a person who knew them well, told me that he would rather face ten Valencians, people infamous for their ferocity and blood-thirstiness, than confront one angry Maragato, sluggish and stupid though he be on other occasions.
But he was not equally successful in winning the attachment of those with whom he acted. He was adored by the Catalonians and Valencians; but he was hated by the prince whom he had all but made a great king, and by the generals whose fortune and reputation were staked on the same venture with his own. The English Government could not understand him.
When Valencia is invaded, for example, the Valencians fight; but they have no idea of going out from their homes to assist Castile or Catalonia and so, one after another, the provinces are conquered by the French." "That is so," Garcia said thoughtfully.
And off sped the Valencian galleys, with their jib-sails spread to the wind, convoyed by a shoal of dolphins, which sported about in the foam of their prows!... When the Moors beheld them approaching, the infidels began to tremble, repenting of their irreverence toward the Shrine. And this, despite the fact that they were a set of hardened old dogs. Valencians, headed by the valiant blanquers!
One year when the drag-net season came around, the pesca del bòu, as the Valencians say, where two boats worked in team, Pascualet shipped with tio Borrasca as "cat," gato de barca, for his keep, and all he might make, in addition, from the cabets, the small fry, shrimp, sea-horses and so on, that came up in the nets from the bottom along with the big fish.
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