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Updated: June 10, 2025
Elvas Extraordinary Longevity The English Nation Portuguese Ingratitude Illiberality Fortifications Spanish Beggar Badajoz- -The Custom House.
This is not the first instance in which it has been my lot to verify the wisdom of the saying, that truth is sometimes wilder than fiction. I remounted my mule, and proceeded till, on the top of another hill, my guide suddenly exclaimed, "there is Elvas." I looked in the direction in which he pointed, and beheld a town perched on the top of a lofty hill.
The elements, on this occasion, adopted the cause of the besieged; for we had scarcely taken up our ground, when a heavy rain commenced, and continued, almost without intermission, for a fortnight; in consequence thereof, the pontoon-bridge, connecting us with our supplies from Elvas, was carried away, by the rapid increase of the river, and the duties of the trenches were otherwise rendered extremely harassing.
"I could not command myself," he writes in extenuation of his unchristian conduct in discomfiting the officer at Elvas, "when I heard my own glorious land traduced in this unmerited manner. By whom? A Portuguese? When Borrow entered Spain she was in the throes of civil war.
A day or two after these events, the wounded were all conveyed to hospital, some to Elvas and some to Estremoz. I was amongst the latter, as was likewise my comrade whom I mentioned as meeting me in the streets of Badajoz, as we were considered better able to stand the longer journey, the distance on from Elvas to Estremoz being about six leagues the other side from Badajoz.
On the other side of a deep valley towards the left rose another hill, much higher, on the top of which is the celebrated fort of Elvas, believed to be the strongest place in Portugal.
On Tuesday, Rose warned him that her mother was dying to give a dinner, to invite certain rival mothers, and announce her news with due éclat. "Hand us round, in fact," she added serenely, "with the chocs and Elvas plums! No! Don't flare up!" Her fingers caressed the back of his hand. "In mercy to you, I diplomatically sat down upon the idea, and remained seated till it was extinct.
My idiot guide was on his way back to Aldea Gallega; and, on the fifth of January, I mounted a sorry mule without bridle or stirrups, which I guided by a species of halter, and followed by a lad who was to attend me on another, I spurred down the hill of Elvas to the plain, eager to arrive in old chivalrous romantic Spain.
The first introduction of negroes into the eastern part of the island of Cuba took place in 1521 and their number did not exceed 300. In the sixteenth century the slave-trade was not free in Spain; the privilege of trading, which was granted by the Court, was purchased in 1586, for all Spanish America, by Gaspar de Peralta; in 1595, by Gomez Reynel; and in 1615, by Antonio Rodriguez de Elvas.
Hughes' narrative of his journey from Madrid to Portugal, especially that of the three days from Elvas to Aldea Gallega, which were passed in a jolting springless cart, drawn by mules, and driven by Senhor Manoel Alberto, a Portuguese carrier and cavalheiro, poor in pocket, but proud as a grandee.
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