ies
of the Gospel in Basque were safe and forthcoming, whilst every one of
the sequestered copies of the Gitano Gospel had been plundered by hands
unknown. The consequence was that I was myself applied to by then agents
of the public libraries of Valencia and other places, who paid me the
price of the copies which they received, assuring me at the same time
that they were authorised to purchase them at whatever price which might
be demanded.

Respecting the Gospel in Basque I have less to say. It was originally
translated into the dialect of Guipuscoa by Dr. Oteiza, and subsequently
received corrections and alterations from myself. It can scarcely be
said to have been published, it having been prohibited and copies of it
seized on the second day of its appearance. But it is in my power to
state that it is anxiously expected in the Basque provinces, where books
in the aboriginal tongue are both scarce and dear, and that several
applications have been made at San Sebastian and in other towns where
Basque is the predominating language.

I now proceed to the subject of my travels in Spain. Before undertaking
them I was little acquainted with the genius of the Spanish people in
general, having resided almost entirely in Madrid, and I was fully
convinced that it was not from the inhabitants of one city that an
accurate judgment could be formed of a population of nine millions,
thinly scattered over a vast country so divided and intersected by
mountain barriers as is the Peninsula. With this population under all
its various circumstances and under all its various phases, the result of
descent from a variety of foreign nations, I was anxious to make myself
acquainted; for I reflected that he who builds a city on ground which he
has not fully examined will perhaps discover when too late that his
foundation is in a swamp, and that the whole of his labour is momentarily
in danger of being swallowed up. I therefore went forth not so much for
the purpose of distributing the Scriptures as to make myself acquainted
with the prefatory steps requisite to be taken in order to secure my
grand object. Before departing from Madrid I consulted with the many
friends, some of them highly distinguished, which I had the honour to
possess in that capital. Their unanimous advice, whether Catholics or
Protestants, was that for the present I should proceed with the utmost
caution, but without concealing the object of my mission which I
co