playing remarkably well on the guitar--not the trumpery German
thing so called--but the real Spanish guitar." His wife wrote letters
for him, copied his manuscripts, and helped to correct his proofs. She
remained at Oulton, or Yarmouth, while he went about; if he went to Wales
or Ireland she sometimes accompanied him to a convenient centre and there
remained while he did as he pleased. She admired him, and she appears to
have become essential to his life, apart from her income, and not to have
resented her position at any time, though grieved by his unconcealed
melancholy.

A second time he praised her in print, saying that he had an exceedingly
clever wife, and allowed her "to buy and sell, carry money to the bank,
draw cheques, inspect and pay tradesmen's bills, and transact all my real
business, whilst I myself pore over old books, walk about the shires,
discoursing with Gypsies, under hedgerows, or with sober bards--in hedge
alehouses."

CHAPTER XIX--"THE ZINCALI"

Borrow and his wife and stepdaughter settled at Oulton Cottage before the
spring of 1840 was over. This house, the property of Mrs. Borrow, was
separated from Oulton Broad only by a slope of lawn, at the foot of which
was a private boat. Away from the house, but equally near lawn and water
stood Borrow's library--a little peaked octagonal summer house, with
toplights and windows. The cottage is gone, but the summer house, now
mantled with ivy, where he wrote "The Bible in Spain" and "Lavengro," is
still to be seen. Here, too, he arranged and completed the book written
"at considerable intervals during a period of nearly five years passed in
Spain--in moments snatched from more important pursuits--chiefly in
ventas and posadas (inns), whilst wandering through the country in the
arduous and unthankful task of distributing the Gospel among its
children,"--"The Zincali: or the Gypsies of Spain." It was published in
April, 1841.

This book is a description of Gypsies in Spain and wherever else he has
met them, with some history, and, as Borrow says himself, with "more
facts than theories." It abounds in quotations from out of the way
Spanish books, but was by far "less the result of reading than of close
observation." It is patched together from scattered notes with little
order or proportion, and cannot be regarded as a whole either in
intention or effect. Nor is this wholly due to the odd times and places
in which it was written. Borr