A kind reader – plus my friends at dinner last Friday night – have pointed out there’s a Spanish riposte to the accusation of ugliness, at least when it’s directed to a male - El hombre es como el oso; mientras mas feo, mas hermoso! Which I guess we can translate as “Man is a like the bear. The more ugly, the more magnificent!” Thank-you, gentlemen.

Thanks are also due to the people who set up the exhibition on the Peninsular War in Pontevedra's ugly new museum - for not overlooking the British contribution to the Spanish success. On this, I was surprised to read that the Supreme Junta of the Kingdom of Galicia negotiated a treaty direct with the British Government in 1808. Reader Ointe has made some interesting comments on this subject to yesterday’s post. Perhaps it was really the Galicians whom Napolean had in mind when he made this comment from his retirement home on Saint Helena – “That cursed war with Spain was the primary cause of all France’s misfortunes.” Wellington, it’s true, had some good things to say about the Spanish soldiers. Though I seem to recall he was less enamoured of the generals who commanded them.

Back again to Mr Borrow, who was wandering around Spain about 20 years later . . . Here he is alluding to the Spanish pride and individualismo I’ve touched on a few times over the last few years . . . . “I have visited most of the principal capitals of the world, but upon the whole none has ever so interested me as this city of Madrid . . . Within a mud wall . . . are contained two hundred thousand human beings, certainly forming the most extraordinary vital mass to be found in the entire world; and be it always remembered that this mass is strictly Spanish. The population of Constantinople is extraordinary enough, but to form it twenty nations have contributed. . . but the huge population of Madrid, with the exception of a sprinkling of foreigners . . . is strictly Spanish - a population which, however strange and wild, and composed of various elements, is Spanish, and will remain so as long as the city itself shall exist. As for the higher orders - the ladies and gentlemen, the cavaliers and senoras; shall I pass them by in silence? The truth is I have little to say about them; . . . The Spaniard of the lower class has much more interest for me, whether manolo, labourer, or muleteer. He is not a common being; he is an extraordinary man. He has not, it is true, the amiability and generosity of the Russian mujik, . . . There is more hardness and less self-devotion in the disposition of the Spaniard; he possesses, however, a spirit of proud independence, which it is impossible but to admire."

Finally . . . A correction: there were seven, not six, Galician provinces in 1815. I missed out Mondoñedo. Like Tui on the border with Portugal, this is a place which has seen more important days. But six or seven, Pontevedra wasn’t among them, coming under the jurisdiction of Santiago I believe. When Vigo was just a piddling little fishing port. With a beautiful bay. Who could have predicted that one day they'd be slugging it out for provincial dominance? Not George Borrow, that's for sure.