Borrow was angry with Spain, possibly for being so unlike his "dear
and glorious Russia." He saw in it a fertile and beautiful country,
inhabited by a set of beings that were not human, "almost as bad as
the Irish, with the exception that they are not drunkards." {168b}
They were a nation of thieves and extortioners, who regarded the
foreigner as their legitimate prey. Even his own servant was "the
greatest thief and villain that ever existed; who, if I would let
him, would steal the teeth out of my head," {168c} and who seems
actually to have destroyed some of his master's letters for the sake
of the postage. Being forced to call upon various people whose
addresses he did not know, Borrow found it necessary to keep the man,
in spite of his thievish proclivities, for he was clever, and had he
been dismissed his place would, in all probability, have been taken
by an even greater rogue.

At night he never went out, for the streets were thronged with
hundreds of people of the rival factions, bent on "cutting and
murdering one another; . . . for every Spaniard is by nature a cruel,
cowardly tiger. Nothing is more common than to destroy a whole town,
putting man, woman, and child to death, because two or three of the
inhabitants have been obnoxious." {168d} Thus he wrote to his
mother, all-unconscious of the anxiety and alarm that he was causing
her lest he, her dear George, should be one of the cut or murdered.

Later, Borrow seems to have revised his opinion of Madrid and of its
inhabitants. He confesses that of all the cities he has known Madrid
interested him the most, not on account of its public buildings,
squares or fountains, for these are surpassed in other cities; but
because of its population. "Within a mud wall scarcely one league
and a half in circuit, are contained two hundred thousand human