CHAPTER XII: NOVEMBER 1836-MAY 1837



Borrow remained in England for a month (3rd October/4th November),
during which time he conferred with the Committee and Officials at
Earl Street as to the future programme in Spain. On 4th November,
having sent to his mother 130 pounds of the 150 pounds he had drawn
as salary, and promising to write to Mr Brandram from Cadiz, he
sailed from London in the steamer Manchester, bound for Lisbon and
Cadiz.

In a letter to his mother, he describes his fellow passengers as
invalids fleeing from the English winter. "Some of them are three
parts gone with consumption," he writes, "some are ruptured, some
have broken backs; I am the only sound person in the ship, which is
crowded to suffocation. I am in a little hole of a berth where I can
scarcely breathe, and every now and then wet through."

The horrors of the voyage from Falmouth to Lisbon he has described
with terrifying vividness; {185a} how the engines broke down and the
vessel was being driven on to Cape Finisterre; how all hope had been
abandoned, and the Captain had told the passengers of their impending
fate; how the wind suddenly "VEERED RIGHT ABOUT, and pushed us from
the horrible coast faster than it had previously driven us towards
it." {185b}

During the whole of that terrible night Borrow had remained on deck,