Dr.Knapp has collected the various occasions upon which Borrow referred to his supposed earlier travels abroad prior to his visit to St.Petersburg in 1833.

The only quotation that carries conviction is an extract from a letter to his mother from St.Petersburg, where he writes of 'London, Paris, Madrid, and other capitals which I have visited.' I am not, however, disinclined to accept Dr.Knapp's theory that in 1826-7 Borrow did travel to Paris and through certain parts of Southern Europe.

It is strange, all the same, that adventures which, had they taken place, would have provoked a thousand observations, provoked but two or three passing references.

Yet there is no getting over that letter to his mother, nor that reference in _The Gypsies of Spain_, where he says--'Once in the south of France, when I was weary, hungry, and penniless....' Borrow certainly did some travel in these years, but it was sordid, lacking in all dignity--never afterwards to be recalled.

For the most part, however, he was in England.