Francisco de Cuéllar was a captain in the Spanish Armada, shipwrecked off the northwest Irish coast as the vessel he was on limped home the long way to Spain following the Armada's defeat.
He was doubly fortunate to be alive as he had earlier been ordered off his own ship, and sentenced to death, by a furious admiral for supposed disobedience during the Armada's aborted invasion of England.
Cuéllar tells how, after being shipwrecked, he had to dodge English garrison troops, and local "savages," both of whom, according to his account, thought nothing of stripping, beating, robbing and, often, killing Spanish sailors as they were washed ashore.
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| Gripping read |
His story does not take up a great many pages of what is anyway a slim volume, published in 1897, but there is a long introduction - best read after Cuéllar's tale, although it appears before it in the book - and some well-chosen illustrations.
A lot is packed into little, including burnt-out monasteries, hanged bodies and desperate attempts to survive in the face of hostility from men and nature.
My edition is a reprint by Clachan Publishing of Ballycastle, County Antrim, bought through Amazon, although I can no longer recall what prompted me to search for it - probably a passing reference in another book, or perhaps a mention in Wikipedia.
Either way, it proved a great read.
