ABARCAS? EXACTLY, MY DEAR WATSON | FEAT. SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE


The perones, or raw-leather shoes being called Abarcas, in Spanish, some imagine that the young prince (Don Sancho II) derived his appellation from that part of his dress. Others pretend that it was owing to his having enabled his army to cross the Pyrenees after a great fall ps snow, by means of such shoes. But these forgot that the raw/leather shoes are used by the Spanish peasantry in all the mountainous districts of the North, and that they are probably the first covering for the feet likely to have been invented in all countries.

From: The New Monthly Magazine and Literary Journal
Volume 10, 1824


Abarcas 


This was Don Sancho II, King Of Navarre, surnamed Abarca, either from the abarcas or shepherd-shoes which he had worn in early life, when brought up in secrecy and indigence, during the overthrow of his country by the Moors, or from making his soldiers wear shoes of the kind in crossing the snowy Pyrenees. It was a name by which the populace delighted to call him.

Washington Irving
From: Oliver Goldsmith And Moorish Chronicles (1900)



Abarcas


On the other the ground fell away in a very long slope, which ended in a bushy valley many hundreds of feet below. These fellows, you understand, were hardy mountaineers, who could travel either up hill or down very much quicker than I. They wore abarcas, or shoes of skin, tied on like sandals, which gave them a foothold everywhere. A less resolute man would have despaired. 

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
From: The Adventures Of Gerard (1903)


Sherlock Holmes
Source: Delphi Complete Works Of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Illustrated)


 

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