Seville to Madrid, and that he has left at a considerable distance
behind him the gloomy and horrible passes of the Sierra Morena; his

bosom, which for some time past has been contracted with dreadful
forebodings, is beginning to expand; his blood, which has been

congealed in his veins, is beginning to circulate warmly and
freely; he is fondly anticipating the still distant posada and

savoury omelet. The sun is sinking rapidly behind the savage and
uncouth hills in his rear; he has reached the bottom of a small

valley, where runs a rivulet at which he allows his tired animal to
drink; he is about to ascend the side of the hill; his eyes are

turned upwards; suddenly he beholds strange and uncouth forms at
the top of the ascent - the sun descending slants its rays upon red

cloaks, with here and there a turbaned head, or long streaming
hair. The traveller hesitates, but reflecting that he is no longer

in the mountains, and that in the open road there is no danger of
banditti, he advances. In a moment he is in the midst of the Gypsy

group, in a moment there is a general halt; fiery eyes are turned
upon him replete with an expression which only the eyes of the Roma

possess, then ensues a jabber in a language or jargon which is
strange to the ears of the traveller; at last an ugly urchin

springs from the crupper of a halting mule, and in a lisping accent
entreats charity in the name of the Virgin and the Majoro. The

traveller, with a faltering hand, produces his purse, and is
proceeding to loosen its strings, but he accomplishes not his

purpose, for, struck violently by a huge knotted club in an unseen
hand, he tumbles headlong from his mule. Next morning a naked

corse, besmeared with brains and blood, is found by an arriero; and
within a week a simple cross records the event, according to the

custom of Spain.
'Below there in the dusky pass

Was wrought a murder dread;
The murdered fell upon the grass,

Away the murderer fled.'
To many, such a scene, as above described, will appear purely

imaginary, or at least a mass of exaggeration, but many such
anecdotes are related by old Spanish writers of these people; they

traversed the country in gangs; they were what the Spanish law has
styled Abigeos and Salteadores de Camino, cattle-stealers and

highwaymen; though, in the latter character, they never rose to any
considerableeminence. True it is that they would not hesitate to

attack or even murder the unarmed and defenceless traveller, when
they felt assured of obtaining booty with little or no risk to

themselves; but they were not by constitution adapted to rival
those bold and daring banditti of whom so many terrible anecdotes

are related in Spain and Italy, and who have acquired their renown
by the dauntlessdaring which they have invariably displayed in the

pursuit of plunder.
Besides trafficking in horses and mules, and now and then attacking

and plundering travellers upon the highway, the Gypsies of Spain
appear, from a very early period, to have plied occasionally the

trade of the blacksmith, and to have worked in iron, forming rude
implements of domestic and agricultural use, which they disposed

of, either for provisions or money, in the neighbourhood of those
places where they had taken up their temporaryresidence. As their

bands were composed of numerous individuals, there is no
improbability in assuming that to every member was allotted that

branch of labour in which he was most calculated to excel. The
most important, and that which required the greatest share of

cunning and address, was undoubtedly that of the chalan or jockey,
who frequented the fairs with the beasts which he had obtained by

various means, but generally by theft. Highway robbery, though
occasionally committed by all jointly or severally, was probably

the peculiar department of the boldest spirits of the gang; whilst
wielding the hammer and tongs was abandoned to those who, though

possessed of athletic forms, were perhaps, like Vulcan, lame, or
from some particular cause, moral or physical, unsuited for the

other two very respectable avocations. The forge was generally
placed in the heart of some mountain abounding in wood; the gaunt

smiths felled a tree, perhaps with the very axes which their own
sturdy hands had hammered at a former period; with the wood thus

procured they prepared the charcoal which their labour demanded.
Everything is in readiness; the bellows puff until the coal is

excited to a furious glow; the metal, hot, pliant, and ductile, is
laid on the anvil, round which stands the Cyclop group, their

hammers upraised; down they descend successively, one, two, three,
the sparks are scattered on every side. The sparks -

'More than a hundred lovely daughters I see produced at one time,
fiery as roses: in one moment they expire gracefully

circumvolving.' (17)
The anvil rings beneath the thundering stroke, hour succeeds hour,

and still endures the hard sullen toil.
One of the most remarkable features in the history of Gypsies is

the striking similarity of their pursuits in every region of the
globe to which they have penetrated; they are not merely alike in

limb and in feature, in the cast and expression of the eye, in the
colour of the hair, in their walk and gait, but everywhere they

seem to exhibit the same tendencies, and to hunt for their bread by
the same means, as if they were not of the human but rather of the

animal species, and in lieu of reason were endowed with a kind of
instinct which assists them to a very limitedextent and no

farther.
In no part of the world are they found engaged in the cultivation

of the earth, or in the service of a regular master; but in all
lands they are jockeys, or thieves, or cheats; and if ever they

devote themselves to any toil or trade, it is assuredly in every
material point one and the same. We have found them above, in the

heart of a wild mountain, hammering iron, and manufacturing from it
instruments either for their own use or that of the neighbouring

towns and villages. They may be seen employed in a similar manner
in the plains of Russia, or in the bosom of its eternal forests;

and whoever inspects the site where a horde of Gypsies has
encamped, in the grassy lanes beneath the hazel bushes of merry

England, is generally sure to find relics of tin and other metal,
avouching that they have there been exercising the arts of the

tinker or smith. Perhaps nothing speaks more forcibly for the
antiquity of this sect or caste than the tenacity with which they

have uniformly preserved their peculiar customs since the period of
their becoming generally known; for, unless their habits had become

a part of their nature, which could only have been effected by a
strict devotion to them through a long succession of generations,

it is not to be supposed that after their arrival in civilised
Europe they would have retained and cherished them precisely in the

same manner in the various countries where they found an asylum.
Each band or family of the Spanish Gypsies had its Captain, or, as

he was generally designated, its Count. Don Juan de Quinones, who,
in a small volume published in 1632, has written some details

respecting their way of life, says: 'They roam about, divided into
families and troops, each of which has its head or Count; and to

fill this office they choose the most valiant and courageous
individual amongst them, and the one endowed with the greatest

strength. He must at the same time be crafty and sagacious, and
adapted in every respect to govern them. It is he who settles

their differences and disputes, even when they are residing in a
place where there is a regular justice. He heads them at night

when they go out to plunder the flocks, or to rob travellers on the
highway; and whatever they steal or plunder they divide amongst

them, always allowing the captain a third part of the whole.'
These Counts, being elected for such qualities as promised to be

useful to their troop or family, were consequentlyliable to be
deposed if at any time their conduct was not calculated to afford

satisfaction to their subjects. The office was not hereditary, and
though it carried along with it partial privileges, was both

toilsome and dangerous. Should the plans for plunder, which it was
the duty of the Count to form, miscarry in the attempt to execute

them; should individuals of the gang fall into the hand of justice,
and the Count be unable to devise a method to save their lives or

obtain their liberty, the blame was cast at the Count's door, and
he was in considerable danger of being deprived of his insignia of

authority, which consisted not so much in ornaments or in dress, as
in hawks and hounds with which the Senor Count took the diversion