'Midday, to-morrow, is the hour in which they have determined to
make the attempt. There is no time to be lost; let us, therefore,

warn those of our townsmen who still survive, in order that they
may make preparations for their defence.'

Whereupon the two friends proceeded to the chief magistrate, who
had been but slightlyaffected by the disorder; he heard the tale

of the bookseller with horror and astonishment, and instantly took
the best measures possible for frustrating the designs of the

Gitanos; all the men capable of bearing arms in Logrono were
assembled, and weapons of every description put in their hands. By

the advice of the bookseller all the gates of the town were shut,
with the exception of the principal one; and the little band of

defenders, which barely amounted to sixty men, was stationed in the
great square, to which, he said, it was the intention of the

Gitanos to penetrate in the first instance, and then, dividing
themselves into various parties, to sack the place. The bookseller

was, by general desire, constituted leader of the guardians of the
town.

It was considerably past noon; the sky was overcast, and tempest
clouds, fraught with lightning and thunder, were hanging black and

horrid over the town of Logrono. The little troop, resting on
their arms, stood awaiting the arrival of their unnatural enemies;

rage fired their minds as they thought of the deaths of their
fathers, their sons, and their dearest relatives, who had perished,

not by the hand of God, but, like infected cattle, by the hellish
arts of Egyptian sorcerers. They longed for their appearance,

determined to wreak upon them a bloodyrevenge; not a word was
uttered, and profound silence reigned around, only interrupted by

the occasional muttering of the thunder-clouds. Suddenly, Alvarez,
who had been intently listening, raised his hand with a significant

gesture; presently, a sound was heard - a rustling like the waving
of trees, or the rushing of distant water; it gradually increased,

and seemed to proceed from the narrow street which led from the
principal gate into the square. All eyes were turned in that

direction. . . .
That night there was repique or ringing of bells in the towers of

Logrono, and the few priests who had escaped from the pestilence
sang litanies to God and the Virgin for the salvation of the town

from the hands of the heathen. The attempt of the Gitanos had been
most signally defeated, and the great square and the street were

strewn with their corpses. Oh! what frightful objects: there lay
grim men more black than mulattos, with fury and rage in their

stiffened features; wild women in extraordinary dresses, their
hair, black and long as the tail of the horse, spread all

dishevelled upon the ground; and gaunt and naked children grasping
knives and daggers in their tiny hands. Of the patriotic troop not

one appeared to have fallen; and when, after their enemies had
retreated with howlings of fiendish despair, they told their

numbers, only one man was missing, who was never seen again, and
that man was Alvarez.

In the midst of the combat, the tempest, which had for a long time
been gathering, burst over Logrono, in lightning, thunder,

darkness, and vehement hail.
A man of the town asserted that the last time he had seen Alvarez,

the latter was far in advance of his companions, defending himself
desperately against three powerful young heathen, who seemed to be

acting under the direction of a tall woman who stood nigh, covered
with barbaric ornaments, and wearing on her head a rude silver

crown. (18)
Such is the tale of the Bookseller of Logrono, and such is the

narrative of the attempt of the Gitanos to sack the town in the
time of pestilence, which is alluded to by many Spanish authors,

but more particularly by the learned Francisco de Cordova, in his
DIDASCALIA, one of the most curious and instructive books within

the circle of universal literature.
CHAPTER IV

THE Moors, after their subjugation, and previous to their expulsion
from Spain, generally resided apart, principally in the suburbs of

the towns, where they kept each other in countenance, being hated
and despised by the Spaniards, and persecuted on all occasions. By

this means they preserved, to a certain extent, the Arabic
language, though the use of it was strictlyforbidden, and

encouraged each other in the secret exercise of the rites of the
Mohammedan religion, so that, until the moment of their final

expulsion, they continued Moors in almost every sense of the word.
Such places were called Morerias, or quarters of the Moors.

In like manner there were Gitanerias, or quarters of the Gitanos,
in many of the towns of Spain; and in more than one instance

particular barrios or districts are still known by this name,
though the Gitanos themselves have long since disappeared. Even in

the town of Oviedo, in the heart of the Asturias, a province never
famous for Gitanos, there is a place called the Gitaneria, though

no Gitano has been known to reside in the town within the memory of
man, nor indeed been seen, save, perhaps, as a chance visitor at a

fair.
The exact period when the Gitanos first formed these colonies

within the towns is not known; the laws, however, which commanded
them to abandon their wandering life under penalty of banishment

and death, and to become stationary in towns, may have induced them
first to take such a step. By the first of these laws, which was

made by Ferdinand and Isabella as far back as the year 1499, they
are commanded to seek out for themselves masters. This injunction

they utterly disregarded. Some of them for fear of the law, or
from the hope of bettering their condition, may have settled down

in the towns, cities, and villages for a time, but to expect that a
people, in whose bosoms was so deeply rooted the love of lawless

independence, would subject themselves to the yoke of servitude,
from any motivewhatever, was going too far; as well might it have

been expected, according to the words of the great poet of Persia,
THAT THEY WOULD HAVE WASHED THEIR SKINS WHITE.

In these Gitanerias, therefore, many Gypsy families resided, but
ever in the Gypsy fashion, in filth and in misery, with little of

the fear of man, and nothing of the fear of God before their eyes.
Here the swarthy children basked naked in the sun before the doors;

here the women prepared love draughts, or told the buena ventura;
and here the men plied the trade of the blacksmith, a forbidden

occupation, or prepared for sale, by disguising them, animals
stolen by themselves or their accomplices. In these places were

harboured the strange Gitanos on their arrival, and here were
discussed in the Rommany language, which, like the Arabic, was

forbidden under severe penalties, plans of fraud and plunder, which
were perhaps intended to be carried into effect in a distant

province and a distant city.
The great body, however, of the Gypsy race in Spain continued

independent wanderers of the plains and the mountains, and indeed
the denizens of the Gitanerias were continually" target="_blank" title="ad.不断地，频繁地">continually sallying forth,

either for the purpose of reuniting themselves with the wandering
tribes, or of strolling about from town to town, and from fair to

fair. Hence the continualcomplaints in the Spanish laws against
the Gitanos who have left their places of domicile, from doing

which they were interdicted, even as they were interdicted from
speaking their language and following the occupations of the

blacksmith and horse-dealer, in which they still persist even at
the present day.

The Gitanerias at evening fall were frequently resorted to by
individuals widely differing in station from the inmates of these

places - we allude to the young and dissolute nobility and hidalgos
of Spain. This was generally the time of mirth and festival, and

the Gitanos, male and female, danced and sang in the Gypsy fashion
beneath the smile of the moon. The Gypsy women and girls were the

principal attractions to these visitors; wild and singular as these
females are in their appearance, there can be no doubt, for the

fact has been frequently proved, that they are capable of exciting
passion of the most ardentdescription, particularly in the bosoms

of those who are not of their race, which passion of course becomes
the more violent when the almost utter impossibility of gratifying

it is known. No females in the world can be more licentious in