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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/22939-h.zip b/22939-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..59ba8ac --- /dev/null +++ b/22939-h.zip diff --git a/22939-h/22939-h.htm b/22939-h/22939-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4ab3dba --- /dev/null +++ b/22939-h/22939-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,12505 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>The Gypsies</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: left; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + color: gray;} + + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">The Gypsies, by Charles G. Leland</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Gypsies, by Charles G. Leland + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Gypsies + + +Author: Charles G. Leland + + + +Release Date: October 10, 2007 [eBook #22939] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GYPSIES*** +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>Transcribed from the 1882 Houghton, Mifflin and Company edition by David +Price, ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<h1>THE GYPSIES</h1> +<p style="text-align: center">BY<br /> +CHARLES G. LELAND</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">author of</span> +“THE ENGLISH GYPSIES AND THEIR LANGUAGE,” “ANGLO-ROMANY +BALLADS,” “HANS BREITMANN’S BALLADS,” <span +class="smcap">etc.</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center">BOSTON AND NEW YORK<br /> +HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY<br /> +The Riverside Press, Cambridge</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><!-- page ii--><a name="pageii"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. ii</span>Copyright, 1882,<br /> +<span class="smcap">By</span> CHARLES G. LELAND.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>All rights reserved</i>.</p> +<h2><!-- page iii--><a name="pageiii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +iii</span>PREFACE.</h2> +<p>The reader will find in this book sketches of experiences among gypsies +of different nations by one who speaks their language and is conversant +with their ways. These embrace descriptions of the justly famed +musical gypsies of St. Petersburg and Moscow, by whom the writer was +received literally as a brother; of the Austrian gypsies, especially those +composing the first Romany orchestra of that country, selected by Liszt, +and who played for their friend as they declared they had never played +before for any man; and also of the English, Welsh, Oriental, and American +brethren of the dark blood and the tents. I believe that the account +of interviews with American gypsies will possess at least the charm of +novelty, but little having as yet been written on this extensive and very +interesting branch of our nomadic population. To these I have added a +characteristic letter in the gypsy language, with translation by a lady, +legendary stories, poems, and finally the substance of two papers, one of +which I read before the British Philological Society, and the other before +<!-- page iv--><a name="pageiv"></a><span class="pagenum">p. iv</span>the +Oriental Congress at Florence, in 1878. Those who study ethnology +will be interested to learn from these papers, subsequently combined in an +article in the “Saturday Review,” that I have definitely +determined the existence in India of a peculiar tribe of gypsies, who are +<i>par eminence</i> the Romanys of the East, and whose language is there +what it is in England, the same in vocabulary, and the chief slang of the +roads. This I claim as a discovery, having learned it from a Hindoo +who had been himself a gypsy in his native land. Many writers have +suggested the Jats, Banjars, and others as probable ancestors or +type-givers of the race; but the existence of the <i>Rom himself</i> in +India, bearing the distinctive name of Rom, has never before been set forth +in any book or by any other writer. I have also given what may in +reason be regarded as settling the immensely disputed origin of the word +“Zingan,” by the gypsies’ own account of its etymology, +which was beyond all question brought by them from India.</p> +<p>In addition to this I have given in a chapter certain conversations with +men of note, such as Thomas Carlyle, Lord Lytton, Mr. Roebuck, and others, +on gypsies; an account of the first and family names and personal +characteristics of English and American Romanys, prepared for me by a very +famous old gypsy; and finally a chapter on the “Shelta Thari,” +or Tinkers’ Language, a very curious jargon or language, never +mentioned before by any writer except Shakespeare. What this tongue +may be, beyond the <!-- page v--><a name="pagev"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. v</span>fact that it is purely Celtic, and that it does +not seem to be identical with any other Celtic dialect, is unknown to +me. I class it with the gypsy, because all who speak it are also +acquainted with Romany.</p> +<p>For an attempt to set forth the tone or feeling in which the sketches +are conceived, I refer the reader to the Introduction.</p> +<p>When I published my “English Gypsies and their Language,” a +reviewer declared that I “had added nothing to our” (that is, +his) “knowledge on the subject.” As it is always pleasant +to meet with a man of superior information, I said nothing. And as I +had carefully read everything ever printed on the Romany, and had given a +very respectable collection of what was new to me as well as to all my +Romany rye colleagues in Europe, I could only grieve to think that such +treasures of learning should thus remain hidden in the brain of one who had +never at any time or in any other way manifested the possession of any +remarkable knowledge. Nobody can tell in this world what others may +know, but I modestly suggest that what I have set forth in this work, on +the origin of the gypsies, though it may be known to the reviewer in +question, has at least never been set before the public by anybody but +myself, and that it deserves further investigation. No account of the +tribes of the East mentions the Rom or Trablūs, and yet I have +personally met with and thoroughly examined one of them. In like +manner, the “Shelta Thari” has remained till the present day +entirely <!-- page vi--><a name="pagevi"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +vi</span>unknown to all writers on either the languages or the nomadic +people of Great Britain. If we are so ignorant of the wanderers among +us, and at our very doors, it is not remarkable that we should be ignorant +of those of India.</p> +<h2><!-- page 9--><a name="page9"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +9</span>INTRODUCTION.</h2> +<p>I have frequently been asked, “Why do you take an interest in +gypsies?”</p> +<p>And it is not so easy to answer. Why, indeed? In Spain one +who has been fascinated by them is called one of the <i>aficion</i>, or +affection, or “fancy;” he is an <i>aficionado</i>, or affected +unto them, and people there know perfectly what it means, for every +Spaniard is at heart a Bohemian. He feels what a charm there is in a +wandering life, in camping in lonely places, under old chestnut-trees, near +towering cliffs, <i>al pasar del arroyo</i>, by the rivulets among the +rocks. He thinks of the wine skin and wheaten cake when one was +hungry on the road, of the mules and tinkling bells, the fire by night, and +the <i>cigarito</i>, smoked till he fell asleep. Then he remembers +the gypsies who came to the camp, and the black-eyed girl who told him his +fortune, and all that followed in the rosy dawn and ever onward into starry +night.</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“Y se alegre el alma llena<br /> +De la luz de esos luceros.”</p> +<p>And his heart is filled with rapture<br /> +At the light of those lights above.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>This man understands it. So, too, does many an Englishman. +But I cannot tell you why. Why do I love to wander on the roads to +hear the birds; to <!-- page 10--><a name="page10"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 10</span>see old church towers afar, rising over fringes +of forest, a river and a bridge in the foreground, and an ancient castle +beyond, with a modern village springing up about it, just as at the foot of +the burg there lies the falling trunk of an old tree, around which weeds +and flowers are springing up, nourished by its decay? Why love these +better than pictures, and with a more than fine-art feeling? Because +on the roads, among such scenes, between the hedge-rows and by the river, I +find the wanderers who properly inhabit not the houses but the scene, not a +part but the whole. These are the gypsies, who live like the birds +and hares, not of the house-born or the town-bred, but free and at home +only with nature.</p> +<p>I am at some pleasant watering-place, no matter where. Let it be +Torquay, or Ilfracombe, or Aberystwith, or Bath, or Bournemouth, or +Hastings. I find out what old churches, castles, towns, towers, +manors, lakes, forests, fairy-wells, or other charms of England lie within +twenty miles. Then I take my staff and sketch-book, and set out on my +day’s pilgrimage. In the distance lie the lines of the shining +sea, with ships sailing to unknown lands. Those who live in them are +the Bohemians of the sea, homing while roaming, sleeping as they go, even +as gypsies dwell on wheels. And if you look wistfully at these ships +far off and out at sea with the sun upon their sails, and wonder what +quaint mysteries of life they hide, verily you are not far from being +affected or elected unto the Romany. And if, when you see the wild +birds on the wing, wending their way to the South, and wish that you could +fly with them,—anywhere, anywhere over the world and into +adventure,—then you are not far in spirit from the <!-- page 11--><a +name="page11"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 11</span>kingdom of Bohemia and +its seven castles, in the deep windows of which Æolian wind-harps +sing forever.</p> +<p>Now, as you wander along, it may be that in the wood and by some grassy +nook you will hear voices, and see the gleam of a red garment, and then +find a man of the roads, with dusky wife and child. You speak one +word, “Sarishan!” and you are introduced. These people +are like birds and bees, they belong to out-of-doors and nature. If +you can chirp or buzz a little in their language and know their ways, you +will find out, as you sit in the forest, why he who loves green bushes and +mossy rocks is glad to fly from cities, and likes to be free of the joyous +citizenship of the roads, and everywhere at home in such boon company.</p> +<p>When I have been a stranger in a strange town, I have never gone out for +a long walk without knowing that the chances were that I should meet within +an hour some wanderer with whom I should have in common certain +acquaintances. These be indeed humble folk, but with nature and +summer walks they make me at home. In merrie England I could nowhere +be a stranger if I would, and that with people who cannot read; and the +English-born Romany rye, or gentleman speaking gypsy, would in like manner +be everywhere at home in America. There was a gypsy family always +roaming between Windsor and London, and the first words taught to their +youngest child were “Romany rye!” and these it was trained to +address to me. The little tot came up to me,—I had never heard +her speak before,—a little brown-faced, black-eyed thing, and said, +“How-do, Omany ’eye?” and great was the triumph and +rejoicing and laughter <!-- page 12--><a name="page12"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 12</span>of the mother and father and all the little +tribe. To be familiar with these wanderers, who live by dale and +down, is like having the bees come to you, as they did to the Dacian +damsel, whose death they mourned; it is like the attraction of the wild +deer to the fair Genevieve; or if you know them to be dangerous outlaws, as +some are, it is like the affection of serpents and other wild things for +those whom nature has made their friends, and who handle them without +fear. They are human, but in their lives they are between man as he +lives in houses and the bee and bird and fox, and I cannot help believing +that those who have no sympathy with them have none for the forest and +road, and cannot be rightly familiar with the witchery of wood and +wold. There are many ladies and gentlemen who can well-nigh die of a +sunset, and be enraptured with “bits” of color, and captured +with scenes, and to whom all out-of-doors is as perfect as though it were +painted by Millais, yet to whom the bee and bird and gypsy and red Indian +ever remain in their true inner life strangers. And just as strange +to them, in one sense, are the scenes in which these creatures dwell; for +those who see in them only pictures, though they be by Claude and Turner, +can never behold in them the fairy-land of childhood. Only in +Ruysdael and Salvator Rosa and the great unconscious artists lurks the +spell of the Romany, and this spell is unfelt by Mr. Cimabue Brown. +The child and the gypsy have no words in which to express their sense of +nature and its charm, but they have this sense, and there are very, very +few who, acquiring culture, retain it. And it is gradually +disappearing from the world, just as the old delicately sensuous, +naïve, picturesque <!-- page 13--><a name="page13"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 13</span>type of woman’s beauty—the +perfection of natural beauty—is rapidly vanishing in every country, +and being replaced by the mingled real and unreal attractiveness of +“cleverness,” intellect, and fashion. No doubt the newer +tend to higher forms of culture, but it is not without pain that he who has +been “in the spirit” in the old Sabbath of the soul, and in its +quiet, solemn sunset, sees it all vanishing. It will all be gone in a +few years. I doubt very much whether it will be possible for the most +unaffectedly natural writer to preserve any of its hieroglyphics for future +Champollions of sentiment to interpret. In the coming days, when man +shall have developed new senses, and when the blessed sun himself shall +perhaps have been supplanted by some tremendous electrical light, and the +moon be expunged altogether as interfering with the new arrangements for +gravity, there will doubtless be a new poetry, and art become to the very +last degree self-conscious of its cleverness, artificial and impressional; +yet even then weary scholars will sigh from time to time, as they read in +our books of the ancient purple seas, and how the sun went down of old into +cloud-land, gorgeous land, and then how all dreamed away into night!</p> +<p>Gypsies are the human types of this vanishing, direct love of nature, of +this mute sense of rural romance, and of <i>al fresco</i> life, and he who +does not recognize it in them, despite their rags and dishonesty, need not +pretend to appreciate anything more in Callot’s etchings than the +skillful management of the needle and the acids. Truly they are but +rags themselves; the last rags of the old romance which connected man with +nature. Once romance was a splendid mediæval drama, colored and +gemmed <!-- page 14--><a name="page14"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +14</span>with chivalry, minnesong, bandit-flashes, and waving plumes; now +there remain but a few tatters. Yes, we were young and foolish then, +but there are perishing with the wretched fragments of the red Indian +tribes mythologies as beautiful as those of the Greek or Norseman; and +there is also vanishing with the gypsy an unexpressed mythology, which +those who are to come after us would gladly recover. Would we not +have been pleased if one of the thousand Latin men of letters whose works +have been preserved had told us how the old Etruscans, then still living in +mountain villages, spoke and habited and customed? But oh that there +had ever lived of old one man who, noting how feelings and sentiments +changed, tried to so set forth the souls of his time that after-comers +might understand what it was which inspired their art!</p> +<p>In the Sanskrit humorous romance of “Baital Pachisi,” or +King Vikram and the Vampire, twenty-five different and disconnected +trifling stories serve collectively to illustrate in the most pointed +manner the highest lesson of wisdom. In this book the gypsies, and +the scenes which surround them, are intended to teach the lesson of freedom +and nature. Never were such lessons more needed than at +present. I do not say that culture is opposed to the perception of +nature; I would show with all my power that the higher our culture the more +we are really qualified to appreciate beauty and freedom. But gates +must be opened for this, and unfortunately the gates as yet are very few, +while Philistinism in every form makes it a business of closing every +opening to the true fairy-land of delight.</p> +<p>The gypsy is one of many links which connect the <!-- page 15--><a +name="page15"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 15</span>simple feeling of +nature with romance. During the Middle Ages thousands of such links +and symbols united nature with religion. Thus Conrad von +Würtzburg tells in his “Goldene Schmiede” that the parrot +which shines in fairest grass-green hue, and yet like common grass is never +wet, sets forth the Virgin, who bestowed on man an endless spring, and yet +remained unchanged. So the parrot and grass and green and shimmering +light all blended in the ideal of the immortal Maid-Mother, and so the bird +appears in pictures by Van Eyck and Dürer. To me the +gypsy-parrot and green grass in lonely lanes and the rain and sunshine all +mingle to set forth the inexpressible purity and sweetness of the virgin +parent, Nature. For the gypsy is parrot-like, a quaint pilferer, a +rogue in grain as in green; for green was his favorite garb in olden time +in England, as it is to-day in Germany, where he who breaks the Romany law +may never dare on heath to wear that fatal fairy color.</p> +<p>These words are the key to the following book, in which I shall set +forth a few sketches taken during my rambles among the Romany. The +day is coming when there will be no more wild parrots nor wild wanderers, +no wild nature, and certainly no gypsies. Within a very few years in +the city of Philadelphia, the English sparrow, the very cit and cad of +birds, has driven from the gardens all the wild, beautiful feathered +creatures whom, as a boy, I knew. The fire-flashing scarlet tanager +and the humming-bird, the yellow-bird, blue-bird, and golden oriole, are +now almost forgotten, or unknown to city children. So the people of +self-conscious culture and the mart and factory are banishing the wilder +sort, and it <!-- page 16--><a name="page16"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +16</span>is all right, and so it must be, and therewith <i>basta</i>. +But as a London reviewer said when I asserted in a book that the child was +perhaps born who would see the last gypsy, “Somehow we feel sorry for +that child.”</p> +<h2><!-- page 17--><a name="page17"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +17</span>THE RUSSIAN GYPSIES.</h2> +<p>It is, I believe, seldom observed that the world is so far from having +quitted the romantic or sentimental for the purely scientific that, even in +science itself, whatever is best set forth owes half its charm to something +delicately and distantly reflected from the forbidden land of fancy. +The greatest reasoners and writers on the driest topics are still +“genial,” because no man ever yet had true genius who did not +feel the inspiration of poetry, or mystery, or at least of the +unusual. We are not rid of the marvelous or curious, and, if we have +not yet a science of curiosities, it is apparently because it lies for the +present distributed about among the other sciences, just as in small +museums illuminated manuscripts are to be found in happy family union with +stuffed birds or minerals, and with watches and snuff-boxes, once the +property of their late majesties the Georges. Until such a science is +formed, the new one of ethnology may appropriately serve for it, since it +of all presents most attraction to him who is politely called the general +reader, but who should in truth be called the man who reads the most for +mere amusement. For Ethnology deals with such delightful material as +primeval kumbo-cephalic skulls, and appears to her votaries arrayed, not in +silk attire, but in strange fragments <!-- page 18--><a +name="page18"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 18</span>of leather from ancient +Irish graves, or in cloth from Lacustrine villages. She glitters with +the quaint jewelry of the first Italian race, whose ghosts, if they wail +over the “find,” “speak in a language man knows no +more.” She charms us with etchings or scratchings of mammoths +on mammoth-bone, and invites us to explore mysterious caves, to picnic +among megalithic monuments, and speculate on pictured Scottish +stones. In short, she engages man to investigate his ancestry, a +pursuit which presents charms even to the illiterate, and asks us to find +out facts concerning works of art which have interested everybody in every +age.</p> +<p><i>Ad interim</i>, before the science of curiosities is segregated from +that of ethnology, I may observe that one of the marvels in the latter is +that, among all the subdivisions of the human race, there are only two +which have been, apparently from their beginning, set apart, marked and +cosmopolite, ever living among others, and yet reserved unto +themselves. These are the Jew and the gypsy. From time whereof +history hath naught to the contrary, the Jew was, as he himself holds in +simple faith, the first man. Red Earth, Adam, was a Jew, and the old +claim to be a peculiar people has been curiously confirmed by the +extraordinary genius and influence of the race, and by their boundless +wanderings. Go where we may, we find the Jew—has any other +wandered so far?</p> +<p>Yes, one. For wherever Jew has gone, there, too, we find the +gypsy. The Jew may be more ancient, but even the authentic origin of +the Romany is lost in ancient Aryan record, and, strictly speaking, his is +a prehistoric caste. Among the hundred and fifty wandering <!-- page +19--><a name="page19"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 19</span>tribes of India +and Persia, some of them Turanian, some Aryan, and others mixed, it is of +course difficult to identify the exact origin of the European gypsy. +One thing we know: that from the tenth to the twelfth century, and probably +much later on, India threw out from her northern half a vast multitude of +very troublesome indwellers. What with Buddhist, Brahman, and +Mohammedan wars,—invaders outlawing invaded,—the number of +out-<i>castes</i> became alarmingly great. To these the Jats, who, +according to Captain Burton, constituted the main stock of our gypsies, +contributed perhaps half their entire nation. Excommunication among +the Indian professors of transcendental benevolence meant social death and +inconceivable cruelty. Now there are many historical indications that +these outcasts, before leaving India, became gypsies, which was the most +natural thing in a country where such classes had already existed in very +great numbers from early times. And from one of the lowest castes, +which still exists in India, and is known as the Dom, <a +name="citation19"></a><a href="#footnote19" class="citation">[19]</a> the +emigrants to the West probably derived their name and several +characteristics. The Dom burns the dead, handles corpses, skins +beasts, and performs other functions, all of which were appropriated by, +and became peculiar to, gypsies in several countries in Europe, notably in +Denmark and Holland, for several centuries after their arrival there. +The Dom <!-- page 20--><a name="page20"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +20</span>of the present day also sells baskets, and wanders with a tent; he +is altogether gypsy. It is remarkable that he, living in a hot +climate, drinks ardent spirits to excess, being by no means a +“temperate Hindoo,” and that even in extreme old age his hair +seldom turns white, which is a noted peculiarity among our own gypsies of +pure blood. I know and have often seen a gypsy woman, nearly a +hundred years old, whose curling hair is black, or hardly perceptibly +changed. It is extremely probable that the Dom, mentioned as a caste +even in the Shastras, gave the name to the Rom. The Dom calls his +wife a Domni, and being a Dom is “Domnipana.” In English +gypsy, the same words are expressed by <i>Rom</i>, <i>romni</i>, and +<i>romnipen</i>. D, be it observed, very often changes to <i>r</i> in +its transfer from Hindoo to Romany. Thus <i>doi</i>, “a wooden +spoon,” becomes in gypsy <i>roi</i>, a term known to every tinker in +London. But, while this was probably the origin of the word Rom, +there were subsequent reasons for its continuance. Among the Cophts, +who were more abundant in Egypt when the first gypsies went there, the word +for man is <i>romi</i>, and after leaving Greece and the Levant, or +<i>Rum</i>, it would be natural for the wanderers to be called +<i>Rumi</i>. But the Dom was in all probability the parent stock of +the gypsy race, though the latter received vast accessions from many other +sources. I call attention to this, since it has always been held, and +sensibly enough, that the mere fact of the gypsies speaking Hindi-Persian, +or the oldest type of Urdu, including many Sanskrit terms, does not prove +an Indian or Aryan origin, any more than the English spoken by American +negroes proves a Saxon descent. But if the Rom can be identified <!-- +page 21--><a name="page21"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 21</span>with the +Dom—and the circumstantial evidence, it must be admitted, is very +strong—but little remains to seek, since, according to the Shastras, +the Doms are Hindoo.</p> +<p>Among the tribes whose union formed the European gypsy was, in all +probability, that of the <i>Nats</i>, consisting of singing and dancing +girls and male musicians and acrobats. Of these, we are told that not +less than ten thousand lute-players and minstrels, under the name of +<i>Luri</i>, were once sent to Persia as a present to a king, whose land +was then without music or song. This word <i>Luri</i> is still +preserved. The saddle-makers and leather-workers of Persia are called +Tsingani; they are, in their way, low caste, and a kind of gypsy, and it is +supposed that from them are possibly derived the names Zingan, Zigeuner, +Zingaro, etc., by which gypsies are known in so many lands. From Mr. +Arnold’s late work on “Persia,” the reader may learn that +the <i>Eeli</i>, who constitute the majority of the inhabitants of the +southern portion of that country, are Aryan nomads, and apparently +gypsies. There are also in India the Banjari, or wandering merchants, +and many other tribes, all spoken of as gypsies by those who know them.</p> +<p>As regards the great admixture of Persian with Hindi in good Romany, it +is quite unmistakable, though I can recall no writer who has attached +sufficient importance to a fact which identifies gypsies with what is +almost preeminently the land of gypsies. I once had the pleasure of +taking a Nile journey in company with Prince S---, a Persian, and in most +cases, when I asked my friend what this or that gypsy word meant, he gave +me its correct meaning, after a little thought, and then added, in his +imperfect English, “What for you want to know <!-- page 22--><a +name="page22"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 22</span>such word?—that +<i>old</i> word—that no more used. Only common people—old +peasant-woman—use that word—<i>gentleman</i> no want to know +him.” But I did want to know “him” very much. +I can remember that one night, when our <i>bon prince</i> had thus held +forth, we had dancing girls, or Almeh, on board, and one was very young and +pretty. I was told that she was gypsy, but she spoke no Romany. +Yet her panther eyes and serpent smile and <i>beauté du diable</i> +were not Egyptian, but of the Indian, <i>kalo-ratt</i>,—the dark +blood, which, once known, is known forever. I forgot her, however, +for a long time, until I went to Moscow, when she was recalled by dancing +and smiles, of which I will speak anon.</p> +<p>I was sitting one day by the Thames, in a gypsy tent, when its master, +Joshua Cooper, now dead, pointing to a swan, asked me for its name in +gypsy. I replied, “<i>Boro pappin</i>.”</p> +<p>“No, <i>rya</i>. <i>Boro pappin</i> is ‘a big +goose.’ <i>Sákkú</i> is the real gypsy +word. It is very old, and very few Romany know it.”</p> +<p>A few days after, when my Persian friend was dining with me at the +Langham Hotel, I asked him if he knew what Sákkú meant. +By way of reply, he, not being able to recall the English word, waved his +arms in wonderful pantomime, indicating some enormous winged creature; and +then, looking into the distance, and pointing as if to some far-vanishing +object, as boys do when they declaim Bryant’s address “To a +Water-Fowl,” said,—</p> +<p>“Sákkú—one ver’ big bird, like one +<i>swen</i>—but he <i>not</i> swen. He like the man who carry +too much water up-stairs <a name="citation22"></a><a href="#footnote22" +class="citation">[22]</a> his head in Constantinople. That <!-- page +23--><a name="page23"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 23</span>bird all same +that man. He <i>sakkia</i> all same wheel that you see get water +up-stairs in Egypt.”</p> +<p>This was explanatory, but far from satisfactory. The prince, +however, was mindful of me, and the next day I received from the Persian +embassy the word elegantly written in Persian, with the translation, +“<i>a pelican</i>.” Then it was all clear enough, for the +pelican bears water in the bag under its bill. When the gypsies came +to Europe they named animals after those which resembled them in +Asia. A dog they called <i>juckal</i>, from a jackal, and a swan +<i>sákkú</i>, or pelican, because it so greatly resembles +it. The Hindoo <i>bandarus</i>, or monkey, they have changed to +<i>bombaros</i>, but why Tom Cooper should declare that it is +<i>pugasah</i>, or <i>pukkus-asa</i>, I do not know. <a +name="citation23"></a><a href="#footnote23" class="citation">[23]</a> +As little can I conjecture the meaning of the prefix <i>mod</i>, or +<i>mode</i>, which I learned on the road near Weymouth from a very ancient +tinker, a man so battered, tattered, seamed, riven, and wrinkled that he +looked like a petrifaction. He had so bad a barrow, or wheel, that I +wondered what he could do with it, and regarded him as the very poorest man +I had ever seen in England, until his mate came up, an <i>alter ego</i>, so +excellent in antiquity, wrinkles, knobbiness, and rags that he surpassed +the vagabond pictures not only of Callot, Doré, and Goya, but even +the unknown Spanish maker of a picture which I met with not long since for +sale, and which for infinite poverty defied anything I ever saw on +canvas. These poor men, who seemed at first amazed that I should +speak to them at all, when I spoke Romany at once called me +“brother.” When I asked the younger his name, <!-- page +24--><a name="page24"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 24</span>he sank his +voice to a whisper, and, with a furtive air, said,—</p> +<p>“<i>Kámlo</i>,—Lovel, you know.”</p> +<p>“What do you call yourself in the way of business?” I +asked. “<i>Katsamengro</i>, I suppose.”</p> +<p>Now <i>Katsamengro</i> means scissors-master.</p> +<p>“That is a very good word. But <i>chivó</i> is +deeper.”</p> +<p>“<i>Chivó</i> means a knife-man?”</p> +<p>“Yes. But the deepest of all, master, is +<i>Modangaréngro</i>. For you see that the right word for +coals isn’t <i>wongur</i>, as Romanys generally say, but +<i>Angára</i>.”</p> +<p>Now <i>angára</i>, as Pott and Benfey indicate, is pure Sanskrit +for coals, and <i>angaréngro</i> is a worker in coals, but what +<i>mod</i> means I know not, and should be glad to be told.</p> +<p>I think it will be found difficult to identify the European gypsy with +any one stock of the wandering races of India. Among those who left +that country were men of different castes and different color, varying from +the pure northern invader to the negro-like southern Indian. In the +Danubian principalities there are at the present day three kinds of +gypsies: one very dark and barbarous, another light brown and more +intelligent, and the third, or <i>élite</i>, of yellow-pine +complexion, as American boys characterize the hue of quadroons. Even +in England there are straight-haired and curly-haired Romanys, the two +indicating not a difference resulting from white admixture, but entirely +different original stocks.</p> +<p>It will, I trust, be admitted, even from these remarks, that Romanology, +or that subdivision of ethnology which treats of gypsies, is both practical +and <!-- page 25--><a name="page25"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +25</span>curious. It deals with the only race except the Jew, which +has penetrated into every village which European civilization has ever +touched. He who speaks Romany need be a stranger in few lands, for on +every road in Europe and America, in Western Asia, and even in Northern +Africa, he will meet those with whom a very few words may at once establish +a peculiar understanding. For, of all things believed in by this +widely spread brotherhood, the chief is this,—that he who knows the +<i>jib</i>, or language, knows the ways, and that no one ever attained +these without treading strange paths, and threading mysteries unknown to +the Gorgios, or Philistines. And if he who speaks wears a good coat, +and appears a gentleman, let him rest assured that he will receive the +greeting which all poor relations in all lands extend to those of their kin +who have risen in life. Some of them, it is true, manifest the +winsome affection which is based on great expectations, a sentiment largely +developed among British gypsies; but others are honestly proud that a +gentleman is not ashamed of them. Of this latter class were the +musical gypsies, whom I met in Russia during the winter of 1876 and 1877, +and some of them again in Paris during the Exposition of 1878.</p> +<h3>ST. PETERSBURG.</h3> +<p>There are gypsies and gypsies in the world, for there are the wanderers +on the roads and the secret dwellers in towns; but even among the +<i>aficionados</i>, or Romany ryes, by whom I mean those scholars who are +fond of studying life and language from the people themselves, very few +have dreamed that there exist communities of gentlemanly and lady-like +gypsies <!-- page 26--><a name="page26"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +26</span>of art, like the Bohemians of Murger and George Sand, but +differing from them in being real “Bohemians” by race. I +confess that it had never occurred to me that there was anywhere in Europe, +at the present day, least of all in the heart of great and wealthy cities, +a class or caste devoted entirely to art, well-to-do or even rich, refined +in manners, living in comfortable homes, the women dressing elegantly; and +yet with all this obliged to live by law, as did the Jews once, in Ghettos +or in a certain street, and regarded as outcasts and +<i>cagôts</i>. I had heard there were gypsies in Russian +cities, and expected to find them like the <i>kérengri</i> of +England or Germany,—house-dwellers somewhat reformed from +vagabondage, but still reckless semi-outlaws, full of tricks and lies; in a +word, <i>gypsies</i>, as the world understands the term. And I +certainly anticipated in Russia something <i>queer</i>,—the gentleman +who speaks Romany seldom fails to achieve at least that, whenever he gets +into an unbroken haunt, an unhunted forest, where the Romany rye is +unknown,—but nothing like what I really found. A recent writer +on Russia <a name="citation26"></a><a href="#footnote26" +class="citation">[26]</a> speaks with great contempt of these musical +Romanys, their girls attired in dresses by Worth, as compared with the free +wild outlaws of the steppes, who, with dark, ineffable glances, meaning +nothing more than a wild-cat’s, steal poultry, and who, wrapped in +dirty sheep-skins, proudly call themselves <i>Mi dvorane Polaivii</i>, +Lords of the Waste. The gypsies of Moscow, who appeared to me the +most interesting I have ever met, because most remote from the Surrey +ideal, seemed to Mr. Johnstone to be a kind of second-rate Romanys <!-- +page 27--><a name="page27"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 27</span>or +gypsies, gypsified for exhibition, like Mr. Barnum’s negro minstrel, +who, though black as a coal by nature, was requested to put on burnt cork +and a wig, that the audience might realize that they were getting a +thoroughly good imitation. Mr. Johnstone’s own words are that a +gypsy maiden in a long <i>queue</i>, “which perhaps came from +Worth,” is “horrible,” “<i>corruptio optimi pessima +est</i>;” and he further compares such a damsel to a negro with a +cocked hat and spurs. As the only negro thus arrayed who presents +himself to my memory was one who lay dead on the battle-field in Tennessee, +after one of the bravest resistances in history, and in which he and his +men, not having moved, were extended in “stark, serried lines” +(“ten cart-loads of dead niggers,” said a man to me who helped +to bury them), I may be excused for not seeing the wit of the +comparison. As for the gypsies of Moscow, I can only say that, after +meeting them in public, and penetrating to their homes, where I was +received as one of themselves, even as a Romany, I found that this opinion +of them was erroneous, and that they were altogether original in spite of +being clean, deeply interesting although honest, and a quite attractive +class in most respects, notwithstanding their ability to read and +write. Against Mr. Johnstone’s impressions, I may set the +straightforward and simple result of the experiences of Mr. W. R. +Ralston. “The gypsies of Moscow,” he says, “are +justly celebrated for their picturesqueness and for their wonderful +capacity for music. All who have heard their women sing are +enthusiastic about the weird witchery of the performance.”</p> +<p>When I arrived in St. Petersburg, one of my first <!-- page 28--><a +name="page28"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 28</span>inquiries was for +gypsies. To my astonishment, they were hard to find. They are +not allowed to live in the city; and I was told that the correct and proper +way to see them would be to go at night to certain <i>cafés</i>, +half an hour’s sleigh-ride from the town, and listen to their +concerts. What I wanted, however, was not a concert, but a +conversation; not gypsies on exhibition, but gypsies at home,—and +everybody seemed to be of the opinion that those of “Samarcand” +and “Dorot” were entirely got up for effect. In fact, I +heard the opinion hazarded that, even if they spoke Romany, I might depend +upon it they had acquired it simply to deceive. One gentleman, who +had, however, been much with them in other days, assured me that they were +of pure blood, and had an inherited language of their own. +“But,” he added, “I am sure you will not understand +it. You may be able to talk with those in England, but not with ours, +because there is not a single word in their language which resembles +anything in English, German, French, Latin, Greek, or Italian. I can +only recall,” he added, “one phrase. I don’t know +what it means, and I think it will puzzle you. It is <i>me +kamāva tut</i>.”</p> +<p>If I experienced internal laughter at hearing this it was for a good +reason, which I can illustrate by an anecdote: “I have often +observed, when I lived in China,” said Mr. Hoffman Atkinson, author +of “A Vocabulary of the Yokohama Dialect,” “that most +young men, particularly the gay and handsome ones, generally asked me, +about the third day after their arrival in the country, the meaning of the +Pidgin-English phrase, ‘You makee too muchee +lov-lov-pidgin.’ Investigation always established the fact that +<!-- page 29--><a name="page29"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 29</span>the +inquirer had heard it from ‘a pretty China girl.’ Now +<i>lov-pidgin</i> means love, and <i>me kamāva tut</i> is perfectly +good gypsy anywhere for ‘I love you;’ and a very soft +expression it is, recalling <i>kama-deva</i>, the Indian Cupid, whose bow +is strung with bees, and whose name has two strings to it, since it means, +both in gypsy and Sanskrit, Love-God, or the god of love. +‘It’s <i>kāma-duvel</i>, you know, <i>rya</i>, if you put +it as it ought to be,’ said Old Windsor Froggie to me once; +‘but I think that Kāma-<i>devil</i> would by rights come nearer +to it, if Cupid is what you mean.’”</p> +<p>I referred the gypsy difficulty to a Russian gentleman of high position, +to whose kindness I had been greatly indebted while in St. +Petersburg. He laughed.</p> +<p>“Come with me to-morrow night to the <i>cafés</i>, and see +the gypsies; I know them well, and can promise that you shall talk with +them as much as you like. Once, in Moscow, I got together all in the +town—perhaps a hundred and fifty—to entertain the American +minister, Curtin. That was a very hard thing to do,—there was +so much professional jealousy among them, and so many quarrels. Would +you have believed it?”</p> +<p>I thought of the feuds between sundry sturdy Romanys in England, and +felt that I could suppose such a thing, without dangerously stretching my +faith, and I began to believe in Russian gypsies.</p> +<p>“Well, then, I shall call for you to-morrow night with a +<i>troika</i>; I will come early,—at ten. They never begin to +sing before company arrive at eleven, so that you will have half an hour to +talk to them.”</p> +<p>It is on record that the day on which the general gave me this kind +invitation was the coldest known <!-- page 30--><a name="page30"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 30</span>in St. Petersburg for thirty years, the +thermometer having stood, or rather having lain down and groveled that +morning at 40° below zero, Fahr. At the appointed hour the +<i>troika</i>, or three-horse sleigh, was before the Hôtel +d’Europe. It was, indeed, an arctic night, but, well wrapped in +fur-lined <i>shubas</i>, with immense capes which fall to the elbow or rise +far above the head, as required, and wearing fur caps and fur-lined gloves, +we felt no cold. The beard of our <i>istvostshik</i>, or driver, was +a great mass of ice, giving him the appearance of an exceedingly hoary +youth, and his small horses, being very shaggy and thoroughly frosted, +looked in the darkness like immense polar bears. If the general and +myself could only have been considered as gifts of the slightest value to +anybody, I should have regarded our turn-out, with the driver in his +sheep-skin coat, as coming within a miracle of resemblance to that of Santa +Claus, the American Father Christmas.</p> +<p>On, at a tremendous pace, over the snow, which gave out under our +runners that crunching, iron sound only heard when the thermometer touches +zero. There is a peculiar fascination about the <i>troika</i>, and +the sweetest, saddest melody and most plaintive song of Russia belong to +it.</p> +<h3>THE TROIKA.</h3> +<p><i>Vot y’dit troika udalaiya</i>.</p> +<blockquote> +<p>Hear ye the troika-bell a-ringing,<br /> + And see the peasant driver there?<br /> +Hear ye the mournful song he’s singing,<br /> + Like distant tolling through the air?</p> +<p>“O eyes, blue eyes, to me so lonely,<br /> + O eyes—alas!—ye give me pain;<br /> +<!-- page 31--><a name="page31"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 31</span>O +eyes, that once looked at me only,<br /> + I ne’er shall see your like again.</p> +<p>“Farewell, my darling, now in heaven,<br /> + And still the heaven of my soul;<br /> +Farewell, thou father town, O Moscow,<br /> + Where I have left my life, my all!”</p> +<p>And ever at the rein still straining,<br /> + One backward glance the driver gave;<br /> +Sees but once more a green low hillock,<br /> + Sees but once more his loved one’s grave.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>“<i>Stoi</i>!”—Halt! We stopped at a +stylish-looking building, entered a hall, left our <i>skubas</i>, and I +heard the general ask, “Are the gypsies here?” An +affirmative being given, we entered a large room, and there, sure enough, +stood six or eight girls and two men, all very well dressed, and all +unmistakably Romany, though smaller and of much slighter or more delicate +frame than the powerful gypsy “travelers” of England. In +an instant every pair of great, wild eyes was fixed on me. The +general was in every way a more striking figure, but I was manifestly a +fresh stranger, who knew nothing of the country, and certainly nothing of +gypsies or gypsydom. Such a verdant visitor is always most +interesting. It was not by any means my first reception of the kind, +and, as I reviewed at a glance the whole party, I said within +myself:—</p> +<p>“Wait an instant, you black snakes, and I will give you something +to make you stare.”</p> +<p>This promise I kept, when a young man, who looked like a handsome light +Hindoo, stepped up and addressed me in Russian. I looked long and +steadily at him before I spoke, and then said:—</p> +<p>“<i>Latcho divvus prala</i>!” (Good day, brother.)</p> +<p>“What is <i>that</i>?” he exclaimed, startled.</p> +<p><!-- page 32--><a name="page32"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +32</span>“<i>Tu jines latcho adosta</i>.” (You know very +well.) And then, with the expression in his face of a man who has +been familiarly addressed by a brazen statue, or asked by a new-born babe, +“What o’clock is it?” but with great joy, he +cried:—</p> +<p>“<i>Romanichal</i>!”</p> +<p>In an instant they were all around me, marveling greatly, and earnestly +expressing their marvel, at what new species of gypsy I might be; being in +this quite unlike those of England, who, even when they are astonished +“out of their senses” at being addressed in Romany by a +gentleman, make the most red-Indian efforts to conceal their +amazement. But I speedily found that these Russian gypsies were as +unaffected and child-like as they were gentle in manner, and that they +compared with our own prize-fighting, sturdy-begging, always-suspecting +Romany roughs and <i>rufianas</i> as a delicate greyhound might compare +with a very shrewd old bull-dog, trained by an unusually “fly” +tramp.</p> +<p>That the girls were first to the fore in questioning me will be doubted +by no one. But we had great trouble in effecting a mutual +understanding. Their Romany was full of Russian; their pronunciation +puzzled me; they “bit off their words,” and used many in a +strange or false sense. Yet, notwithstanding this, I contrived to +converse pretty readily with the men,—very readily with the captain, +a man as dark as Ben Lee, to those who know Benjamin, or as mahogany, to +those who know him not. But with the women it was very difficult to +converse. There is a theory current that women have a specialty of +tact and readiness in understanding a foreigner, or in making themselves +understood; it may be so with <!-- page 33--><a name="page33"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 33</span>cultivated ladies, but it is my experience +that, among the uneducated, men have a monopoly of such quick +intelligence. In order fully to convince them that we really had a +tongue in common, I repeated perhaps a hundred nouns, giving, for instance, +the names of various parts of the body, of articles of apparel and objects +in the room, and I believe that we did not find a single word which, when +pronounced distinctly by itself, was not intelligible to us all. I +had left in London a Russo-Romany vocabulary, once published in “The +Asiatic Magazine,” and I had met with Böhtlinghk’s article +on the dialect, as well as specimens of it in the works of Pott and +Miklosich, but had unfortunately learned nothing of it from them. I +soon found, however, that I knew a great many more gypsy words than did my +new friends, and that our English Romany far excels the Russian in <i>copia +verborum</i>.</p> +<p>“But I must sit down.” I observed on this and other +occasions that Russian gypsies are very naïf. And as it is in +human nature to prefer sitting by a pretty girl, these Slavonian Romanys so +arrange it according to the principles of natural selection—or +natural politeness—that, when a stranger is in their gates, the two +prettiest girls in their possession sit at his right and left, the two less +attractive next again, <i>et seriatim</i>. So at once a damsel of +comely mien, arrayed in black silk attire, of faultless elegance, cried to +me, pointing to a chair by her side, “<i>Bersh tu alay</i>, +<i>rya</i>!” (Sit down, sir),—a phrase which would be +perfectly intelligible to any Romany in England. I admit that there +was another damsel, who is generally regarded by most people as the true +gypsy belle of the party, who did not sit by me. <!-- page 34--><a +name="page34"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 34</span>But, as the one who had +“voted herself into the chair,” by my side, was more to my +liking, being the most intelligent and most gypsy, I had good cause to +rejoice.</p> +<p>I was astonished at the sensible curiosity as to gypsy life in other +lands which was displayed, and at the questions asked. I really doubt +if I ever met with an English gypsy who cared a farthing to know anything +about his race as it exists in foreign countries, or whence it came. +Once, and once only, I thought I had interested White George, at East +Moulsey, in an account of Egypt, and the small number of Romanys there; but +his only question was to the effect that, if there were so few gypsies in +Egypt, wouldn’t it be a good place for him to go to sell +baskets? These of Russia, however, asked all kinds of questions about +the manners and customs of their congeners, and were pleased when they +recognized familiar traits. And every gypsyism, whether of word or +way, was greeted with delighted laughter. In one thing I noted a +radical difference between these gypsies and those of the rest of Europe +and of America. There was none of that continually assumed mystery +and Romany freemasonry, of superior occult knowledge and “deep” +information, which is often carried to the depths of absurdity and to the +height of humbug. I say this advisedly, since, however much it may +give charm to a novel or play, it is a serious impediment to a +philologist. Let me give an illustration.</p> +<p>Once, during the evening, these Russian gypsies were anxious to know if +there were any books in their language. Now I have no doubt that Dr. +Bath Smart, or Prof. E. H. Palmer, or any other of the <!-- page 35--><a +name="page35"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 35</span>initiated, will +perfectly understand when I say that by mere force of habit I shivered and +evaded the question. When a gentleman who manifests a knowledge of +Romany among gypsies in England is suspected of “dixonary” +studies, it amounts to <i>lasciate ogni speranza</i>,—give up all +hope of learning any more.</p> +<p>“I’m glad to see you here, <i>rya</i>, in my tent,” +said the before-mentioned Ben Lee to me one night, in camp near Weybridge, +“because I’ve heard, and I know, you didn’t pick up +<i>your</i> Romany out of books.”</p> +<p>The silly dread, the hatred, the childish antipathy, real or affected, +but always ridiculous, which is felt in England, not only among gypsies, +but even by many gentlemen scholars, to having the Romany language +published is indescribable. Vambéry was not more averse to +show a lead pencil among Tartars than I am to take notes of words among +strange English gypsies. I might have spared myself any annoyance +from such a source among the Russian Romanys. They had not heard of +Mr. George Borrow; nor were there ugly stories current among them to the +effect that Dr. Smart and Prof. E. H. Palmer had published works, the +direct result of which would be to facilitate their little paths to the +jail, the gallows, and the grave.</p> +<p>“Would we hear some singing?” We were ready, and for +the first time in my life I listened to the long-anticipated, far-famed +magical melody of Russian gypsies. And what was it like? May I +preface my reply to the reader with the remark that there are, roughly +speaking, two kinds of music in the world,—the wild and the +tame,—and the rarest of human <!-- page 36--><a +name="page36"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 36</span>beings is he who can +appreciate both. Only one such man ever wrote a book, and his +<i>nomen et omen</i> is Engel, like that of the little English slaves who +were <i>non Angli</i>, <i>sed angeli</i>. I have in my time been +deeply moved by the choruses of Nubian boatmen; I have listened with great +pleasure to Chinese and Japanese music,—Ole Bull once told me he had +done the same; I have delighted by the hour in Arab songs; and I have felt +the charm of our red-Indian music. If this seems absurd to those who +characterize all such sound and song as “caterwauling,” let me +remind the reader that in all Europe there is not one man fonder of music +than an average Arab, a Chinese, or a red Indian; for any of these people, +as I have seen and know, will sit twelve or fifteen hours, without the +least weariness, listening to what cultivated Europeans all consider as a +mere charivari. When London gladly endures fifteen-hour concerts, +composed of <i>morceaux</i> by Wagner, Chopin, and Liszt, I will believe +that art can charm as much as nature.</p> +<p>The medium point of intelligence in this puzzle may be found in the +extraordinary fascination which many find in the monotonous tum-tum of the +banjo, and which reappears, somewhat refined, or at least somewhat +Frenchified, in the <i>Bamboula</i> and other Creole airs. Thence, in +an ascending series, but connected with it, we have old Spanish melodies, +then the Arabic, and here we finally cross the threshold into mystery, +midnight, and “caterwauling.” I do not know that I can +explain the fact why the more “barbarous” music is, the more it +is beloved of man; but I think that the principle of the <i>refrain</i>, or +repetition in music, which as yet governs all decorative art and which Mr. +Whistler and others are endeavoring <!-- page 37--><a +name="page37"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 37</span>desperately to destroy, +acts in music as a sort of animal magnetism or abstraction, ending in an +<i>extase</i>. As for the fascination which such wild melodies exert, +it is beyond description. The most enraptured audience I ever saw in +my life was at a Coptic wedding in Cairo, where one hundred and fifty +guests listened, from seven <span class="smcap">p.m.</span> till three +<span class="smcap">a.m.</span>, and Heaven knows how much later, to what a +European would call absolute jangling, yelping, and howling.</p> +<p>The real medium, however, between what I have, for want of better words, +called wild and tame music exists only in that of the Russian +gypsies. These artists, with wonderful tact and untaught skill, have +succeeded, in all their songs, in combining the mysterious and maddening +charm of the true, wild Eastern music with that of regular and simple +melody, intelligible to every Western ear. I have never listened to +the singing or playing of any distinguished artist—and certainly +never of any far-famed amateur—without realizing that neither words +nor melody was of the least importance, but that the man’s manner of +performance or display was everything. Now, in enjoying gypsy +singing, one feels at once as if the vocalists had entirely forgotten self, +and were carried away by the bewildering beauty of the air and the charm of +the words. There is no self-consciousness, no vanity,—all is +real. The listener feels as if he were a performer; the performer is +an enraptured listener. There is no soulless “art for the sake +of art,” but art for direct pleasure.</p> +<p>“We intend to sing only Romany for <i>you</i>, <i>rya</i>,” +said the young lady to my left, “and you will hear our real gypsy +airs. The <i>Gaji</i> [Russians] often ask for songs in our language, +and don’t get them. But <!-- page 38--><a +name="page38"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 38</span>you are a Romanichal, +and when you go home, far over the <i>baro kālo pāni</i> [the +broad black water, that is, the ocean], you shall tell the Romany how we +can sing. Listen!”</p> +<p>And I listened to the strangest, wildest, and sweetest singing I ever +had heard,—the singing of Lurleis, of sirens, of witches. +First, one damsel, with an exquisitely clear, firm voice, began to sing a +verse of a love-ballad, and as it approached the end the chorus stole in, +softly and unperceived, but with exquisite skill, until, in a few seconds, +the summer breeze, murmuring melody over a rippling lake, seemed changed to +a midnight tempest, roaring over a stormy sea, in which the <i>basso</i> of +the <i>kālo shureskro</i> (the black captain) pealed like +thunder. Just as it died away a second girl took up the melody, very +sweetly, but with a little more excitement,—it was like a gleam of +moonlight on the still agitated waters, a strange contralto witch-gleam; +and then again the chorus and the storm; and then another solo yet sweeter, +sadder, and stranger,—the movement continually increasing, until all +was fast, and wild, and mad,—a locomotive quickstep, and then a +sudden silence—sunlight—the storm had blown away.</p> +<p>Nothing on earth is so like magic and elfin-work as when women burst +forth into improvised melody. The bird only “sings as his bill +grew,” or what he learned from the elders; yet when you hear birds +singing in woodland green, throwing out to God or the fairies irrepressible +floods of what seems like audible sunshine, so well does it match with +summer’s light, you think it is wonderful. It is mostly when +you forget the long training of the prima donna, in her ease and apparent +naturalness, that her song is <!-- page 39--><a name="page39"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 39</span>sweetest. But there is a charm, which was +well known of old, though we know it not to-day, which was practiced by the +bards and believed in by their historians. It was the feeling that +the song was born of the moment; that it came with the air, gushing and +fresh from the soul. In reading the strange stories of the +professional bards and scalds and minstrels of the early Middle Age, one is +constantly bewildered at the feats of off-hand composition which were +exacted of the poets among Celts or Norsemen. And it is evident +enough that in some mysterious way these singers knew how to put strange +pressure on the Muse, and squeeze strains out of her in a manner which +would have been impossible at present.</p> +<p>Yet it lingers here and there on earth among wild, strange +people,—this art of making melody at will. I first heard it +among Nubian boatmen on the Nile. It was as manifest that it was +composed during the making as that the singers were unconscious of their +power. One sung at first what may have been a well-known verse. +While singing, another voice stole in, and yet another, softly as shadows +steal into twilight; and ere I knew it all were in a great chorus, which +fell away as mysteriously, to become duos, trios,—changing in melody +in strange, sweet, fitful wise, as the faces seen in the golden cloud in +the visioned aureole of God blend, separate, burn, and fade away ever into +fresher glory and tints incarnadined.</p> +<p>Miss C. F. Gordon Cumming, after informing us that “it is utterly +impossible to give you the faintest shadow of an idea of the fascination of +Tahitian <i>himénes</i>,” proceeds, as men in general and +women in particular invariably do, to give what the writer <!-- page +40--><a name="page40"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 40</span>really believes +is a very good description indeed. ’T is ever thus, and thus +’t will ever be, and the description of these songs is so good that +any person gifted with imagination or poetry cannot fail to smile at the +preceding disavowal of her ability to give an idea.</p> +<p>These <i>himénes</i> are not—and here such of my too +expectant young lady-readers as are careless in spelling will be sadly +disappointed—in any way connected with weddings. They are +simply the natural music of Tahiti, or strange and beautiful +part-songs. “Nothing you have ever heard in any other +country,” says our writer, “bears the slightest resemblance to +these wild, exquisite glees, faultless in time and harmony, though +apparently each singer introduces any variations which may occur to him or +to her. Very often there is no leader, and apparently all sing +according to their own sweet will. One voice commences; it may be +that of an old native, with genuine native words (the meaning of which we +had better not inquire), or it may be with a Scriptural story, versified +and sung to an air originally from Europe, but so completely Tahitianized +that no mortal could recognize it, which is all in its favor, for the wild +melodies of this isle are beyond measure fascinating.</p> +<p>“After one clause of solo, another strikes in—here, there, +everywhere—in harmonious chorus. It seems as if one section +devoted themselves to pouring forth a rippling torrent of ‘Ra, ra, +ra—ra—ra!’ while others burst into a flood of ‘La, +la—la—la—la!’ Some confine their care to +sound a deep, booming bass in a long-continued drone, somewhat suggestive +(to my appreciative Highland ear) of our own bagpipes. Here and there +high falsetto notes <!-- page 41--><a name="page41"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 41</span>strike in, varied from verse to verse, and then +the choruses of La and Ra come bubbling in liquid melody, while the voices +of the principal singers now join in unison, now diverge as widely as it is +possible for them to do, but all combine to produce the quaintest, most +melodious, rippling glee that ever was heard.”</p> +<p>This is the <i>himéne</i>; such the singing which I heard in +Egypt in a more regular form; but it was exactly as the writer so admirably +sets it forth (and your description, my lady traveler, is, despite your +disavowal, quite perfect and a <i>himéne</i> of itself) that I heard +the gypsy girls of St. Petersburg and of Moscow sing. For, after a +time, becoming jolly as flies, first one voice began with “La, la, +la—la—la!” to an unnamed, unnamable, charming melody, +into which went and came other voices, some bringing one verse or no verse, +in unison or alone, the least expected doing what was most awaited, which +was to surprise us and call forth gay peals of happy laughter, while the +“La, la, la—la—la!” was kept up continuously, like +an accompaniment. And still the voices, basso, soprano, tenor, +baritone, contralto, rose and fell, the moment’s inspiration telling +how, till at last all blended in a locomotive-paced La, and in a final roar +of laughter it ended.</p> +<p>I could not realize at the time how much this exquisite part-singing was +extemporized. The sound of it rung in my head—I assure you, +reader, it rings there yet when I think of it—like a magic +bell. Another day, however, when I begged for a repetition of it, the +girls could recall nothing of it. They could start it again on any +air to the unending strain of “La—la—la;” but +<i>the</i> “La—la—la” of the <!-- page 42--><a +name="page42"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 42</span>previous evening was +<i>avec les neiges d’antan</i>, with the smoke of yesterday’s +fire, with the perfume and bird-songs. “La, la, +la—la—la!”</p> +<p>In Arab singing, such effects are applied simply to set forth +erotomania; in negro minstrelsy, they are degraded to the lowest humor; in +higher European music, when employed, they simply illustrate the skill of +composer and musician. The spirit of gypsy singing recalled by its +method and sweetness that of the Nubian boatmen, but in its <i>general</i> +effect I could think only of those strange fits of excitement which thrill +the red Indian and make him burst into song. The Abbé Domenech +<a name="citation42"></a><a href="#footnote42" class="citation">[42]</a> +has observed that the American savage pays attention to every sound that +strikes upon his ear when the leaves, softly shaken by the evening breeze, +seem to sigh through the air, or when the tempest, bursting forth with +fury, shakes the gigantic trees that crack like reeds. “The +chirping of the birds, the cry of the wild beasts, in a word, all those +sweet, grave, or imposing voices that animate the wilderness, are so many +musical lessons, which he easily remembers.” In illustration of +this, the missionary describes the singing of a Chippewa chief, and its +wild inspiration, in a manner which vividly illustrates all music of the +class of which I write.</p> +<p>“It was,” he says, “during one of those long winter +nights, so monotonous and so wearisome in the woods. We were in a +wigwam, which afforded us but miserable shelter from the inclemency of the +season. The storm raged without; the tempest roared in the open +country; the wind blew with violence, and whistled through the fissures of +the cabin; the rain fell in torrents, and prevented us from continuing <!-- +page 43--><a name="page43"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 43</span>our +route. Our host was an Indian, with sparkling and intelligent eyes, +clad with a certain elegance, and wrapped majestically in a large fur +cloak. Seated close to the fire, which cast a reddish gleam through +the interior of his wigwam, he felt himself all at once seized with an +irresistible desire to imitate the convulsions of nature, and to sing his +impressions. So, taking hold of a drum which hung near his bed, he +beat a slight rolling, resembling the distant sounds of an approaching +storm; then, raising his voice to a shrill treble, which he knew how to +soften when he pleased, he imitated the whistling of the air, the creaking +of the branches dashing against one another, and the particular noise +produced by dead leaves when accumulated in compact masses on the +ground. By degrees the rollings of the drum became more frequent and +louder, the chants more sonorous and shrill, and at last our Indian +shrieked, howled, and roared in a most frightful manner; he struggled and +struck his instrument with extraordinary rapidity. It was a real +tempest, to which nothing was wanting, not even the distant howling of the +dogs, nor the bellowing of the affrighted buffaloes.”</p> +<p>I have observed the same musical inspiration of a storm upon Arabs, who, +during their singing, also accompanied themselves on a drum. I once +spent two weeks in a Mediterranean steamboat, on board of which were more +than two hundred pilgrims, for the greater part wild Bedouins, going to +Mecca. They had a minstrel who sang and played on the +<i>darabuka</i>, or earthenware drum, and he was aided by another with a +simple <i>nai</i>, or reed-whistle; the same orchestra, in fact, which is +in universal use among all red Indians. To these performers the +pilgrims listened <!-- page 44--><a name="page44"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 44</span>with indescribable pleasure; and I soon found +that they regarded me favorably because I did the same, being, of course, +the only Frank on board who paid any attention to the singing—or any +money for it. But it was at night and during storms that the spirit +of music always seemed to be strongest on the Arabs, and then, amid roaring +of wild waters and thundering, and in dense darkness, the rolling of the +drum and the strange, bewildering ballads never ceased. It was the +very counterpart, in all respects, of the Chippewa storm song.</p> +<p>After the first gypsy lyric there came another, to which the captain +especially directed my attention as being what Sam Petulengro calls +“reg’lar Romany.” It was <i>I rakli adro o lolo +gad</i> (The girl in the red chemise), as well as I can recall his +words,—a very sweet song, with a simple but spirited chorus; and as +the sympathetic electricity of excitement seized the performers we were all +in a minute “going down the rapids in a spring freshet.”</p> +<p>“<i>Bagan tu rya</i>, <i>bagan</i>!” (Sing, sir,—sing) +cried my handsome neighbor, with her black gypsy eyes sparkling fire. +“<i>Jines hi bagan eto</i>—<i>eto latcho +Romanes</i>.” (You can sing that,—it’s real +Romany.) It was evident that she and all were singing with thorough +enjoyment, and with a full and realizing consciousness of gypsyism, being +greatly stimulated by my presence and sympathy. I felt that the +gypsies were taking unusual pains to please the Romany rye from the +<i>dur’ tem</i>, or far country, and they had attained the acme of +success by being thoroughly delighted with themselves, which is all that +can be hoped for in art, where the aim is pleasure and not criticism.</p> +<p><!-- page 45--><a name="page45"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +45</span>There was a pause in the performance, but none in the chattering +of the young ladies, and during this a curious little incident +occurred. Wishing to know if my pretty friend could understand an +English gypsy lyric, I sang in an undertone a ballad, taken from George +Borrow’s “Lavengro,” and which begins with these +words:—</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“Pende Eomani chai ke laki dye;<br /> +‘Miri diri dye, mi shom kāmeli.’”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>I never knew whether this was really an old gypsy poem or one written by +Mr. Borrow. Once, when I repeated it to old Henry James, as he sat +making baskets, I was silenced by being told, “That ain’t no +real gypsy <i>gilli</i>. That’s one of the kind made up by +gentlemen and ladies.” However, as soon as I repeated it, the +Russian gypsy girl cried eagerly, “I know that song!” and +actually sang me a ballad which was essentially the same, in which a damsel +describes her fall, owing to a Gajo (Gorgio, a Gentile,—not gypsy) +lover, and her final expulsion from the tent. It was adapted to a +very pretty melody, and as soon as she had sung it, <i>sotto voce</i>, my +pretty friend exclaimed to another girl, “Only think, the <i>rye</i> +from America knows <i>that</i> song!” Now, as many centuries +must have passed since the English and Russian gypsies parted from the +parent stock, the preservation of this song is very remarkable, and its +antiquity must be very great. I did not take it down, but any +resident in St. Petersburg can, if so inclined, do so among the gypsies at +Dorat, and verify my statement.</p> +<p>Then there was a pretty dance, of a modified Oriental character, by one +of the damsels. For this, as for the singing, the only musical +instrument used was <!-- page 46--><a name="page46"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 46</span>a guitar, which had seven strings, tuned in +Spanish fashion, and was rather weak in tone. I wished it had been a +powerful Panormo, which would have exactly suited the <i>timbre</i> of +these voices. The gypsies were honestly interested in all I could +tell them about their kind in other lands; while the girls were +professionally desirous to hear more Anglo-Romany songs, and were +particularly pleased with one beginning with the words:—</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“‘Me shom akonyo,’ gildas yoi,<br /> + Men būti ruzhior,<br /> +Te sār i chiriclia adoi<br /> + Pen mengy gilior.’”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Though we “got on” after a manner in our Romany talk, I was +often obliged to have recourse to my friend the general to translate long +sentences into Russian, especially when some sand-bar of a verb or some log +of a noun impeded the current of our conversation. Finally, a formal +request was made by the captain that I would, as one deep beyond all their +experience in Romany matters, kindly tell them what kind of people they +really were, and whence they came. With this demand I cheerfully +complied, every word being listened to with breathless interest. So I +told them what I knew or had conjectured relative to their Indian origin: +how their fathers had wandered forth through Persia; how their travels +could be traced by the Persian, Greek, or Roumanian words in the language; +how in 1417 a band of them appeared in Europe, led by a few men of great +diplomatic skill, who, by crafty dealing, obtained from the Pope, the +Emperor of Germany, and all the kings of Europe, except that of England, +permission to wander for fifty years as pilgrims, declaring that they <!-- +page 47--><a name="page47"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 47</span>had been +Christians, but, having become renegades, the King of Hungary had imposed a +penance on them of half a century’s exile. Then I informed them +that precisely the same story had been told by them to the rulers in Syria +and Egypt, only that in the Mohammedan countries they pretended to be good +followers of Islam. I said there was reason to believe that some of +their people had been in Poland and the other Slavonic countries ever since +the eleventh century, but that those of England must have gone directly +from Eastern Europe to Great Britain; for, although they had many Slavic +words, such as <i>krallis</i> (king) and <i>shuba</i>, there were no French +terms, and very few traces of German or Italian, in the English +dialect. I observed that the men all understood the geographical +allusions which I made, knowing apparently where India, Persia, and Egypt +were situated—a remarkable contrast to our own English +“travelers,” one of whom once informed me that he would like to +go “on the road” in America, “because you know, sir, as +America lays along into France, we could get our French baskets cheaper +there.”</p> +<p>I found, on inquiry, that the Russian gypsies profess Christianity; but, +as the religion of the Greek church, as I saw it, appears to be practically +something very little better than fetich-worship, I cannot exalt them as +models of evangelical piety. They are, however, according to a +popular proverb, not far from godliness in being very clean in their +persons; and not only did they appear so to me, but I was assured by +several Russians that, as regarded these singing gypsies, it was invariably +the case. As for morality in gypsy girls, their principles are very +peculiar. <!-- page 48--><a name="page48"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 48</span>Not a whisper of scandal attaches to these +Russian Romany women as regards transient amours. But if a wealthy +Russian gentleman falls in love with one, and will have and hold her +permanently, or for a durable connection, he may take her to his home if +she likes him, but must pay monthly a sum into the gypsy treasury; for +these people apparently form an <i>artel</i>, or society-union, like all +other classes of Russians. It may be suggested, as an explanation of +this apparent incongruity, that gypsies all the world over regard steady +cohabitation, or agreement, as marriage, binding themselves, as it were, by +<i>Gand-harbavivaha</i>, as the saint married Vasantasena, which is an old +Sanskrit way of wedding. And let me remark that if one tenth of what +I heard in Russia about “morals” in the highest or lowest or +any other class be true, the gypsies of that country are shining lights and +brilliant exemplars of morality to all by whom they are surrounded. +Let me also add that never on any occasion did I hear or see among them +anything in the slightest degree improper or unrefined. I knew very +well that I could, if I chose, talk to such <i>naïve</i> people about +subjects which would shock an English lady, and, as the reader may +remember, I did quote Mr. Borrow’s song, which he has not +translated. But a European girl who would have endured allusions to +tabooed subjects would have at all times shown vulgarity or coarseness, +while these Russian Romany girls were invariably lady-like. It is +true that the St. Petersburg party had a dissipated air; three or four of +them looked like second-class French or Italian theatrical artistes, and I +should not be astonished to learn that very late hours and champagne were +familiar to them as cigarettes, or that <!-- page 49--><a +name="page49"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 49</span>their flirtations among +their own people were neither faint, nor few, nor far between. But +their conduct in my presence was irreproachable. Those of Moscow, in +fact, had not even the apparent defects of their St. Petersburg sisters and +brothers, and when among them it always seemed to me as if I were simply +with nice gentle creoles or Cubans, the gypsy manner being tamed down to +the Spanish level, their great black eyes and their guitars increasing the +resemblance.</p> +<p>The indescribably wild and thrilling character of gypsy music is +thoroughly appreciated by the Russians, who pay very high prices for Romany +performances. From five to eight or ten pounds sterling is usually +given to a dozen gypsies for singing an hour or two to a special party, and +this is sometimes repeated twice or thrice of an evening. “A +Russian gentleman, when he is in funds,” said the clerk of the +Slavansky Bazaar in Moscow to me, “will make nothing of giving the +Zigani a hundred-ruble note,” the ruble rating at half a crown. +The result is that good singers among these lucky Romanys are well to do, +and lead soft lives, for Russia.</p> +<h3>MOSCOW.</h3> +<p>I had no friends in Moscow to direct me where to find gypsies <i>en +famille</i>, and the inquiries which I made of chance acquaintances simply +convinced me that the world at large was as ignorant of their ways as it +was prejudiced against them. At last the good-natured old porter of +our hotel told me, in his rough Baltic German, how to meet these mysterious +minstrels to advantage. “You must take a sleigh,” he +said, “and go out to Petrovka. That is a place in <!-- page +50--><a name="page50"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 50</span>the country, +where there are grand <i>cafés</i> at considerable distances one +from the other. Pay the driver three rubles for four hours. +Enter a <i>café</i>, call for something to drink, listen to the +gypsies singing, and when they pass round a plate put some money in +it. That’s all.” This was explicit, and at ten +o’clock in the evening I hired a sleigh and went.</p> +<p>If the cold which I had experienced in the general’s troika in St. +Petersburg might be compared to a moderate rheumatism, that which I +encountered in the sleigh outside the walls of Moscow, on Christmas Eve, +1876, was like a fierce gout. The ride was in all conscience Russian +enough to have its ending among gypsies, Tartars, or Cossacks. To go +at a headlong pace over the creaking snow behind an <i>istvostshik</i>, +named Vassili, the round, cold moon overhead, church-spires tipped with +great inverted golden turnips in the distance, and this on a night when the +frost seemed almost to scream in its intensity, is as much of a sensation +in the suburbs of Moscow as it could be out on the steppes. A few +wolves, more or less, make no difference,—and even they come +sometimes within three hours’ walk of the Kremlin. <i>Et ego +inter lupos</i>,—I too have been among wolves in my time by night, in +Kansas, and thought nothing of such rides compared to the one I had when I +went gypsying from Moscow.</p> +<p>In half an hour Vassili brought me to a house, which I entered. A +“proud porter,” a vast creature, in uniform suggestive of +embassies and kings’ palaces, relieved me of my <i>shuba</i>, and I +found my way into a very large and high hall, brilliantly lighted as if for +a thousand guests, while the only occupants were four couples, +“spooning” <i>sans gêne</i>, one in each corner <!-- page +51--><a name="page51"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 51</span>and a small +party of men and girls drinking in the middle. I called a waiter; he +spoke nothing but Russian, and Russian is of all languages the most useless +to him who only talks it “a little.” A little Arabic, or +even a little Chippewa, I have found of great service, but a fair +vocabulary and weeks of study of the grammar are of no avail in a country +where even men of gentlemanly appearance turn away with childish +<i>ennui</i> the instant they detect the foreigner, resolving apparently +that they cannot and <i>will not</i> understand him. In matters like +this the ordinary Russian is more impatient and less intelligent than any +Oriental or even red Indian. The result of my interview with the +waiter was that we were soon involved in the completest misunderstanding on +the subject of gypsies. The question was settled by reference to a +fat and fair damsel, one of the “spoons” already referred to, +who spoke German. She explained to me that as it was Christmas Eve no +gypsies would be there, or at any other <i>café</i>. This was +disappointing. I called Vassili, and he drove on to another +“garden,” deeply buried in snow.</p> +<p>When I entered the rooms at this place, I perceived at a glance that +matters had mended. There was the hum of many voices, and a perfume +like that of tea and many <i>papiross</i>, or cigarettes, with a prompt +sense of society and of enjoyment. I was dazzled at first by the +glare of the lights, and could distinguish nothing, unless it was that the +numerous company regarded me with utter amazement; for it was an “off +night,” when no business was expected,—few were there save +“professionals” and their friends,—and I was manifestly +an unexpected intruder on Bohemia. <!-- page 52--><a +name="page52"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 52</span>As luck would have it, +that which I believed was the one worst night in the year to find the gypsy +minstrels proved to be the exceptional occasion when they were all +assembled, and I had hit upon it. Of course this struck me pleasantly +enough as I looked around, for I knew that at a touch the spell would be +broken, and with one word I should have the warmest welcome from all. +I had literally not a single speaking acquaintance within a thousand miles, +and yet here was a room crowded with gay and festive strangers, whom the +slightest utterance would convert into friends.</p> +<p>I was not disappointed. Seeking for an opportunity, I saw a young +man of gentlemanly appearance, well dressed, and with a mild and amiable +air. Speaking to him in German, I asked the very needless question if +there were any gypsies present.</p> +<p>“You wish to hear them sing?” he inquired.</p> +<p>“I do not. I only want to talk with one,—with +<i>any</i> one.”</p> +<p>He appeared to be astonished, but, pointing to a handsome, slender young +lady, a very dark brunette, elegantly attired in black silk, +said,—</p> +<p>“There is one.”</p> +<p>I stepped across to the girl, who rose to meet me. I said nothing +for a few seconds, but looked at her intently, and then asked,—</p> +<p>“<i>Rakessa tu Romanes</i>, <i>miri pen</i>?” (Do you +talk Romany, my sister?)</p> +<p>She gave one deep, long glance of utter astonishment, drew one long +breath, and, with a cry of delight and wonder, said,—</p> +<p>“<i>Romanichal</i>!”</p> +<p>That word awoke the entire company, and with it <!-- page 53--><a +name="page53"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 53</span>they found out who the +intruder was. “Then might you hear them cry aloud, ‘The +Moringer is here!’” for I began to feel like the long-lost lord +returned, so warm was my welcome. They flocked around me; they cried +aloud in Romany, and one good-natured, smiling man, who looked like a +German gypsy, mounting a chair, waved a guitar by its neck high in the air +as a signal of discovery of a great prize to those at a distance, repeating +rapidly,—</p> +<p>“<i>Av’akai</i>, <i>ava’kai</i>, +<i>Romanichal</i>!” (Come here; here’s a gypsy!)</p> +<p>And they came, dark and light, great and small, and got round me, and +shook hands, and held to my arms, and asked where I came from, and how I +did, and if it wasn’t jolly, and what would I take to drink, and said +how glad they were to see me; and when conversation flagged for an instant, +somebody said to his next neighbor, with an air of wisdom, “American +Romany,” and everybody repeated it with delight. Then it +occurred to the guitarist and the young lady that we had better sit +down. So my first acquaintance and discoverer, whose name was +Liubasha, was placed, in right of preëmption, at my right hand, the +<i>belle des belles</i>, Miss Sarsha, at my left, a number of damsels all +around these, and then three or four circles of gypsies, of different ages +and tints, standing up, surrounded us all. In the outer ring were +several fast-looking and pretty Russian or German blonde girls, whose +mission it is, I believe, to dance—and flirt—with visitors, and +a few gentlemanly-looking Russians, <i>vieuz garçons</i>, evidently +of the kind who are at home behind the scenes, and who knew where to come +to enjoy themselves. Altogether there must have been about fifty <!-- +page 54--><a name="page54"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 54</span>present, +and I soon observed that every word I uttered was promptly repeated, while +every eye was fixed on me.</p> +<p>I could converse in Romany with the guitarist, and without much +difficulty; but with the charming, heedless young ladies I had as much +trouble to talk as with their sisters in St. Petersburg. The young +gentleman already referred to, to whom in my fancy I promptly gave the +Offenbachian name of Prince Paul, translated whenever there was a +misunderstanding, and in a few minutes we were all intimate. Miss +Sarsha, who had a slight cast in one of her wild black eyes, which added +something to the gypsiness and roguery of her smiles, and who wore in a +ring a large diamond, which seemed as if it might be the right eye in the +wrong place, was what is called an earnest young lady, with plenty to say +and great energy wherewith to say it. What with her eyes, her +diamond, her smiles, and her tongue, she constituted altogether a fine +specimen of irrepressible fireworks, and Prince Paul had enough to do in +facilitating conversation. There was no end to his politeness, but it +was an impossible task for him now and then promptly to carry over a long +sentence from German to Russian, and he would give it up like an invincible +conundrum, with the patient smile and head-wag and hand-wave of an amiable +Dundreary. Yet I began to surmise a mystery even in him. More +than once he inadvertently betrayed a knowledge of Romany, though he +invariably spoke of his friends around in a patronizing manner as +“these gypsies.” This was very odd, for in appearance he +was a Gorgio of the Gorgios, and did not seem, despite any talent for +languages which he might <!-- page 55--><a name="page55"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 55</span>possess, likely to trouble himself to acquire +Romany while Russian would answer every purpose of conversation. All +of this was, however, explained to me afterward.</p> +<p>Prince Paul again asked me if I had come out to hear a concert. I +said, “No; that I had simply come out to see my brothers and sisters +and talk with them, just as I hoped they would come to see me if I were in +my own country.” This speech produced a most favorable +impression, and there was, in a quiet way, a little private conversation +among the leaders, after which Prince Paul said to me, in a very pleasant +manner, that “these gypsies,” being delighted at the visit from +the gentleman from a distant country, would like to offer me a song in +token of welcome. To this I answered, with many thanks, that such +kindness was more than I had expected, for I was well aware of the great +value of such a compliment from singers whose fame had reached me even in +America. It was evident that my grain of a reply did not fall upon +stony ground, for I never was among people who seemed to be so quickly +impressed by any act of politeness, however trifling. A bow, a grasp +of the hand, a smile, or a glance would gratify them, and this +gratification their lively black eyes expressed in the most unmistakable +manner.</p> +<p>So we had the song, wild and wonderful like all of its kind, given with +that delightful <i>abandon</i> which attains perfection only among +gypsies. I had enjoyed the singing in St. Petersburg, but there was a +<i>laisser aller</i>, a completely gay spirit, in this Christmas-Eve gypsy +party in Moscow which was much more “whirling away.” For +at Dorot the gypsies had been on exhibition; here at Petrovka they were +frolicking <i>en </i><!-- page 56--><a name="page56"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 56</span><i>famille</i> with a favored guest,—a +Romany rye from a far land to astonish and delight,—and he took good +care to let them feel that they were achieving a splendid success, for I +declared many times that it was <i>būtsi shūkár</i>, or +very beautiful. Then I called for tea and lemon, and after that the +gypsies sang for their own amusement, Miss Sarsha, as the incarnation of +fun and jollity, taking the lead, and making me join in. Then the +crowd made way, and in the space appeared a very pretty little girl, in the +graceful old gypsy Oriental dress. This child danced charmingly +indeed, in a style strikingly like that of the Almeh of Egypt, but without +any of the erotic expressions which abound in Eastern pantomime. This +little Romany girl was to me enchanting, being altogether unaffected and +graceful. It was evident that her dancing, like the singing of her +elder sisters, was not an art which had been drilled in by +instruction. They had come into it in infancy, and perfected +themselves by such continual practice that what they did was as natural as +walking or talking. When the dancing was over, I begged that the +little girl would come to me, and, kissing her tiny gypsy hand, I said, +“<i>Spassibo tute kamli</i>, <i>eto hi būtsi +shūkár</i>” (Thank you, dear; that is very pretty), with +which the rest were evidently pleased. I had observed among the +singers, at a little distance, a very remarkable and rather handsome old +woman,—a good study for an artist,—and she, as I also noticed, +had sung with a powerful and clear voice. “She is our +grandmother,” said one of the girls. Now, as every student of +gypsies knows, the first thing to do in England or Germany, on entering a +tent-gypsy encampment, is to be polite to “the old +woman.” Unless you can win <!-- page 57--><a +name="page57"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 57</span>her good opinion you +had better be gone. The Russian city Roms have apparently no such +fancies. On the road, however, life is patriarchal, and the +grandmother is a power to be feared. As a fortune-teller she is a +witch, ever at warfare with the police world; she has a bitter tongue, and +is quick to wrath. This was not the style or fashion of the old gypsy +singer; but, as soon as I saw the <i>puri babali dye</i>, I requested that +she would shake hand with me, and by the impression which this created I +saw that the Romany of the city had not lost all the feelings of the +road.</p> +<p>I spoke of Waramoff’s beautiful song of the “Krasneya +Sarafan,” which Sarsha began at once to warble. The +characteristic of Russian gypsy-girl voices is a peculiarly delicate +metallic tone,—like that of the two silver bells of the Tower of Ivan +Velikoi when heard from afar,—yet always marked with fineness and +strength. This is sometimes startling in the wilder effects, but it +is always agreeable. These Moscow gypsy girls have a great name in +their art, and it was round the shoulders of one of them—for aught I +know it may have been Sarsha’s great-grandmother—that Catalani +threw the cashmere shawl which had been given to her by the Pope as +“to the best singer in the world.” “It is not mine +by right,” said the generous Italian; “it belongs to the +gypsy.”</p> +<p>The gypsies were desirous of learning something about the songs of their +kindred in distant lands, and, though no singer, I did my best to please +them, the guitarist easily improvising accompaniments, while the girls +joined in. As all were in a gay mood faults were easily excused, and +the airs were much liked,—one lyric, set by Virginia Gabriel, being +even <!-- page 58--><a name="page58"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +58</span>more admired in Moscow than in St. Petersburg, apropos of which I +may mention that, when I afterward visited the gypsy family in their own +home, the first request from Sarsha was, “<i>Eto gilyo</i>, +<i>rya</i>!” (<i>That</i> song, sir), referring to +“Romany,” which has been heard at several concerts in +London. And so, after much discussion of the affairs of Egypt, I took +my leave amid a chorus of kind farewells. Then Vassili, loudly called +for, reappeared from some nook with his elegantly frosted horse, and in a +few minutes we were dashing homeward. Cold! It was as severe as +in Western New York or Minnesota, where the thermometer for many days every +winter sinks lower than in St. Petersburg, but where there are no such +incredible precautions taken as in the land of double windows cemented +down, and fur-lined <i>shubas</i>. It is remarkable that the gypsies, +although of Oriental origin, are said to surpass the Russians in enduring +cold; and there is a marvelous story told about a Romany who, for a wager, +undertook to sleep naked against a clothed Muscovite on the ice of a river +during an unusually cold night. In the morning the Russian was found +frozen stiff, while the gypsy was snoring away unharmed. As we +returned, I saw in the town something which recalled this story in more +than one <i>moujik</i>, who, well wrapped up, lay sleeping in the open air, +under the lee of a house. Passing through silent Moscow on the early +Christmas morn, under the stars, as I gazed at the marvelous city, which +yields neither to Edinburgh, Cairo, nor Prague in picturesqueness, and +thought over the strange evening I had spent among the gypsies, I felt as +if I were in a melodrama with striking scenery. The pleasing +<i>finale</i> was the utter amazement and almost <!-- page 59--><a +name="page59"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 59</span>speechless gratitude of +Vassili at getting an extra half-ruble as an early Christmas gift.</p> +<p>As I had received a pressing invitation from the gypsies to come again, +I resolved to pay them a visit on Christmas afternoon in their own house, +if I could find it. Having ascertained that the gypsy street was in a +distant quarter, called the <i>Grouszini</i>, I engaged a sleigh, standing +before the door of the Slavanski-Bazaar Hotel, and the usual close bargain +with the driver was effected with the aid of a Russian gentleman, a +stranger passing by, who reduced the ruble (one hundred kopecks) at first +demanded to seventy kopecks. After a very long drive we found +ourselves in the gypsy street, and the <i>istvostshik</i> asked me, +“To what house?”</p> +<p>“I don’t know,” I replied. “Gypsies live +here, don’t they?”</p> +<p>“Gypsies, and no others.”</p> +<p>“Well, I want to find a gypsy.”</p> +<p>The driver laughed, and just at that instant I saw, as if awaiting me on +the sidewalk, Sarsha, Liubasha, and another young lady, with a good-looking +youth, their brother.</p> +<p>“This will do,” I said to the driver, who appeared utterly +amazed at seeing me greeted like an old friend by the Zigani, but who +grinned with delight, as all Russians of the lower class invariably do at +anything like sociability and fraternity. The damsels were +faultlessly attired in Russian style, with full fur-lined, glossy +black-satin cloaks and fine Orenberg scarfs, which are, I believe, the +finest woolen fabrics in the world. The party were particularly +anxious to know if I had come specially to visit <i>them</i>, for I have +passed over the fact that I had also made the <!-- page 60--><a +name="page60"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 60</span>acquaintance of another +very large family of gypsies, who sang at a rival <i>café</i>, and +who had also treated me very kindly. I was at once conducted to a +house, which we entered in a rather gypsy way, not in front, but through a +court, a back door, and up a staircase, very much in the style of certain +dwellings in the Potteries in London. But, having entered, I was led +through one or two neat rooms, where I saw lying sound asleep on beds, but +dressed, one or two very dark Romanys, whose faces I remembered. Then +we passed into a sitting-room, which was very well furnished. I +observed hanging up over the chimney-piece a good collection of +photographs, nearly all of gypsies, and indicating that close resemblance +to Hindoos which comes out so strongly in such pictures, being, in fact, +more apparent in the pictures than in the faces; just as the photographs of +the old Ulfilas manuscript revealed alterations not visible in the +original. In the centre of the group was a cabinet-size portrait of +Sarsha, and by it another of an Englishman of <i>very</i> high rank. +I thought this odd, but asked no questions.</p> +<p>My hosts were very kind, offering me promptly a rich kind of Russian +cake, begging to know what else I would like to eat or drink, and +apparently deeply concerned that I could really partake of nothing, as I +had just come from luncheon. They were all light-hearted and gay, so +that the music began at once, as wild and as bewitching as ever. And +here I observed, even more than before, how thoroughly sincere these +gypsies were in their art, and to what a degree they enjoyed and were +excited by their own singing. Here in their own home, warbling like +birds and frolicking like children, their performance was even more +delightful <!-- page 61--><a name="page61"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +61</span>than it had been in the concert-room. There was evidently a +great source of excitement in the fact that I must enjoy it far more than +an ordinary stranger, because I understood Romany, and sympathized with +gypsy ways, and regarded them not as the <i>Gaji</i> or Gentiles do, but as +brothers and sisters. I confess that I was indeed moved by the simple +kindness with which I was treated, and I knew that, with the wonderfully +keen perception of character in which gypsies excel, they perfectly +understood my liking for them. It is this ready intuition of feelings +which, when it is raised from an instinct to an art by practice, enables +shrewd old women to tell fortunes with so much skill.</p> +<p>I was here introduced to the mother of the girls. She was a neat, +pleasant-looking woman, of perhaps forty years, in appearance and manners +irresistibly reminding me of some respectable Cuban lady. Like the +others, she displayed an intelligent curiosity as to my knowledge of +Romany, and I was pleased at finding that she knew much more of the +language than her children did. Then there entered a young Russian +gentleman, but not “Prince Paul.” He was, however, a very +agreeable person, as all Russians can be when so minded; and they are +always so minded when they gather, from information or conjecture, the fact +that the stranger whom they meet is one of education or position. +This young gentleman spoke French, and undertook the part of occasional +translator.</p> +<p>I asked Liubasha if any of them understood fortune-telling.</p> +<p>“No; we have quite lost the art of <i>dorriki</i>. <a +name="citation61"></a><a href="#footnote61" class="citation">[61]</a> +None <!-- page 62--><a name="page62"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +62</span>of us know anything about it. But we hear that you +Romanichals over the Black Water understand it. Oh, +<i>rya</i>,” she cried, eagerly, “you know so +much,—you’re such a deep Romany,—can’t <i>you</i> +tell fortunes?”</p> +<p>“I should indeed know very little about Romany ways,” I +replied, gravely, “if I could not <i>pen dorriki</i>. But I +tell you beforehand, <i>terni pen</i>, ‘<i>dorrikipen hi +hokanipen</i>,’ little sister, fortune-telling is deceiving. +Yet what the lines say I can read.”</p> +<p>In an instant six as pretty little gypsy hands as I ever beheld were +thrust before me, and I heard as many cries of delight. “Tell +<i>my</i> fortune, <i>rya</i>! tell mine! and <i>mine</i>!” exclaimed +the damsels, and I complied. It was all very well to tell them there +was nothing in it; they knew a trick worth two of that. I perceived +at once that the faith which endures beyond its own knowledge was placed in +all I said. In England the gypsy woman, who at home ridicules her own +fortune-telling and her dupes, still puts faith in a <i>gusveri mush</i>, +or some “wise man,” who with crystal or magical apparatus +professes occult knowledge; for she thinks that her own false art is an +imitation of a true one. It is really amusing to see the reverence +with which an old gypsy will look at the awful hieroglyphics in Cornelius +Agrippa’s “Occult Philosophy,” or, better still, +“Trithemius,” and, as a gift, any ordinary fortune-telling book +is esteemed by them beyond rubies. It is true that they cannot read +it, but the precious volume is treasured like a fetich, and the owner is +happy in the thought of at least possessing darksome and forbidden lore, +though it be of no earthly use to her. After all the kindness they +had shown me, I could not find <!-- page 63--><a name="page63"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 63</span>it in my heart to refuse to tell these gentle +Zingari their little fortunes. It is not, I admit, exactly in the +order of things that the chicken should dress the cook, or the Gorgio tell +fortunes to gypsies; but he who wanders in strange lands meets with strange +adventures. So, with a full knowledge of the legal penalties attached +in England to palmistry and other conjuration, and with the then pending +Slade case knocking heavily on my conscience, I proceeded to examine and +predict. When I afterward narrated this incident to the late G. H. +Lewes, he expressed himself to the effect that to tell fortunes to gypsies +struck him as the very <i>ne plus ultra</i> of cheek,—which shows how +extremes meet; for verily it was with great modesty and proper diffidence +that I ventured to foretell the lives of these little ladies, having an +antipathy to the practice of chiromancing as to other romancing.</p> +<p>I have observed that as among men of great and varied culture, and of +extensive experience, there are more complex and delicate shades and +half-shades of light in the face, so in the palm the lines are +correspondingly varied and broken. Take a man of intellect and a +peasant, of equal excellence of figure according to the literal rules of +art or of anatomy, and this subtile multiplicity of variety shows itself in +the whole body in favor of the “gentleman,” so that it would +almost seem as if every book we read is republished in the person. +The first thing that struck me in these gypsy hands was the fewness of the +lines, their clearly defined sweep, and their simplicity. In every +one the line of life was unbroken, and, in fine, one might think from a +drawing of the hand, and without knowing who its owner might be, that he or +<!-- page 64--><a name="page64"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 64</span>she +was of a type of character unknown in most great European cities,—a +being gifted with special culture, and in a certain simple sense refined, +but not endowed with experience in a thousand confused phases of +life. The hands of a true genius, who has passed through life +earnestly devoted to a single art, however, are on the whole like these of +the gypsies. Such, for example, are the hands of Fanny Janauschek, +the lines of which agree to perfection with the laws of chiromancy. +The art reminds one of Cervantes’s ape, who told the past and +present, but not the future. And here “tell me what thou hast +been, and I will tell what thou wilt be” gives a fine opportunity to +the soothsayer.</p> +<p>To avoid mistakes I told the fortunes in French, which was translated +into Russian. I need not say that every word was listened to with +earnest attention, or that the group of dark but young and comely faces, as +they gathered around and bent over, would have made a good subject for a +picture. After the girls, the mother must needs hear her +<i>dorriki</i> also, and last of all the young Russian gentleman, who +seemed to take as earnest an interest in his future as even the +gypsies. As he alone understood French, and as he appeared to be +<i>un peu gaillard</i>, and, finally, as the lines of his hand said nothing +to the contrary, I predicted for him in detail a fortune in which <i>bonnes +fortunes</i> were not at all wanting. I think he was pleased, but +when I asked him if he would translate what I had said of his future into +Russian, he replied with a slight wink and a scarcely perceptible +negative. I suppose he had his reasons for declining.</p> +<p>Then we had singing again, and Christopher, the brother, a wild and gay +young gypsy, became so excited <!-- page 65--><a name="page65"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 65</span>that while playing the guitar he also danced +and caroled, and the sweet voices of the girls rose in chorus, and I was +again importuned for the <i>Romany</i> song, and we had altogether a very +Bohemian frolic. I was sorry when the early twilight faded into +night, and I was obliged, notwithstanding many entreaties to the contrary, +to take my leave. These gypsies had been very friendly and kind to me +in a strange city, where I had not an acquaintance, and where I had +expected none. They had given me of their very best; for they gave me +songs which I can never forget, and which were better to me than all the +opera could bestow. The young Russian, polite to the last, went +bareheaded with me into the street, and, hailing a sleigh-driver, began to +bargain for me. In Moscow, as in other places, it makes a great +difference in the fare whether one takes a public conveyance from before +the first hotel or from a house in the gypsy quarter. I had paid +seventy kopecks to come, and I at once found that my new friend and the +driver were engaged in wild and fierce dispute whether I should pay twenty +or thirty to return.</p> +<p>“Oh, give him thirty!” I exclaimed. “It’s +little enough.”</p> +<p>“<i>Non</i>,” replied the Russian, with the air of a man of +principles. “<i>Il ne faut pas gâter ces +gens-la</i>.” But I gave the driver thirty, all the same, when +we got home, and thereby earned the usual shower of blessings.</p> +<p>A few days afterward, while going from Moscow to St. Petersburg, I made +the acquaintance of a young Russian noble and diplomat, who was well +informed on all current gossip, and learned from him some curious +facts. The first young gentleman whom I <!-- page 66--><a +name="page66"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 66</span>had seen among the +Romanys of Moscow was the son of a Russian prince by a gypsy mother, and +the very noble Englishman whose photograph I had seen in Sarsha’s +collection had not long ago (as rumor averred) paid desperate attentions to +the belle of the Romanys without obtaining the least success. My +informant did not know her name. Putting this and that together, I +think it highly probable that Sarsha was the young lady, and that the +<i>latcho bar</i>, or diamond, which sparkled on her finger had been paid +for with British gold, while the donor had gained the same +“unluck” which befell one of his type in the Spanish gypsy song +as given by George Borrow:—</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“Loud sang the Spanish cavalier,<br /> + And thus his ditty ran:<br /> +‘God send the gypsy maiden here,<br /> + But not the gypsy man.’</p> +<p>“On high arose the moon so bright,<br /> + The gypsy ’gan to sing,<br /> +‘I gee a Spaniard coming here,<br /> + I must be on the wing.’”</p> +</blockquote> +<h2><!-- page 67--><a name="page67"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +67</span>AUSTRIAN GYPSIES.</h2> +<h3>I.</h3> +<p>In June, 1878, I went to Paris, during the great Exhibition. I had +been invited by Monsieur Edmond About to attend as a delegate the +Congrès Internationale Littéraire, which was about to be held +in the great city. How we assembled, how M. About distinguished +himself as one of the most practical and common-sensible of men of genius, +and how we were all finally harangued by M. Victor Hugo with the most +extraordinary display of oratorical sky-rockets, Catherine-wheels, +blue-lights, fire-crackers, and pin-wheels by which it was ever my luck to +be amused, is matter of history. But this chapter is only +autobiographical, and we will pass over the history. As an +Anglo-American delegate, I was introduced to several great men gratis; to +the greatest of all I introduced myself at the expense of half a +franc. This was to the Chinese giant, Chang, who was on exhibition at +a small café garden near the Trocadero. There were no other +visitors in his pavilion when I entered. He received me with +politeness, and we began to converse in fourth-story English, but gradually +went down-stairs into Pidgin, until we found ourselves fairly in the +kitchen of that humble but entertaining dialect. It is a remarkable +sensation to sit alone with <!-- page 68--><a name="page68"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 68</span>a mild monster, and feel like a little +boy. I do not distinctly remember whether Chang is eight, or ten or +twelve feet high; I only know that, though I am, as he said, “one +velly big piecee man,” I sat and lifted my eyes from time to time at +the usual level, forgetfully expecting to meet his eyes, and beheld instead +the buttons on his breast. Then I looked up—like Daruma to +Buddha—and up, and saw far above me his “lights of the +soul” gleaming down on me as it were from the top of a lofty +beacon.</p> +<p>I soon found that Chang, regarding all things from a giant’s point +of view, esteemed mankind by their size and looks. Therefore, as he +had complimented me according to his lights, I replied that he was a +“numpa one too muchee glanti handsome man, first chop big.”</p> +<p>Then he added, “You belongy Inklis man?”</p> +<p>“No. My one piecee <i>fa-ke-kwok</i>; my +Melican, galaw. You dlinkee ale some-tim?”</p> +<p>The giant replied that <i>pay-wine</i>, which is Pidgin for beer, was +not ungrateful to his palate or foreign to his habits. So we had a +quart of Alsopp between us, and drank to better acquaintance. I found +that the giant had exhibited himself in many lands, and taken great pains +to learn the language of each, so that he spoke German, Italian, and +Spanish well enough. He had been at a mission-school when he used to +“stop China-side,” or was in his native land. I assured +him that I had perceived it from the first, because he evidently +“talked ink,” as his countrymen say of words which are uttered +by a scholar, and I greatly gratified him by citing some of my own +“beautiful verses,” which are reversed from a Chinese +original:—</p> +<blockquote> +<p><!-- page 69--><a name="page69"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +69</span>“One man who never leadee <a name="citation69a"></a><a +href="#footnote69a" class="citation">[69a]</a><br /> + Like one dly <a name="citation69b"></a><a href="#footnote69b" +class="citation">[69b]</a> inkstan be:<br /> +You turn he up-side downy,<br /> + No ink lun <a name="citation69c"></a><a href="#footnote69c" +class="citation">[69c]</a> outside he.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>So we parted with mutual esteem. This was the second man by the +name of Chang whom I had known, and singularly enough they were both +exhibited as curiosities. The other made a living as a Siamese twin, +and his brother was named Eng. They wrote their autographs for me, +and put them wisely at the very top of the page, lest I should write a +promise to pay an immense sum of money, or forge a free pass to come into +the exhibition gratis over their signatures.</p> +<p>Having seen Chang, I returned to the Hôtel de Louvre, dined, and +then went forth with friends to the Orangerie. This immense garden, +devoted to concerts, beer, and cigars, is said to be capable of containing +three thousand people; before I left it it held about five thousand. +I knew not why this unwonted crowd had assembled; when I found the cause I +was astonished, with reason. At the gate was a bill, on which I read +“Les Bohemiennes de Moscow.”</p> +<p>“Some small musical comedy, I suppose,” I said to +myself. “But let us see it.” We pressed on.</p> +<p>“Look there!” said my companion. “Those are +certainly gypsies.”</p> +<p>Sure enough, a procession of men and women, strangely dressed in gayly +colored Oriental garments, was entering the gates. But I replied, +“Impossible. Not here in Paris. Probably they are +performers.”</p> +<p>“But see. They notice you. That girl certainly <!-- +page 70--><a name="page70"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 70</span>knows +you. She’s turning her head. There,—I heard her say +O Romany rye!”</p> +<p>I was bewildered. The crowd was dense, but as the procession +passed me at a second turn I saw they were indeed gypsies, and I was +grasped by the hand by more than one. They were my old friends from +Moscow. This explained the immense multitude. There was during +the Exhibition a great <i>furor</i> as regarded <i>les zigains</i>. +The gypsy orchestra which performed in the Hungarian café was so +beset by visitors that a comic paper represented them as covering the roofs +of the adjacent houses so as to hear something. This evening the +Russian gypsies were to make their début in the Orangerie, and they +were frightened at their own success. They sang, but their voices +were inaudible to two thirds of the audience, and those who could not hear +roared, “Louder!” Then they adjourned to the open air, +where the voices were lost altogether on a crowd calling, +“<i>Garçon</i>—<i>vite</i>—<i>une tasse +café</i>!” or applauding. In the intervals scores of +young Russian gentlemen, golden swells, who had known the girls of old, +gathered round the fair ones like moths around tapers. The singing +was not the same as it had been; the voices were the same, but the sweet +wild charm of the Romany caroling, bird-like, for pleasure was gone.</p> +<p>But I found by themselves and unnoticed two of the troupe, whom I shall +not soon forget. They were two very handsome youths,—one of +sixteen years, the other twenty. And with the first words in Romany +they fairly jumped for joy; and the artist who could have caught their +picture then would have made a brave one. They were clad in blouses +of colored silk, which, with their fine dark complexions <!-- page 71--><a +name="page71"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 71</span>and great black eyes, +gave them a very picturesque air. These had not seen me in Russia, +nor had they heard of me; they were probably from Novogorod. Like the +girls they were children, but in a greater degree, for they had not been +flattered, and kind words delighted them so that they clapped their +hands. They began to hum gypsy songs, and had I not prevented it they +would have run at once and brought a guitar, and improvised a small concert +for me <i>al fresco</i>. I objected to this, not wishing to take part +any longer in such a very public exhibition. For the +<i>gobe-mouches</i> and starers, noticing a stranger talking with <i>ces +zigains</i>, had begun to gather in a dense crowd around us, and the two +ladies and the gentleman who were with us were seriously +inconvenienced. We endeavored to step aside, but the multitude +stepped aside also, and would not let us alone. They were French, but +they might have been polite. As it was, they broke our merry +conference up effectively, and put us to flight.</p> +<p>“Do let us come and see you, <i>rya</i>,” said the younger +boy. “We will sing, for I can really sing beautifully, and we +like you so much. Where do you live?”</p> +<p>I could not invite them, for I was about to leave Paris, as I then +supposed. I have never seen them since, and there was no adventure +and no strange scenery beyond the thousands of lights and guests and trees +and voices speaking French. Yet to this day the gay boyishness, the +merry laughter, and the child-like <i>naïveté</i> of the +promptly-formed liking of those gypsy youths remains impressed on my mind +with all the color and warmth of an adventure or a living poem. Can +you recall no child by any wayside <!-- page 72--><a +name="page72"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 72</span>of life to whom you +have given a chance smile or a kind word, and been repaid with artless +sudden attraction? For to all of us,—yes, to the coldest and +worst,—there are such memories of young people, of children, and I +pity him who, remembering them, does not feel the touch of a vanished hand +and hear a chord which is still. There are adventures which we can +tell to others as stories, but the best have no story; they may be only the +memory of a strange dog which followed us, and I have one such of a cat +who, without any introduction, leaped wildly towards me, “and would +not thence away.” It is a good life which has many such +memories.</p> +<p>I was walking a day or two after with an English friend, who was also a +delegate to the International Literary Congress, in the Exhibition, when we +approached the side gate, or rear entrance of the Hungarian +café. Six or seven dark and strange-looking men stood about, +dressed in the uniform of a military band. I caught their glances, +and saw that they were Romany.</p> +<p>“Now you shall see something queer,” I said to my +friend.</p> +<p>So advancing to the first dark man I greeted him in gypsy.</p> +<p>“I do not understand you,” he promptly replied—or +lied.</p> +<p>I turned to a second.</p> +<p>“You have more sense, and you do understand. <i>Adro miro +tem penena mande o baro rai</i>.” (In my country the gypsies +call me the great gentleman.)</p> +<p>This phrase may be translated to mean either the “tall +gentleman” or the “great lord.” It was apparently +taken in the latter sense, for at once all the <!-- page 73--><a +name="page73"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 73</span>party bowed very low, +raising their hands to their foreheads, in Oriental fashion.</p> +<p>“Hallo!” exclaimed my English friend, who had not understood +what I had said. “What game is this you are playing on these +fellows?”</p> +<p>Up to the front came a superior, the leader of the band.</p> +<p>“Great God!” he exclaimed, “what is this I hear? +This is wonderful. To think that there should be anybody here to talk +with! I can only talk Magyar and Romanes.”</p> +<p>“And what do you talk?” I inquired of the first violin.</p> +<p>“<i>Ich spreche nur Deutsch</i>!” he exclaimed, with a +strong Vienna accent and a roar of laughter. “I only talk +German.”</p> +<p>This worthy man, I found, was as much delighted with my German as the +leader with my gypsy; and in all my experience I never met two beings so +charmed at being able to converse. That I should have met with them +was of itself wonderful. Only there was this difference: that the +Viennese burst into a laugh every time he spoke, while the gypsy grew more +sternly solemn and awfully impressive. There are people to whom mere +talking is a pleasure,—never mind the ideas,—and here I had +struck two at once. I once knew a gentleman named Stewart. He +was the mayor, first physician, and postmaster of St. Paul, +Minnesota. While camping out, <i>en route</i>, and in a tent with +him, it chanced that among the other gentlemen who had tented with us there +were two terrible snorers. Now Mr. Stewart had heard that you may +stop a man’s snoring by whistling. And here was a wonderful +opportunity. <!-- page 74--><a name="page74"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 74</span>“So I waited,” he said, +“until one man was coming down with his snore, <i>diminuendo</i>, +while the other was rising, <i>crescendo</i>, and at the exact point of +intersection, <i>moderato</i>, I blew my car-whistle, and so got both birds +at one shot. I stopped them both.” Even as Mayor Stewart +had winged his two birds with one ball had I hit my two peregrines.</p> +<p>“We are now going to perform,” said the gypsy captain. +“Will you not take seats on the platform, and hear us +play?”</p> +<p>I did not know it at the time, but I heard afterwards that this was a +great compliment, and one rarely bestowed. The platform was small, +and we were very near our new friends. Scarcely had the performance +begun ere I perceived that, just as the gypsies in Russia had sung their +best in my honor, these artists were exerting themselves to the utmost, +and, all unheeding the audience, playing directly at me and into me. +When any <i>tour</i> was deftly made the dark master nodded to me with +gleaming eyes, as if saying, “What do you think of <i>that</i>, +now?” The Viennese laughed for joy every time his glance met +mine, and as I looked at the various Lajoshes and Joshkas of the band, they +blew, beat, or scraped with redoubled fury, or sank into thrilling +tenderness. Hurrah! here was somebody to play to who knew gypsy and +all the games thereof; for a very little, even a word, reveals a great +deal, and I must be a virtuoso, at least by Romany, if not by art. It +was with all the joy of success that the first piece ended amid thunders of +applause.</p> +<p>“That was not the <i>racoczy</i>,” I said. “Yet +it sounded like it.”</p> +<p>“No,” said the captain. “But <i>now</i> you +shall hear <!-- page 75--><a name="page75"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +75</span>the <i>racoczy</i> and the <i>czardas</i> as you never heard them +before. For we can play that better than any orchestra in +Vienna. Truly, you will never forget us after hearing it.”</p> +<p>And then they played the <i>racoczy</i>, the national Hungarian +favorite, of gypsy composition, with heart and soul. As these men +played for me, inspired with their own music, feeling and enjoying it far +more than the audience, and all because they had got a gypsy gentleman to +play to, I appreciated what a <i>life</i> that was to them, and what it +should be; not cold-blooded skill, aiming only at excellence or +preëxcellence and at setting up the artist, but a fire and a joy, a +self-forgetfulness which whirls the soul away as the soul of the +Mœnad went with the stream adown the mountains,—<i>Evoë +Bacchus</i>! This feeling is deep in the heart of the Hungarian +gypsy; he plays it, he feels it in every air, he knows the rush of the +stream as it bounds onwards,—knows that it expresses his deepest +desire; and so he has given it words in a song which, to him who has the +key, is one of the most touching ever written:—</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“Dyal o pañi repedishis,<br /> +M’ro pirano hegedishis;</p> +<p>“Dyal o pañi tale vatra,<br /> +M’ro pirano klanetaha.</p> +<p>“Dyal o pañi pe kishai<br /> +M’ro pirano tsino rai.”</p> +<p>“The stream runs on with rushing din<br /> +As I hear my true love’s violin;</p> +<p>“And the river rolls o’er rock and stone<br /> +As he plays the flute so sweet alone.</p> +<p>“Runs o’er the sand as it began,<br /> +Then my true love lives a gentleman.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p><!-- page 76--><a name="page76"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +76</span>Yes, music whirling the soul away as on a rushing river, the +violin notes falling like ripples, the flute tones all aflow among the +rocks; and when it sweeps <i>adagio</i> on the sandy bed, then the gypsy +player is at heart equal to a lord, then he feels a gentleman. The +only true republic is art. There all earthly distinctions pass away; +there he is best who lives and feels best, and makes others feel, not that +he is cleverer than they, but that he can awaken sympathy and joy.</p> +<p>The intense reality of musical art as a comforter to these gypsies of +Eastern Europe is wonderful. Among certain inedited songs of the +Transylvanian gypsies, in the Kolosvárer dialect, I find the +following:—</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“Na janav ko dad m’ro as,<br /> +Niko māllen mange as,<br /> +Miro gule dai merdyas<br /> +Pirani me pregelyas.<br /> +Uva tu o hegedive<br /> +Tu sal mindīk pash mange.”</p> +<p>“I’ve known no father since my birth,<br /> +I have no friend alive on earth;<br /> +My mother’s dead this many day,<br /> +The girl I loved has gone her way;<br /> +Thou violin with music free<br /> +Alone art ever true to me.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>It is very wonderful that the charm of the Russian gypsy girls’ +singing was destroyed by the atmosphere or applause of a Paris +concert-room, while the Hungarian Romanys conquered it as it were by sheer +force, and by conquering gave their music the charm of intensity. I +do not deny that in this music, be it of voice or instruments, there is +much which is perhaps imagined, which depends on association, which is +plain to John but not to Jack; but you have only <!-- page 77--><a +name="page77"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 77</span>to advance or retreat a +few steps to find the same in the highest art. This, at least, we +know: that no performer at any concert in London can awake the feeling of +intense enjoyment which these wild minstrels excite in themselves and in +others by sympathy. Now it is a question in many forms as to whether +art for enjoyment is to die, and art for the sake of art alone +survive. Is joyous and healthy nature to vanish step by step from the +heart of man, and morbid, egoistic pessimism to take its place? Are +over-culture, excessive sentiment, constant self-criticism, and all the +brood of nervous curses to monopolize and inspire art? A fine +alliance this they are making, the ascetic monk and the atheistic +pessimist, to kill Nature! They will never effect it. It may +die in many forms. It may lose its charm, as the singing of Sarsha +and of Liubasha was lost among the rustling and noise of thousands of +Parisian <i>badauds</i> in the Orangerie. But there will be stronger +forms of art, which will make themselves heard, as the Hungarian Romanys +heeded no din, and bore all away with their music.</p> +<p>“<i>Latcho dívvus miri pralia</i>!—<i>miduvel atch pa +tumende</i>!” (Good-day, my brothers. God rest on you) I said, +and they rose and bowed, and I went forth into the Exhibition. It was +a brave show, that of all the fine things from all parts of the world which +man can make, but to me the most interesting of all were the men +themselves. Will not the managers of the next world show give us a +living ethnological department?</p> +<p>Of these Hungarian gypsies who played in Paris during the Exhibition +much was said in the newspapers, and from the following, which appeared in +an <!-- page 78--><a name="page78"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +78</span>American journal, written by some one to me unknown, the reader +may learn that there were many others to whom their music was deeply +thrilling or wildly exciting:—</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“The Hungarian Tziganes (Zigeuner) are the rage just now at +Paris. The story is that Liszt picked out the individuals composing +the band one by one from among the gypsy performers in Hungary and +Bohemia. Half-civilized in appearance, dressed in an unbecoming +half-military costume, they are nothing while playing Strauss’ +waltzes or their own; but when they play the Radetsky Defile, the Racoksky +March, or their marvelous czardas, one sees and hears the battle, and it is +easy to understand the influence of their music in fomenting Hungarian +revolutions; why for so long it was made treasonable to play or listen to +these czardas; and why, as they heard them, men rose to their feet, +gathered together, and with tears rolling down their faces, and throats +swelling with emotion, departed to do or die.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>And when I remember that they played for me as they said they had played +for no other man in Paris, “into the ear,”—and when I +think of the gleam in their eyes, I verily believe they <i>told</i> the +truth,—I feel glad that I chanced that morning on those dark men and +spoke to them in Romany.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p>Since the above was written I have met in an entertaining work called +“Unknown Hungary,” by Victor Tissot, with certain remarks on +the Hungarian gypsy musicians which are so appropriate that I cite them in +full:—</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“The gypsy artists in Hungary play by inspiration, with inimitable +<i>verve</i> and spirit, without even <!-- page 79--><a +name="page79"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 79</span>knowing their notes, +and nothing whatever of the rhymes and rules of the masters. Liszt, +who has closely studied them, says, The art of music being for them a +sublime language, a song, mystic in itself, though dear to the initiated, +they use it according to the wants of the moment which they wish to +express. They have invented their music for their own use, to sing +about themselves to themselves, to express themselves in the most heartfelt +and touching monologues.</p> +<p>“Their music is as free as their lives; no intermediate +modulation, no chords, no transition, it goes from one key to +another. From ethereal heights they precipitate you into the howling +depths of hell; from the plaint, barely heard, they pass brusquely to the +warrior’s song, which bursts loudly forth, passionate and tender, at +once burning and calm. Their melodies plunge you into a melancholy +reverie, or carry you away into a stormy whirlwind; they are a faithful +expression of the Hungarian character, sometimes quick, brilliant, and +lively, sometimes sad and apathetic.</p> +<p>“The gypsies, when they arrived in Hungary, had no music of their +own; they appropriated the Magyar music, and made from it an original art +which now belongs to them.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>I here break in upon Messieurs Tissot and Liszt to remark that, while it +is very probable that the Roms reformed Hungarian music, it is rather +boldly assumed that they had no music of their own. It was, among +other callings, as dancers and musicians that they left India and entered +Europe, and among them were doubtless many descendants of the ten thousand +Indo-Persian Luris or Nuris. But to resume quotation:—</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“They made from it an art full of life, passion, <!-- page 80--><a +name="page80"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 80</span>laughter, and +tears. The instrument which the gypsies prefer is the violin, which +they call <i>bas’ alja</i>, ‘the king of +instruments.’ They also play the viola, the cymbal, and the +clarionet.</p> +<p>“There was a pause. The gypsies, who had perceived at a +table a comfortable-looking man, evidently wealthy, and on a pleasure +excursion in the town, came down from their platform, and ranged themselves +round him to give him a serenade all to himself, as is their custom. +They call this ‘playing into the ear.’</p> +<p>“They first asked the gentleman his favorite air, and then played +it with such spirit and enthusiasm and overflowing richness of variation +and ornament, and with so much emotion, that it drew forth the applause of +the whole company. After this they executed a czardas, one of the +wildest, most feverish, harshest, and, one may say, tormenting, as if to +pour intoxication into the soul of their listener. They watched his +countenance to note the impression produced by the passionate rhythm of +their instruments; then, breaking off suddenly, they played a hushed, soft, +caressing measure; and again, almost breaking the trembling cords of their +bows, they produced such an intensity of effect that the listener was +almost beside himself with delight and astonishment. He sat as if +bewitched; he shut his eyes, hung his head in melancholy, or raised it with +a start, as the music varied; then jumped up and struck the back of his +head with his hands. He positively laughed and cried at once; then, +drawing a roll of bank-notes from his pocket-book, he threw it to the +gypsies, and fell back in his chair, as if exhausted with so much +enjoyment. And in <i>this</i> lies the triumph of the <!-- page +81--><a name="page81"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 81</span>gypsy music; it +is like that of Orpheus, which moved the rocks and trees. The soul of +the Hungarian plunges, with a refinement of sensation that we can +understand, but cannot follow, into this music, which, like the +unrestrained indulgence of the imagination in fantasy and caprice, gives to +the initiated all the intoxicating sensations experienced by opium +smokers.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The Austrian gypsies have many songs which perfectly reflect their +character. Most of them are only single verses of a few lines, such +as are sung everywhere in Spain; others, which are longer, seem to have +grown from the connection of these verses. The following translation +from the Roumanian Romany (Vassile Alexandri) gives an idea of their style +and spirit:—</p> +<h4>GYPSY SONG.</h4> +<blockquote> +<p>The wind whistles over the heath,<br /> +The moonlight flits over the flood;<br /> +And the gypsy lights up his fire,<br /> +In the darkness of the wood.<br /> + Hurrah!<br /> +In the darkness of the wood.</p> +<p>Free is the bird in the air,<br /> +And the fish where the river flows;<br /> +Free is the deer in the forest,<br /> +And the gypsy wherever he goes.<br /> + Hurrah!<br /> +And the gypsy wherever he goes.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">a gorgio gentleman speaks</span>.</p> +<p>Girl, wilt thou live in my home?<br /> +I will give thee a sable gown,<br /> +And golden coins for a necklace,<br /> +If thou wilt be my own.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">gypsy girl</span>.</p> +<p>No wild horse will leave the prairie<br /> +For a harness with silver stars;<br /> +<!-- page 82--><a name="page82"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 82</span>Nor +an eagle the crags of the mountain,<br /> +For a cage with golden bars;</p> +<p>Nor the gypsy girl the forest,<br /> +Or the meadow, though gray and cold,<br /> +For garments made of sable,<br /> +Or necklaces of gold.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">the gorgio</span>.</p> +<p>Girl, wilt thou live in my dwelling,<br /> +For pearls and diamonds true? <a name="citation82"></a><a +href="#footnote82" class="citation">[82]</a><br /> +I will give thee a bed of scarlet,<br /> +And a royal palace, too.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">gypsy girl</span>.</p> +<p>My white teeth are my pearlins,<br /> +My diamonds my own black eyes;<br /> +My bed is the soft green meadow,<br /> +My palace the world as it lies.</p> +<p>Free is the bird in the air,<br /> +And the fish where the river flows;<br /> +Free is the deer in the forest,<br /> +And the gypsy wherever he goes.<br /> + Hurrah!<br /> +And the gypsy wherever he goes.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>There is a deep, strange element in the gypsy character, which finds no +sympathy or knowledge in the German, and very little in other Europeans, +but which is so much in accord with the Slavonian and Hungarian that he who +truly feels it with love is often disposed to mingle them together. +It is a dreamy mysticism; an indefinite semi-supernaturalism, often passing +into gloom; a feeling as of Buddhism which has glided into Northern snows, +and taken a new and darker life in winter-lands. It is strong in the +Czech or Bohemian, whose nature is the worst understood in the civilized +world. That he should hate the German <!-- page 83--><a +name="page83"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 83</span>with all his heart and +soul is in the order of things. We talk about the mystical Germans, +but German self-conscious mysticism is like a problem of Euclid beside the +natural, unexpressed dreaminess of the Czech. The German mystic goes +to work at once to expound his “system” in categories, dressing +it up in a technology which in the end proves to be the only mystery in +it. The Bohemian and gypsy, each in their degrees of culture, form no +system and make no technology, but they feel all the more. Now the +difference between true and imitative mysticism is that the former takes no +form; it is even narrowed by religious creeds, and wing-clipt by pious +“illumination.” Nature, and nature alone, is its real +life. It was from the Southern Slavonian lands that all real +mysticism, and all that higher illumination which means freedom, came into +Germany and Europe; and after all, Germany’s first and best mystic, +Jacob Böhme, was Bohemian by name, as he was by nature. When the +world shall have discovered who the as yet unknown Slavonian German was who +wrote all the best part of “Consuelo,” and who helped himself +in so doing from “Der letzte Taborit,” by Herlossohn, we shall +find one of the few men who understood the Bohemian.</p> +<p>Once in a while, as in Fanny Janauschek, the Czech bursts out into art, +and achieves a great triumph. I have seen Rachel and Ristori many a +time, but their best acting was shallow compared to Janauschek’s, as +I have seen it in by-gone years, when she played Iphigenia and Medea in +German. No one save a Bohemian could ever so <i>intuit</i> the gloomy +profundity and unearthly fire of the Colchian sorceress. These are +the things required to perfect every <!-- page 84--><a +name="page84"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 84</span>artist,—above +all, the tragic artist,—that the tree of his or her genius shall not +only soar to heaven among the angels, but also have roots in the depths of +darkness and fire; and that he or she shall play not only to the audience, +and in sympathy with them, but also unto one’s self and down to +one’s deepest dreams.</p> +<p>No one will accuse me of wide discussion or padding who understands my +drift in this chapter. I am speaking of the gypsy, and I cannot +explain him more clearly than by showing his affinities with the Slavonian +and Magyar, and how, through music and probably in many other ways, he has +influenced them. As the Spaniard perfectly understands the objective +vagabond side of the Gitano, so the Southeastern European understands the +musical and wild-forest yearnings of the Tsigane. Both to gypsy and +Slavonian there is that which makes them dream so that even debauchery has +for them at times an unearthly inspiration; and as smoking was +inexpressibly sacred to the red Indians of old, so that when the Guatemalan +Christ harried hell, the demons offered him cigars; in like manner +tipsiness is often to the gypsy and Servian, or Czech, or Croat, something +so serious and impressive that it is a thing not to be lightly thought of, +but to be undertaken with intense deliberation and under due appreciation +of its benefits.</p> +<p>Many years ago, when I had begun to feel this strange element I gave it +expression in a poem which I called “The Bohemian,” as +expressive of both gypsy and Slavonian nature:—</p> +<h4><!-- page 85--><a name="page85"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +85</span>THE BOHEMIAN.</h4> +<blockquote> +<p>Chces li tajnou vec aneb pravdu vyzvédéti<br /> +Blazen, dité opily človék o tom umeji povodeti.</p> +<p>Wouldst thou know a truth or mystery,<br /> +A drunkard, fool, or child may tell it thee</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Bohemian +Proverb</span>.</p> +<p>And now I’ll wrap my blanket o’er me,<br /> + And on the tavern floor I’ll lie,<br /> +A double spirit-flask before me,<br /> + And watch my pipe clouds, melting, die.</p> +<p>They melt and die, but ever darken<br /> + As night comes on and hides the day,<br /> +Till all is black; then, brothers, hearken,<br /> + And if ye can write down my lay.</p> +<p>In yon long loaf my knife is gleaming,<br /> + Like one black sail above the boat;<br /> +As once at Pesth I saw it beaming,<br /> + Half through a dark Croatian throat.</p> +<p>Now faster, faster, whirls the ceiling,<br /> + And wilder, wilder, turns my brain;<br /> +And still I’ll drink, till, past all feeling,<br /> + My soul leaps forth to light again.</p> +<p>Whence come these white girls wreathing round me?<br /> + Barushka!—long I thought thee dead;<br /> +Katchenka!—when these arms last bound thee<br /> + Thou laid’st by Rajrad, cold as lead.</p> +<p>And faster, faster, whirls the ceiling,<br /> + And wilder, wilder, turns my brain;<br /> +And from afar a star comes stealing<br /> + Straight at me o’er the death-black plain.</p> +<p>Alas! I sink. My spirits miss me.<br /> + I swim, I shoot from shore to shore!<br /> +Klara! thou golden sister—kiss me!<br /> + I rise—I’m safe—I’m strong once more.</p> +<p>And faster, faster, whirls the ceiling,<br /> + And wilder, wilder, whirls my brain;<br /> +<!-- page 86--><a name="page86"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 86</span>The +star!—it strikes my soul, revealing<br /> + All life and light to me again.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p>Against the waves fresh waves are dashing,<br /> + Above the breeze fresh breezes blow;<br /> +Through seas of light new light is flashing,<br /> + And with them all I float and flow.</p> +<p>Yet round me rings of fire are gleaning,—<br /> + Pale rings of fire, wild eyes of death!<br /> +Why haunt me thus, awake or dreaming?<br /> + Methought I left ye with my breath!</p> +<p>Ay, glare and stare, with life increasing,<br /> + And leech-like eyebrows, arching in;<br /> +Be, if ye must, my fate unceasing,<br /> + But never hope a fear to win.</p> +<p>He who knows all may haunt the haunter,<br /> + He who fears naught hath conquered fate;<br /> +Who bears in silence quells the daunter,<br /> + And makes his spoiler desolate.</p> +<p>O wondrous eyes, of star-like lustre,<br /> + How have ye changed to guardian love!<br /> +Alas! where stars in myriads cluster,<br /> + Ye vanish in the heaven above.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p>I hear two bells so softly ringing;<br /> + How sweet their silver voices roll!<br /> +The one on distant hills is ringing,<br /> + The other peals within my soul.</p> +<p>I hear two maidens gently talking,<br /> + Bohemian maids, and fair to see:<br /> +The one on distant hills is walking,<br /> + The other maiden,—where is she?</p> +<p>Where is she? When the moonlight glistens<br /> + O’er silent lake or murmuring stream,<br /> +I hear her call my soul, which listens,<br /> + “Oh, wake no more! Come, love, and dream!”</p> +<p><!-- page 87--><a name="page87"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +87</span>She came to earth, earth’s loveliest creature;<br /> + She died, and then was born once more;<br /> +Changed was her race, and changed each feature,<br /> + But yet I loved her as before.</p> +<p>We live, but still, when night has bound me<br /> + In golden dreams too sweet to last,<br /> +A wondrous light-blue world around me,<br /> + She comes,—the loved one of the past.</p> +<p>I know not which I love the dearest,<br /> + For both the loves are still the same:<br /> +The living to my life is nearest,<br /> + The dead one feeds the living flame.</p> +<p>And when the sun, its rose-wine quaffing,<br /> + Which flows across the Eastern deep,<br /> +Awakes us, Klara chides me, laughing,<br /> + And says we love too well in sleep.</p> +<p>And though no more a Voivode’s daughter,<br /> + As when she lived on earth before,<br /> +The love is still the same which sought her,<br /> + And I am true, and ask no more.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p>Bright moonbeams on the sea are playing,<br /> + And starlight shines upon the hill,<br /> +And I should wake, but still delaying<br /> + In our old life I linger still.</p> +<p>For as the wind clouds flit above me,<br /> + And as the stars above them shine,<br /> +My higher life’s in those who love me,<br /> + And higher still, our life’s divine.</p> +<p>And thus I raise my soul by drinking,<br /> + As on the tavern floor I lie;<br /> +It heeds not whence begins our thinking<br /> + If to the end its flight is high.</p> +<p>E’en outcasts may have heart and feeling,<br /> + The blackest wild Tsigan be true,<br /> +And love, like light in dungeons stealing,<br /> + Though bars be there, will still burst through.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><!-- page 88--><a name="page88"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 88</span>It +is the reëcho of more than one song of those strange lands, of more +than one voice, and of many a melody; and those who have heard them, though +not more distinctly than François Villon when he spoke of flinging +the question back by silent lake and streamlet lone, will understand me, +and say it is true to nature.</p> +<p>In a late work on Magyarland, by a lady Fellow of the Carpathian +Society, I find more on Hungarian gypsy music, which is so well written +that I quote fully from it, being of the opinion that one ought, when +setting forth any subject, to give quite as good an opportunity to others +who are in our business as to ourselves. And truly this lady has felt +the charm of the Tsigan music and describes it so well that one wishes she +were a Romany in language and by adoption, like unto a dozen dames and +damsels whom I know.</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“The Magyars have a perfect passion for this gypsy music, and +there is nothing that appeals so powerfully to their emotions, whether of +joy or sorrow. These singular musicians are, as a rule, well taught, +and can play almost any music, greatly preferring, however, their own +compositions. Their music, consequently, is highly +characteristic. It is the language of their lives and strange +surroundings, a wild, weird banshee music: now all joy and sparkle, like +sunshine on the plains; now sullen, sad, and pathetic by turns, like the +wail of a crushed and oppressed people,—an echo, it is said, of the +minstrelsy of the <i>hegedösök</i> or Hungarian bards, but +sounding to our ears like the more distant echo of that exceeding bitter +cry, uttered long centuries ago by their forefathers under Egyptian +bondage, and borne over the time-waves of thousands of years, breaking +forth in their music of to-day.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p><!-- page 89--><a name="page89"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +89</span>Here I interrupt the lady—with all due courtesy—to +remark that I cannot agree with her, nor with her probable authority, +Walter Simson, in believing that the gypsies are the descendants of the +mixed races who followed Moses out of Egypt. The Rom in Egypt is a +Hindoo stranger now, as he ever was. But that the echo of centuries +of outlawry and wretchedness and wildness rises and falls, like the +ineffable discord in a wind-harp, in Romany airs is true enough, whatever +its origin may have been. But I beg pardon, madam,—I +interrupted you.</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“The soul-stirring, madly exciting, and martial strains of the +Racoczys—one of the Revolutionary airs—has just died upon the +ear. A brief interval of rest has passed. Now listen with bated +breath to that recitative in the minor key,—that passionate wail, +that touching story, the gypsies’ own music, which rises and falls on +the air. Knives and forks are set down, hands and arms hang listless, +all the seeming necessities of the moment being either suspended or +forgotten,—merged in the memories which those vibrations, so akin to +human language, reawaken in each heart. Eyes involuntarily fill with +tears, as those pathetic strains echo back and make present some sorrow of +long ago, or rouse from slumber that of recent time. . . .</p> +<p>“And now, the recitative being ended, and the last chord struck, +the melody begins, of which the former was the prelude. Watch the +movements of the supple figure of the first violin, standing in the centre +of the other musicians, who accompany him softly. How every nerve is +<i>en rapport</i> with his instrument, and how his very soul is speaking +through it! See how gently he draws the bow across the trembling +strings, <!-- page 90--><a name="page90"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +90</span>and how lovingly he lays his cheek upon it, as if listening to +some responsive echo of his heart’s inmost feeling, for it is his +mystic language! How the instrument lives and answers to his every +touch, sending forth in turn utterances tender, sad, wild, and +joyous! The audience once more hold their breath to catch the dying +tones, as the melody, so rich, so beautiful, so full of pathos, is drawing +to a close. The tension is absolutely painful as the gypsy dwells on +the last lingering note, and it is a relief when, with a loud and general +burst of sound, every performer starts into life and motion. +<i>Then</i> what crude and wild dissonances are made to resolve themselves +into delicious harmony! What rapturous and fervid phrases, and what +energy and impetuosity, are there in every motion of the gypsies’ +figures, as their dark eyes glisten and emit flashes in unison with the +tones!”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The writer is gifted in giving words to gypsy music. One cannot +say, as the inexhaustible Cad writes of Niagara ten times on a page in the +Visitors’ Book, that it is indescribable. I think that if +language means anything this music has been very well described by the +writers whom I have cited. When I am told that the gypsies’ +impetuous and passionate natures make them enter into musical action with +heart and soul, I feel not only the strains played long ago, but also hear +therein the horns of Elfland blowing,—which he who has not heard, of +summer days, in the drone of the bee, by reedy rustling stream, will never +know on earth in any wise. But once heard it comes ever, as I, though +in the city, heard it last night in the winter wind, with Romany words +mingled in wild refrain:—</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“<i>Kamava tute</i>, <i>miri chelladi</i>!”</p> +</blockquote> +<h3><!-- page 91--><a name="page91"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +91</span>II. AUSTRIAN GYPSIES IN PHILADELPHIA.</h3> +<p>It was a sunny Sunday afternoon, and I was walking down Chestnut Street, +Philadelphia, when I met with three very dark men.</p> +<p>Dark men are not rarities in my native city. There is, for +instance, Eugene, who has the invaluable faculty of being able to turn his +hand to an infinite helpfulness in the small arts. These men were +darker than Eugene, but they differed from him in this, that while he is a +man of color, they were not. For in America the man of Aryan blood, +however dark he may be, is always “off” color, while the +lightest-hued quadroon is always on it. Which is not the only paradox +connected with the descendants of Africans of which I have heard.</p> +<p>I saw at a glance that these dark men were much nearer to the old Aryan +stock than are even my purely white readers. For they were more +recently from India, and they could speak a language abounding in Hindi, in +pure old Sanskrit, and in Persian. Yet they would make no display of +it; on the contrary, I knew that they would be very likely at first to deny +all knowledge thereof, as well as their race and blood. For they were +gypsies; it was very apparent in their eyes, which had the Gitano gleam as +one seldom sees it in England. I confess that I experienced a thrill +as I exchanged glances with <!-- page 92--><a name="page92"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 92</span>them. It was a long time since I had seen +a Romany, and, as usual, I knew that I was going to astonish them. +They were singularly attired, having very good clothes of a quite +theatrical foreign fashion, bearing silver buttons as large as and of the +shape of hen’s eggs. Their hair hung in black ringlets down +their shoulders, and I saw that they had come from the Austrian Slavonian +land.</p> +<p>I addressed the eldest in Italian. He answered fluently and +politely. I changed to Ilirski or Illyrian and to Serb, of which I +have a few phrases in stock. They spoke all these languages fluently, +for one was a born Illyrian and one a Serb. They also spoke Nemetz, +or German; in fact, everything except English.</p> +<p>“Have you got through all your languages?” I at last +inquired.</p> +<p>“Tutte, signore,—all of them.”</p> +<p>“Isn’t there <i>one</i> left behind, which you have +forgotten? Think a minute.”</p> +<p>“No, signore. None.”</p> +<p>“What, not <i>one</i>! You know so many that perhaps a +language more or less makes no difference to you.”</p> +<p>“By the Lord, signore, you have seen every egg in the +basket.”</p> +<p>I looked him fixedly in the eyes, and said, in a low tone,—</p> +<p>“<i>Ne rakesa tu Romanes miro prala</i>?”</p> +<p>There was a startled glance from one to the other, and a silence. +I had asked him if he could not talk Romany. And I added,—</p> +<p>“<i>Won’t</i> you talk a word with a gypsy +brother?”</p> +<p><i>That</i> moved them. They all shook my hands with <!-- page +93--><a name="page93"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 93</span>great feeling, +expressing intense joy and amazement at meeting with one who knew them.</p> +<p>“<i>Mishto hom me dikava tute</i>.” (I am glad to see +you.) So they told me how they were getting on, and where they were +camped, and how they sold horses, and so on, and we might have got on much +farther had it not been for a very annoying interruption. As I was +talking to the gypsies, a great number of men, attracted by the sound of a +foreign language, stopped, and fairly pushed themselves up to us, +endeavoring to make it all out. When there were at least fifty, they +crowded in between me and the foreigners, so that I could hardly talk to +them. The crowd did not consist of ordinary people, or snobs. +They were well dressed,—young clerks, at least,—who would have +fiercely resented being told that they were impertinent.</p> +<p>“Eye-talians, ain’t they?” inquired one man, who was +evidently zealous in pursuit of knowledge.</p> +<p>“Why don’t you tell us what they are +sayin’?”</p> +<p>“What kind of fellers air they, any way?”</p> +<p>I was desirous of going with the Hungarian Roms. But to walk along +Chestnut Street with an augmenting procession of fifty curious Sunday +promenaders was not on my card. In fact, I had some difficulty in +tearing myself from the inquisitive, questioning, well-dressed +people. The gypsies bore the pressure with the serene equanimity of +cosmopolite superiority, smiling at provincial rawness. Even so in +China and Africa the traveler is mobbed by the many, who, there as here, +think that “I want to know” is full excuse for all +intrusiveness. <i>Q’est tout comme chez nous</i>. I +confess that I was vexed, and, considering that it was in my native city, +mortified.</p> +<p><!-- page 94--><a name="page94"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 94</span>A +few days after I went out to the <i>tan</i> where these Roms had +camped. But the birds had flown, and a little pile of ashes and the +usual débris of a gypsy camp were all that remained. The +police told me that they had some very fine horses, and had gone to the +Northwest; and that is all I ever saw of them.</p> +<p>I have heard of a philanthropist who was turned into a misanthrope by +attempting to sketch in public and in galleries. Respectable +strangers, even clergymen, would stop and coolly look over his shoulder, +and ask questions, and give him advice, until he could work no +longer. Why is it that people who would not speak to you for life +without an introduction should think that their small curiosity to see your +sketches authorizes them to act as aquaintances? Or why is the +pursuit of knowledge assumed among the half-bred to be an excuse for so +much intrusion? “I want to know.” Well, and what if +you do? The man who thinks that his desire for knowledge is an excuse +for impertinence—and there are too many who act on this in all +sincerity—is of the kind who knocks the fingers off statues, because +“he wants them” for his collection; who chips away tombstones, +and hews down historic trees, and not infrequently steals outright, and +thinks that his pretense of culture is full excuse for all his mean +deeds. Of this tribe is the man who cuts his name on all walls and +smears it on the pyramids, to proclaim himself a fool to the world; the +difference being that, instead of wanting to know anything, he wants +everybody to know that His Littleness was once in a great place.</p> +<p>I knew a distinguished artist, who, while in the East, only secured his +best sketch of a landscape by employing fifty men to keep off the +multitude. I <!-- page 95--><a name="page95"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 95</span>have seen a strange fellow take a lady’s +sketch out of her hand, excusing himself with the remark that he was so +fond of pictures. Of course my readers do not act thus. When +they are passing through the Louvre or British Museum they never pause and +overlook artists, despite the notices requesting them not to do so. +Of course not. Yet I once knew a charming young American lady, who +scouted the idea as nonsense that she should not watch artists at +work. “Why, we used to make up parties for the purpose of +looking at them!” she said. “It was half the fun of going +there. I’m sure the artists were delighted to get a chance to +talk to us.” Doubtless. And yet there are really very few +artists who do not work more at their ease when not watched, and I have +known some to whom such watching was misery. They are not, O +intruder, painting for <i>your</i> amusement!</p> +<p>This is not such a far cry from my Romanys as it may seem. When I +think of what I have lost in this life by impertinence coming between me +and gypsies, I feel that it could not be avoided. The proportion of +men, even of gentlemen, or of those who dress decently, who cannot see +another well-dressed man talking with a very poor one in public, without at +once surmising a mystery, and endeavoring to solve it, is amazing. +And they do not stop at a trifle, either.</p> +<p>It is a marked characteristic of all gypsies that they are quite free +from any such mean intrusiveness. Whether it is because they +themselves are continually treated as curiosities, or because great +knowledge of life in a small way has made them philosophers, I will not +say, but it is a fact that in <!-- page 96--><a name="page96"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 96</span>this respect they are invariably the politest +people in the world. Perhaps their calm contempt of the +<i>galerly</i>, or green Gorgios, is founded on a consciousness of their +superiority in this matter.</p> +<p>The Hungarian gypsy differs from all his brethren of Europe in being +more intensely gypsy. He has deeper, wilder, and more original +feeling in music, and he is more inspired with a love of travel. +Numbers of Hungarian Romany chals—in which I include all Austrian +gypsies—travel annually all over Europe, but return as regularly to +their own country. I have met with them exhibiting bears in +Baden-Baden. These Ričinari, or bear-leaders, form, however, a +set within a set, and are in fact more nearly allied to the gypsy +bear-leaders of Turkey and Syria than to any other of their own +people. They are wild and rude to a proverb, and generally speak a +peculiar dialect of Romany, which is called the Bear-leaders’ by +philologists. I have also seen Syrian-gypsy Ričinari in +Cairo. Many of the better caste make a great deal of money, and some +are rich. Like all really pure-blooded gypsies, they have deep +feelings, which are easily awakened by kindness, but especially by sympathy +and interest.</p> +<h2><!-- page 97--><a name="page97"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +97</span>ENGLISH GYPSIES.</h2> +<h3>I. OATLANDS PARK.</h3> +<p>Oatlands Park (between Weybridge and Walton-upon-Thames) was once the +property of the Duke of York, but now the lordly manor-house is a +hotel. The grounds about it are well preserved and very +picturesque. They should look well, for they cover a vast and wasted +fortune. There is, for instance, a grotto which cost forty thousand +pounds. It is one of those wretched and tasteless masses of silly +rock-rococo work which were so much admired at the beginning of the present +century, when sham ruins and sham caverns were preferred to real. +There is, also, close by the grotto, a dogs’ burial-ground, in which +more than a hundred animals, the favorites of the late duchess, lie +buried. Over each is a tombstone, inscribed with a rhyming epitaph, +written by the titled lady herself, and which is in sober sadness in every +instance doggerel, as befits the subject. In order to degrade the +associations of religion and church rites as effectually as possible, there +is attached to these graves the semblance of a ruined chapel, the +stained-glass window of which was taken from a church. <a +name="citation97"></a><a href="#footnote97" class="citation">[97]</a> +I confess that I could never see either <!-- page 98--><a +name="page98"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 98</span>grotto or grave-yard +without sincerely wishing, out of regard to the memory of both duke and +duchess, that these ridiculous relics of vulgar taste and affected +sentimentalism could be completely obliterated. But, apart from them, +the scenes around are very beautiful; for there are grassy slopes and +pleasant lawns, ancient trees and broad gravel walks, over which, as the +dry leaves fall on the crisp sunny morning, the feet are tempted to walk on +and on, all through the merry golden autumn day.</p> +<p>The neighborhood abounds in memories of olden time. Near Oatlands +is a modernized house, in which Henry the Eighth lived in his youth. +It belonged then to Cardinal Wolsey; now it is owned by Mr. +Lindsay,—a sufficient cause for wits calling it Lindsay-Wolsey, that +being also a “fabric.” Within an hour’s walk is the +palace built by Cardinal Wolsey, while over the river, and visible from the +portico, is the little old Gothic church of Shepperton, and in the same +view, to the right, is the old Walton Bridge, by Cowie Stakes, supposed to +cover the exact spot where Cæsar crossed. This has been denied +by many, but I know that the field adjacent to it abounds in ancient +British jars filled with burned bones, the relics of an ancient +battle,—probably that which legend states was fought on the +neighboring Battle Island. Stout-hearted Queen Bessy has also left +her mark on this neighborhood, for within a mile is the old Saxon-towered +church of Walton, in which the royal dame was asked for her opinion of the +sacrament when it was given to her, to which she replied:—</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“Christ was the Word who spake it,<br /> +He took the bread and brake it;<br /> +And what that Word did make it,<br /> +That I believe, and take it.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p><!-- page 99--><a name="page99"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 99</span>In +memory of this the lines were inscribed on the massy Norman pillar by which +she stood. From the style and cutting it is evident that the +inscription dates from the reign of Elizabeth. And very near +Oatlands, in fact on the grounds, there are two ancient yew-trees, several +hundred yards apart. The story runs that Queen Elizabeth once drew a +long bow and shot an arrow so far that, to commemorate the deed, one of +these trees was planted where she stood, and the other where the shaft +fell. All England is a museum of touching or quaint relics; to me one +of its most interesting cabinets is this of the neighborhood of Weybridge +and Walton-upon-Thames.</p> +<p>I once lived for eight months at Oatlands Park, and learned to know the +neighborhood well. I had many friends among the families in the +vicinity, and, guided by their advice, wandered to every old church and +manor-house, ruin and haunted rock, fairy-oak, tower, palace, or shrine +within a day’s ramble. But there was one afternoon walk of four +miles, round by the river, which I seldom missed. It led by a spot on +the bank, and an old willow-tree near the bridge, which spot was greatly +haunted by the Romany, so that, excepting during the hopping-season of +autumn, when they were away in Kent, I seldom failed to see from afar a +light rising smoke, and near it a tent and a van, as the evening shadows +blended with the mist from the river in phantom union.</p> +<p>It is a common part of gypsy life that the father shall be away all day, +lounging about the next village, possibly in the <i>kitchema</i> or +ale-house, or trying to trade a horse, while the wife trudges over the +country, from one farm-house or cottage to another, <!-- page 100--><a +name="page100"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 100</span>loaded with baskets, +household utensils, toys, or cheap ornaments, which she endeavors, like a +true Autolyca, with wily arts and wheedling tones, to sell to the +rustics. When it can be managed, this hawking is often an +introduction to fortune-telling, and if these fail the gypsy has recourse +to begging. But it is a weary life, and the poor <i>dye</i> is always +glad enough to get home. During the day the children have been left +to look out for themselves or to the care of the eldest, and have tumbled +about the van, rolled around with the dog, and fought or frolicked as they +chose. But though their parents often have a stock of cheap toys, +especially of penny dolls and the like, which they put up as prizes for +games at races and fairs, I have never seen these children with +playthings. The little girls have no dolls; the boys, indeed, affect +whips, as becomes incipient jockeys, but on the whole they never seemed to +me to have the same ideas as to play as ordinary house-children. The +author of “My Indian Garden” has made the same observation of +Hindoo little ones, whose ways are not as our ways were when we were +young. Roman and Egyptian children had their dolls; and there is +something sadly sweet to me in the sight of these barbarous and naïve +facsimiles of miniature humanity, which come up like little spectres out of +the dust of ancient days. They are so rude and queer, these Roman +puppets; and yet they were loved once, and had pet names, and their +owl-like faces were as tenderly kissed as their little mistresses had been +by their mothers. So the Romany girl, unlike the Roman, is generally +doll-less and toy-less. But the affection between mother and child is +as warm among these wanderers as with any other people; and it is a +touching sight to see the gypsy who <!-- page 101--><a +name="page101"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 101</span>has been absent all +the weary day returning home. And when she is seen from afar off +there is a race among all the little dark-brown things to run to mother and +get kissed, and cluster and scramble around her, and perhaps receive some +little gift which mother’s thoughtful love has provided. +Knowing these customs, I was wont to fill my pockets with chestnuts or +oranges, and, distributing them among the little ones, talk with them, and +await the sunset return of their parents. The confidence or love of +all children is delightful; but that of gypsy children resembles the +friendship of young foxes, and the study of their artless-artful ways is +indeed attractive. I can remember that one afternoon six small Romany +boys implored me to give them each a penny. I replied,—</p> +<p>“If I had sixpence, how would you divide it?”</p> +<p>“That would be a penny apiece,” said the eldest boy.</p> +<p>“And if threepence?”</p> +<p>“A ha’penny apiece.”</p> +<p>“And three ha’pence?”</p> +<p>“A farden all round. And then it couldn’t go no +furder, unless we bought tobacco an’ diwided it.”</p> +<p>“Well, I have some tobacco. But can any of you +smoke?”</p> +<p>They were from four to ten years of age, and at the word every one +pulled out the stump of a blackened pipe,—such depraved-looking +fragments I never saw,—and holding them all up, and crowding closely +around, like hungry poultry with uplifted bills, they began to clamor for +<i>tūvalo</i>, or tobacco. They were connoisseurs, too, and the +elder boy, as he secured his share, smelled it with intense satisfaction, +and <!-- page 102--><a name="page102"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +102</span>said, “That’s <i>rye’s tūvalo</i>;” +that is, “gentleman’s tobacco,” or best quality.</p> +<p>One evening, as the shadows were darkening the day, I met a little gypsy +boy, dragging along, with incredible labor, a sack full of wood, which one +needed not go far afield to surmise was neither purchased nor begged. +The alarmed and guilty or despairing look which he cast at me was very +touching. Perhaps he thought I was the gentleman upon whose property +he had “found” the wood; or else a magistrate. How he +stared when I spoke to him in Romany, and offered to help him carry +it! As we bore it along I suggested that we had better be careful and +avoid the police, which remark established perfect confidence between +us. But as we came to the tent, what was the amazement of the +boy’s mother to see him returning with a gentleman helping him to +carry his load! And to hear me say in Romany, and in a cheerful tone, +“Mother, here is some wood we’ve been stealing for +you.”</p> +<p>Gypsies have strong nerves and much cheek, but this was beyond her +endowment; she was appalled at the unearthly strangeness of the whole +proceeding, and when she spoke there was a skeleton rattle in her words and +a quaver of startled ghastliness in her laugh. She had been alarmed +for her boy, and when I appeared she thought I was a swell bringing him in +under arrest; but when I announced myself in Romany as an accomplice, +emotion stifled thought. And I lingered not, and spoke no more, but +walked away into the woods and the darkness. However, the legend went +forth on the roads, even unto Kingston, and was told among the rollicking +Romanys of ’Appy Ampton; for there are always a merry, loafing lot +<!-- page 103--><a name="page103"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 103</span>of +them about that festive spot, looking out for excursionists through the +months when the gorse blooms, and kissing is in season—which is +always. And he who seeks them on Sunday may find them camped in Green +Lane.</p> +<p>When I wished for a long ramble on the hedge-lined roads—the sweet +roads of old England—and by the green fields, I was wont to take a +day’s walk to Netley Abbey. Then I could pause, as I went, +before many a quiet, sheltered spot, adorned with arbors and green alleys, +and protected by trees and hawthorn hedges, and again surrender my soul, +while walking, to tender and vague reveries, in which all definite thoughts +swim overpowered, yet happy, in a sea of voluptuous emotions inspired by +clouds lost in the blue sea of heaven and valleys visioned away into the +purple sky. What opium is to one, what hasheesh may be to another, +what <i>kheyf</i> or mere repose concentrated into actuality is to the +Arab, that is Nature to him who has followed her for long years through +poets and mystics and in works of art, until at last he pierces through +dreams and pictures to reality.</p> +<p>The ruins of Netley Abbey, nine or ten miles from Oatlands Park, are +picturesque and lonely, and well fitted for the dream-artist in shadows +among sunshine. The priory was called Newstead or De Novo Loco in +Norman times, when it was founded by Ruald de Calva, in the day of Richard +Cœur de Lion. The ruins rise gray, white, and undressed with +ivy, that they may contrast the more vividly with the deep emerald of the +meadows around. “The surrounding scenery is composed of rivers +and rivulets,”—for seven streams run by it, according to +Aubrey,—“of <!-- page 104--><a name="page104"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 104</span>foot-bridge and fords, plashy pools and +fringed, tangled hollows, trees in groups or alone, and cattle dotted over +the pastures:” an English Cuyp from many points of view, beautiful +and English-home-like from all. Very near it is the quaint, +out-of-the-way, darling little old church of Pirford, up a hill, nestling +among trees, a half-Norman, decorated beauty, out of the age, but +altogether in the heart. As I came near, of a summer afternoon, the +waving of leaves and the buzzing of bees without, and the hum of the voices +of children at school within the adjoining building, the cool shade and the +beautiful view of the ruined Abbey beyond, made an impression which I can +never forget. Among such scenes one learns why the English love so +heartily their rural life, and why every object peculiar to it has brought +forth a picture or a poem. I can imagine how many a man, who has +never known what poetry was at home, has wept with yearning inexpressible, +when sitting among burning sands and under the palms of the East, for such +scenes as these.</p> +<p>But Netley Abbey is close by the river Wey, and the sight of that river +and the thought of the story of the monks of the olden time who dwelt in +the Abbey drive away sentiment as suddenly as a north wind scatters +sea-fogs. For the legend is a merry one, and the reader may have +heard it; but if he has not I will give it in one of the merriest ballads +ever written. By whom I know not,—doubtless many know. I +sing, while walking, songs of olden time.</p> +<h4><!-- page 105--><a name="page105"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +105</span>THE MONKS OF THE WEY.</h4> +<p>A TRUE AND IMPORTANT RELATION OF THE WONDERFUL TUNNELL OF NEWARKE ABBEY +AND OF THE UNTIMELY ENDE OF SEVERALL OF YE GHOSTLY BRETH’REN.</p> +<blockquote> +<p>The monks of the Wey seldom sung any psalms,<br /> +And little they thought of religion or qualms;<br /> +Such rollicking, frolicking, ranting, and gay,<br /> +And jolly old boys were the monks of the Wey.</p> +<p>To the sweet nuns of Ockham devoting their cares,<br /> +They had little time for their beads and their prayers;<br /> +For the love of these maidens they sighed night and day,<br /> +And neglected devotion, these monks of the Wey.</p> +<p>And happy i’ faith might these brothers have been<br /> +If the river had never been rolling between<br /> +The abbey so grand and the convent so gray,<br /> +That stood on the opposite side of the Wey.</p> +<p>For daily they sighed, and then nightly they pined<br /> +But little to anchorite precepts inclined,<br /> +So smitten with beauty’s enchantments were they,<br /> +These rollicking, frolicking monks of the Wey.</p> +<p>But scandal was rife in the country near,<br /> +They dared not row over the river for fear;<br /> +And no more could they swim it, so fat were they,<br /> +These oily and amorous monks of the Wey.</p> +<p>Loudly they groaned for their fate so hard,<br /> +From the love of these beautiful maidens debarred,<br /> +Till a brother just hit on a plan which would stay<br /> +The woe of these heart-broken monks of the Wey.</p> +<p>“Nothing,” quoth he, “should true love sunder;<br /> +Since we cannot go over, then let us go under!<br /> +Boats and bridges shall yield to clay,<br /> +We’ll dig a long tunnel clean under the Wey.”</p> +<p>So to it they went with right good will,<br /> +With spade and shovel and pike and bill;<br /> +<!-- page 106--><a name="page106"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +106</span>And from evening’s close till the dawn of day<br /> +They worked like miners all under the Wey.</p> +<p>And at vesper hour, as their work begun,<br /> +Each sung of the charms of his favorite nun;<br /> +“How surprised they will be, and how happy!” said they,<br /> +“When we pop in upon them from under the Wey!”</p> +<p>And for months they kept grubbing and making no sound<br /> +Like other black moles, darkly under the ground;<br /> +And no one suspected such going astray,<br /> +So sly were these mischievous monks of the Wey.</p> +<p>At last their fine work was brought near to a close<br /> +And early one morn from their pallets they rose,<br /> +And met in their tunnel with lights to survey<br /> +If they’d scooped a free passage right under the Wey.</p> +<p>But alas for their fate! As they smirked and they smiled.<br /> +To think how completely the world was beguiled,<br /> +The river broke in, and it grieves me to say<br /> +It drowned all the frolicksome monks of the Wey.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p>O churchmen beware of the lures of the flesh,<br /> +The net of the devil has many a mesh!<br /> +And remember whenever you’re tempted to stray,<br /> +The fate that befell the poor monks of the Wey.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>It was all long ago, and now there are neither monks nor nuns; the +convent has been converted, little by little, age by age, into cottages, +even as the friars and nuns themselves may have been organically changed +possibly into violets, but more probably into the festive sparrows which +flit and hop and flirt about the ruins with abrupt startles, like pheasants +sudden bursting on the wing. There is a pretty little Latin epigram, +written by a gay monk, of a pretty little lady, who, being very amorous, +and observing that sparrows were like her as to love, hoped that she might +be turned into one after death; and it is not <!-- page 107--><a +name="page107"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 107</span>difficult for a +dreamer in an old abbey, of a golden day to fancy that these merry, saucy +birdies, who dart and dip in and out of the sunshine or shadow, chirping +their shameless ditties <i>pro et con</i>, were once the human dwellers in +the spot, who sang their gaudrioles to pleasant strains.</p> +<p>I became familiar with many such scenes for many miles about Oatlands, +not merely during solitary walks, but by availing myself of the kind +invitations of many friends, and by hunting afoot with the beagles. +In this fashion one has hare and hound, but no horse. It is not +needed, for while going over crisp stubble and velvet turf, climbing fences +and jumping ditches, a man has a keen sense of being his own horse, and +when he accomplishes a good leap of being intrinsically well worth +£200. And indeed, so long as anybody can walk day in and out a +greater distance than would tire a horse, he may well believe he is really +worth one. It may be a good thing for us to reflect on the fact that +if slavery prevailed at the present day as it did among the polished Greeks +the average price of young gentlemen, and even of young ladies, would not +be more than what is paid for a good hunter. Divested of diamonds and +of Worth’s dresses, what would a girl of average charms be worth to a +stranger? Let us reflect!</p> +<p>It was an October morning, and, pausing after a run, I let the pack and +the “course-men” sweep away, while I sat in a pleasant spot to +enjoy the air and scenery. The solemn grandeur of groves and the +quiet dignity of woodland glades, barred with rays of solid-seeming +sunshine, such as the saint of old hung his cloak on, the brook into which +the overhanging chestnuts drop, as if in sport, their creamy <!-- page +108--><a name="page108"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 108</span>golden +little boats of leaves, never seem so beautiful or impressive as +immediately after a rush and cry of many men, succeeded by solitude and +silence. Little by little the bay of the hounds, the shouts of the +hunters, and the occasional sound of the horn grew fainter; the birds once +more appeared, and sent forth short calls to their timid friends. I +began again to notice who my neighbors were, as to daisies and heather +which resided around the stone on which I sat, and the exclusive circle of +a fairy-ring at a little distance, which, like many exclusive circles, +consisted entirely of mushrooms.</p> +<p>As the beagle-sound died away, and while the hounds were “working +around” to the road, I heard footsteps approaching, and looking up +saw before me a gypsy woman and a boy. She was a very gypsy woman, an +ideal witch, nut-brown, tangle-haired, aquiline of nose, and fierce-eyed; +and fiercely did she beg! As amid broken Gothic ruins, overhung with +unkempt ivy, one can trace a vanished and strange beauty, so in this worn +face of the Romany, mantled by neglected tresses, I could see the remains +of what must have been once a wonderful though wild loveliness. As I +looked into those serpent eyes; trained for a long life to fascinate in +fortune-telling simple dove-girls, I could readily understand the implicit +faith with which many writers in the olden time spoke of the +“fascination” peculiar to female glances. “The +multiplication of women,” said the rabbis, “is the increase of +witches,” for the belles in Israel were killing girls, with arrows, +the bows whereof are formed by pairs of jet-black eyebrows joined in +one. And thus it was that these black-eyed beauties, by +<i>mashing</i> <a name="citation108"></a><a href="#footnote108" +class="citation">[108]</a> men for <!-- page 109--><a +name="page109"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 109</span>many generations, +with shafts shot sideways and most wantonly, at last sealed their souls +into the corner of their eyes, as you have heard before. Cotton +Mather tells us that these witches with peaked eye-corners could never weep +but three tears out of their long-tailed eyes. And I have observed +that such tears, as they sweep down the cheeks of the brunette witches, are +also long-tailed, and recall by their shape and glitter the eyes from which +they fell, even as the daughter recalls the mother. For all +love’s witchcraft lurks in flashing eyes,—<i>lontan del occhio +lontan dal’ cuor</i>.</p> +<p>It is a great pity that the pigeon-eye-peaks, so pretty in young +witches, become in the old ones crow’s-feet and crafty. When I +greeted the woman, she answered in Romany, and said she was a Stanley from +the North. She lied bravely, and I told her so. It made no +difference in any way, nor was she hurt. The brown boy, who seemed +like a goblin, umber-colored fungus, growing by a snaky black wild vine, +sat by her and stared at me. I was pleased, when he said +<i>tober</i>, that she corrected him, exclaiming earnestly, “Never +say <i>tober</i> for road; that is <i>canting</i>. Always say +<i>drom</i>; that is good Romanes.” There is always a way of +bringing up a child in the way he should go,—though it be a gypsy +one,—and <i>drom</i> comes from the Greek <i>dromos</i>, which is +elegant and classical. Then she began to beg again, to pass the time, +and I lectured her severely on the sin and meanness of her conduct, and +said, with bitterness, “Do dogs eat dogs, or are all the Gorgios dead +in the land, that you cry for money to me? Oh, you are a fine +Stanley! a nice Beshaley you, to sing mumpin and mongerin, when a +half-blood Matthews <!-- page 110--><a name="page110"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 110</span>has too much decency to trouble the rye! +And how much will you take? Whatever the gentleman pleases, and thank +you, my kind sir, and the blessings of the poor gypsy woman on you. +Yes, I know that, <i>givelli</i>, you mother of all the liars. You +expect a sixpence, and here it is, and may you get drunk on the money, and +be well thrashed by your man for it. And now see what I had in my +hand all the time to give you. A lucky half crown, my deary; but +that’s not for you now. I only give a sixpence to a beggar, but +I stand a <i>pash-korauna</i> to any Romany who’s a pal and +amāl.”</p> +<p>This pleasing discourse made us very good friends, and, as I kept my +eyes sharply fixed on her viper orbs with an air of intense suspicion, +everything like ill-feeling or distrust naturally vanished from her mind; +for it is of the nature of the Romanys and all their kind to like those +whom they respect, and respect those whom they cannot deceive, and to +measure mankind exactly by their capacity of being taken in, especially by +themselves. As is also the case, in good society, with many ladies +and some gentlemen,—and much good may it do them!</p> +<p>There was a brief silence, during which the boy still looked wistfully +into my face, as if wondering what kind of gentleman I might be, until his +mother said,—</p> +<p>“How do you do with them <i>ryas</i> [swells]? What do you +tell ’em—about—what do they think—you +know?”</p> +<p>This was not explicit, but I understood it perfectly. There is a +great deal of such loose, disjointed conversation among gypsies and other +half-thinkers. An educated man requires, or pretends to himself to +require, <!-- page 111--><a name="page111"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +111</span>a most accurately-detailed and form-polished statement of +anything to understand it. The gypsy is less exacting. I have +observed among rural Americans much of this lottery style of conversation, +in which one man invests in a dubious question, not knowing exactly what +sort of a prize or blank answer he may draw. What the gypsy meant +effectively was, “How do you account to the Gorgios for knowing so +much about us, and talking with us? Our life is as different from +yours as possible, and you never acquired such a knowledge of all our +tricky ways as you have just shown without much experience of us and a +double life. You are related to us in some way, and you deceive the +Gorgios about it. What is your little game of life, on general +principles?”</p> +<p>For the gypsy is so little accustomed to having any congenial interest +taken in him that he can clearly explain it only by consanguinity. +And as I was questioned, so I answered,—</p> +<p>“Well, I tell them I like to learn languages, and am trying to +learn yours; and then I’m a foreigner in the country, anyhow, and +they don’t know my <i>droms</i> [ways], and they don’t care +much what I do,—don’t you see?”</p> +<p>This was perfectly satisfactory, and as the hounds came sweeping round +the corner of the wood she rose and went her way, and I saw her growing +less and less along the winding road and up the hill, till she disappeared, +with her boy, in a small ale-house. “Bang went the +sixpence.”</p> +<p>When the last red light was in the west I went down to the river, and as +I paused, and looked alternately at the stars reflected and flickering in +the water and at the lights in the little gypsy camp, <!-- page 112--><a +name="page112"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 112</span>I thought that as the +dancing, restless, and broken sparkles were to their serene types above, +such were the wandering and wild Romany to the men of culture in their +settled homes. It is from the house-dweller that the men of the roads +and commons draw the elements of their life, but in that life they are as +shaken and confused as the starlight in the rippling river. But if we +look through our own life we find that it is not the gypsy alone who is +merely a reflection and an imitation of the stars above him, and a creature +of second-hand fashion.</p> +<p>I found in the camp an old acquaintance, named Brown, and also perceived +at the first greeting that the woman Stanley had told Mrs. Brown that I +would not be <i>mongerdo</i>, or begged from, and that the latter, proud of +her power in extortion, and as yet invincible in mendicancy, had boasted +that she would succeed, let others weakly fail. And to lose no time +she went at me with an abruptness and dramatic earnestness which promptly +betrayed the secret. And on the spot I made a vow that nothing should +get a farthing from me, though I should be drawn by wild horses. And +a horse was, indeed, brought into requisition to draw me, or my money, but +without success; for Mr. Brown, as I very well knew,—it being just +then the current topic in the best society on the road,—had very +recently been involved in a tangled trouble with a stolen horse. This +horse had been figuratively laid at his door, even as a +“love-babe” is sometimes placed on the front steps of a +virtuous and grave citizen,—at least, this is what White George +averred,—and his very innocence and purity had, like a shining mark, +attracted the shafts of the wicked. He had come out unscathed, <!-- +page 113--><a name="page113"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 113</span>with a +package of papers from a lawyer, which established his character above par; +but all this had cost money, beautiful golden money, and brought him to the +very brink of ruin! Mrs. Brown’s attack was a desperate and +determined effort, and there was more at stake on its success than the +reader may surmise. Among gypsy women skill in begging implies the +possession of every talent which they most esteem, such as artfulness, cool +effrontery, and the power of moving pity or provoking generosity by pique +or humor. A quaint and racy book might be written, should it only set +forth the manner in which the experienced matrons give straight-tips or +suggestions to the maidens as to the manner and lore of begging; and it is +something worth hearing when several sit together and devise dodges, and +tell anecdotes illustrating the noble art of mendicity, and how it should +be properly practiced.</p> +<p>Mrs. Brown knew that to extort alms from me would place her on the +pinnacle as an artist. Among all the Cooper clan, to which she was +allied, there was not one who ever begged from me, they having all found +that the ripest nuts are those which fall from the tree of their own +accord, or are blown earthward by the soft breezes of benevolence, and not +those which are violently beaten down. She began by pitiful appeals; +she was moving, but I did not budge. She grew pathetic; she touched +on the stolen horse; she paused, and gushed almost to tears, as much as to +say, If it must be, you <i>shall</i> know all. Ruin stared them in +the face; poverty was crushing them. It was well acted,—rather +in the Bernhardt style, which, if M. Ondit speaks the truth, is also +employed rather extensively for acquiring “de monish.” +<!-- page 114--><a name="page114"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 114</span>I +looked at the van, of which the Browns are proud, and inquired if it were +true that it had been insured for a hundred pounds, as George had recently +boasted. Persuasion having failed, Mrs. Brown tried bold defiance, +saying that they needed no company who were no good to them, and plainly +said to me I might be gone. It was her last card, thinking that a +threat to dissolve our acquaintance would drive me to capitulate, and it +failed. I laughed, went into the van, sat down, took out my brandy +flask, and then accepted some bread and ale, and, to please them, read +aloud all the papers acquitting George from all guilt as concerned the +stolen horse,—papers which, he declared, had cost him full five +pounds. This was a sad come-down from the story first told. +Then I seriously rated his wife for begging from me. “You know +well enough,” I said, “that I give all I can spare to your +family and your people when they are sick or poor. And here you are, +the richest Romanys on the road between Windsor and the Boro Gav, begging a +friend, who knows all about you, for money! Now, here is a +shilling. Take it. Have half a crown? Two of +’em! No! Oh, you don’t want it here in your own +house. Well, you have some decency left, and to save your credit I +won’t make you take it. And you scandalize me, a gentleman and +a friend, just to show this tramp of a Stanley <i>juva</i>, who +hasn’t even got a drag [wagon], that you can beat her <i>a mongerin +mandy</i> [begging me].”</p> +<p>Mrs. Brown assented volubly to everything, and all the time I saw in her +smiling eyes, ever agreeing to all, and heard from her voluble lips nothing +but the <i>lie</i>,—that lie which is the mental action and <!-- page +115--><a name="page115"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 115</span>inmost grain +of the Romany, and especially of the <i>diddikai</i>, or half-breed. +Anything and everything—trickery, wheedling or bullying, fawning or +threatening, smiles, or rage, or tears—for a sixpence. All day +long flattering and tricking to tell fortunes or sell trifles, and all life +one greasy lie, with ready frowns or smiles: as it was in India in the +beginning, as it is in Europe, and as it will be in America, so long as +there shall be a rambler on the roads, amen!</p> +<p>Sweet peace again established, Mrs. Brown became herself once more, and +acted the hospitable hostess, exactly in the spirit and manner of any woman +who has “a home of her own,” and a spark of decent feeling in +her heart. Like many actors, she was a bad lot on the boards, but a +very nice person off them. Here in her rolling home she was neither a +beggar nor poor, and she issued her orders grandly. “Boil some +tea for the <i>rye</i>—cook some coffee for the <i>rye</i>—wait +a few minutes, my darling gentleman, and I’ll brile you a +steak—or here’s a fish, if you’d like it?” +But I declined everything except the corner of a loaf and some ale; and all +the time a little brown boy, with great black eyes, a perfect Murillo +model, sat condensed in wondrous narrow space by the fire, baking small +apples between the bars of the grate, and rolling up his orbs at me as if +wondering what could have brought me into such a circle,—even as he +had done that morning in the greenwood.</p> +<p>Now if the reader would know what the interior of a gypsy van, or +“drag,” or <i>wardo</i>, is like, he may see it in the +following diagram.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/116.jpg"> +<img alt="Interior of gypsy van" src="images/116.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p><!-- page 116--><a name="page116"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +116</span><i>A</i> is the door; <i>B</i> is the bed, or rather two beds, +each six feet long, like berths, with a vacant space below; <i>C</i> is a +grate cooking-stove; <i>D</i> is a table, which hangs by hinges from the +wall; <i>E</i> is a chest of drawers; <i>f</i> and <i>f</i> are two +chairs. The general appearance of a well-kept van is that of a +state-room. Brown’s is a very good van, and quite clean. +They are admirably well adapted for slow traveling, and it was in such +vans, purchased from gypsies, that Sir Samuel Baker and his wife explored +the whole of Cyprus.</p> +<p>Mrs. Brown was proud of her van and of her little treasures. From +the great recess under the bed she raked out as a rare curiosity an old +Dolly Varden or damasked skirt, not at all worn, quite pretty, and +evidently of considerable value to a collector. This had belonged to +Mrs. Brown’s grandmother, an old gypsy queen. And it may be +observed, by the way, that the claims of every Irishman of every degree to +be descended from one of the ancient kings of Ireland fade into nothing +before those of the gypsy women, all of whom, with rare exception, are the +own daughters of royal personages, granddaughterhood being hardly a claim +to true nobility. Then the bed itself was exhibited with pride, and +the princess sang its praises, till she affirmed that the <i>rye</i> +himself did not sleep on a better one, for which George reprimanded +her. But she vigorously defended its excellence, and, to please her, +I felt it <!-- page 117--><a name="page117"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +117</span>and declared it was indeed much softer than the one I slept on, +which was really true,—thank Heaven—and was received as a great +compliment, and afterwards proclaimed on the roads even unto the ends of +Surrey.</p> +<p>“Yes,” said Brown, as I observed some osiers in the +cupboard, “when I feels like it I sometimes makes a pound a day +a-making baskets.”</p> +<p>“I should think,” I said, “that it would be cheaper to +buy French baskets of Bulrose [Bulureaux] in Houndsditch, ready +made.”</p> +<p>“So one would think; but the <i>ranyor</i> [osiers] costs +nothin’, and so it’s all profit, any way.”</p> +<p>Then I urged the greater profit of living in America, but both assured +me that so long as they could make a good living and be very comfortable, +as they considered themselves, in England, it would be nonsense to go to +America.</p> +<p>For all things are relative, and many a gypsy whom the begged-from pity +sincerely, is as proud and happy in a van as any lord in the land. A +very nice, neat young gypsy woman, camped long before just where the Browns +were, once said to me, “It isn’t having everything fine and +stylish that makes you happy. Now we’ve got a van, and have +everything so elegant and comfortable, and sleep warm as anybody; and yet I +often say to my husband that we used to be happier when we used to sleep +under a hedge with, may be, only a thin blanket, and wake up covered with +snow.” Now this woman had only a wretched wagon, and was always +tramping in the rain, or cowering in a smoky, ragged tent and sitting on +the ground, but she had food, fire, and fun, with warm clothes, and +believed herself happy. Truly, she had <!-- page 118--><a +name="page118"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 118</span>better reason to +think so than any old maid with a heart run to waste on church gossip, or +the latest engagements and marriages; for it is better to be a street-boy +in a corner with a crust than one who, without it, discusses, in +starvation, with his friend the sausages and turtle-soup in a cook-shop +window, between which and themselves there is a great pane of glass fixed, +never to be penetrated.</p> +<h3><!-- page 119--><a name="page119"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +119</span>II. WALKING AND VISITING.</h3> +<p>I never shall forget the sparkling splendor of that frosty morning in +December when I went with a younger friend from Oatlands Park for a +day’s walk. I may have seen at other times, but I do not +remember, such winter lace-work as then adorned the hedges. The +gossamer spider has within her an inward monitor which tells if the weather +will be fine; but it says nothing about sudden changes to keen cold, and +the artistic result was that the hedges were hung with thousands of Honiton +lamp-mats, instead of the thread fly-catchers which their little artists +had intended. And on twigs and dead leaves, grass and rock and wall, +were such expenditures of Brussels and Spanish point, such a luxury of real +old Venetian run mad, and such deliria of Russian lace as made it evident +that Mrs. Jack Frost is a very extravagant fairy, but one gifted with +exquisite taste. When I reflect how I have in my time spoken of the +taste for lace and diamonds in women as entirely without foundation in +nature, I feel that I sinned deeply. For Nature, in this lace-work, +displays at times a sympathy with humanity,—especially +womanity,—and coquets and flirts with it, as becomes the subject, in +a manner which is merrily awful. There was once in Philadelphia a +shop the windows of which were always filled with different kinds of the +richest <!-- page 120--><a name="page120"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +120</span>and rarest lace, and one cold morning I found that the fairies +had covered the panes with literal frost fac-similes of the exquisite wares +which hung behind. This was no fancy; the copies were as accurate as +photographs. Can it be that in the invisible world there are Female +Fairy Schools of Design, whose scholars combine in this graceful style +Etching on Glass and Art Needlework?</p> +<p>We were going to the village of Hersham to make a call. It was not +at any stylish villa or lordly manor-house,—though I knew of more +than one in the vicinity where we would have been welcome,—but at a +rather disreputable-looking edifice, which bore on its front the sign of +“Lodgings for Travellers.” Now “traveller” +means, below a certain circle of English life, not the occasional, but the +habitual wanderer, or one who dwells upon the roads, and gains his living +thereon. I have in my possession several cards of such a house. +I found them wrapped in a piece of paper, by a deserted gypsy camp, where +they had been lost:—</p> +<p style="text-align: center">A NEW HOUSE.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Good Lodging for Travellers</i>. +<i>With a Large Private Kitchen</i>.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">THE CROSS KEYS,<br /> +<span class="smcap">West Street . . . maidenhead</span>.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">BY J. HARRIS.</p> +<p>The “private kitchen” indicates that the guests will have +facilities for doing their own cooking, as all of them bring their own +victuals in perpetual picnic. In the inclosure of the house in +Hersham, the tops of two or three gypsy vans could always be seen above the +high fence, and there was that general <!-- page 121--><a +name="page121"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 121</span>air of mystery about +the entire establishment which is characteristic of all places haunted by +people whose ways are not as our ways, and whose little games are not as +our little games. I had become acquainted with it and its proprietor, +Mr. Hamilton, in that irregular and only way which is usual with such +acquaintances. I was walking by the house one summer day, and stopped +to ask my way. A handsome dark-brown girl was busy at the wash-tub, +two or three older women were clustered at the gate, and in all their faces +was the manner of the <i>diddikai</i> or <i>chureni</i>, or half-blood +gypsy. As I spoke I dropped my voice, and said, +inquiringly,—</p> +<p>“Romanes?”</p> +<p>“Yes,” was the confidential answer.</p> +<p>They were all astonished, and kept quiet till I had gone a few rods on +my way, when the whole party, recovering from their amazement, raised a +gentle cheer, expressive of approbation and sympathy. A few days +after, walking with a lady in Weybridge, she said to me,—</p> +<p>“Who is that man who looked at you so closely?”</p> +<p>“I do not know.”</p> +<p>“That’s very strange. I am quite sure I heard him +utter two words in a strange language, as you passed, as if he only meant +them for you. They sounded like <i>sarshaun baw</i>.” +Which means, “How are you, sir?” or friend. As we came up +the street, I saw the man talking with a well-dressed, sporting-looking +man, not quite a gentleman, who sat cheekily in his own jaunty little +wagon. As I passed, the one of the wagon said to the other, speaking +of me, and in pure Romany, evidently thinking I did not +understand,—</p> +<p><!-- page 122--><a name="page122"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +122</span>“<i>Dikk’adovo Giorgio</i>, <i>adoi</i>!” +(Look at that Gorgio, there!)</p> +<p>Being a Romany rye, and not accustomed to be spoken of as a Gorgio, I +looked up at him, angrily, when he, seeing that I understood him, smiled, +and bowed politely in apology. I laughed and passed on. But I +thought it a little strange, for neither of the men had the slightest +indication of gypsiness. I met the one who had said <i>sarishān +bā</i> again, soon after. I found that he and the one of the +wagon were not of gypsy blood, but of a class not uncommon in England, who, +be they rich or poor, are affected towards gypsies. The wealthy one +lived with a gypsy mistress; the poorer one had a gypsy wife, and was very +fond of the language. There is a very large class of these mysterious +men everywhere about the country. They haunt fairs; they pop up +unexpectedly as Jack-in-boxes in unsuspected guise; they look out from +under fatherly umbrellas; their name is Legion; their mother is Mystery, +and their uncle is Old Tom,—not of Virginia, but of Gin. Once, +in the old town of Canterbury, I stood in the street, under the Old Woman +with the Clock, one of the quaintest pieces of drollery ever imagined +during the Middle Ages. And by me was a tinker, and as his wheel went +<i>siz-‘z-‘z-‘z</i>, <i>uz-uz-uz-z-z</i>! I talked with +him, and there joined us a fat, little, elderly, spectacled, +shabby-genteel, but well-to-do-looking sort of a punchy, small +tradesman. And, as we spoke, there went by a great, stout, roaring +Romany woman,—a scarlet-runner of Babylon run to seed,—with a +boy and a hand-cart to carry the seed in. And to her I cried, +“<i>Hav akai te mandy’ll del tute a +shāori</i>!” (Come here, and I’ll stand a +sixpence!) But she did not <!-- page 123--><a +name="page123"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 123</span>believe in my offer, +but went her way, like a Burning Shame, through the crowd, and was lost +evermore. I looked at the little old gentleman to see what effect my +outcry in a strange language had upon him. But he only remarked, +soberly, “Well, now, I <i>should</i> ’a’ thought a +sixpence would ’a’ brought her to!” And the wheel +said, “Suz-zuz-zuz-z-z I should ’a’ suz-suz +’a’ thought a suz-z-zixpence would ’a’ suz-zuz +’a’ brought her, too-z-z-z!” And I looked at the +Old Woman with the Clock, and she ticked, +“A—six—pence—would—have—brought—<i>me</i>—two—three—four”—and +I began to dream that all Canterbury was Romany.</p> +<p>We came to the house, the landlord was up-stairs, ill in bed, but would +be glad to see us; and he welcomed us warmly, and went deeply into Romany +family matters with my friend, the Oxford scholar. Meanwhile, his +daughter, a nice brunette, received and read a letter; and he tried to +explain to me the mystery of the many men who are not gypsies, yet speak +Romany, but could not do it, though he was one of them. It appeared +from his account that they were “a kind of mixed, you see, and dusted +in, you know, and on it, out of the family, it peppers up; but not exactly, +you understand, and that’s the way it is. And I remember a case +in point, and that was one day, and I had sold a horse, and was with my boy +in a <i>moramengro’s buddika</i> [barber’s shop], and my boy +says to me, in Romanes, ‘Father, I’d like to have my hair +cut.’ ‘It’s too dear here, my son,’ said I, +Romaneskes; ‘for the bill says threepence.’ And then the +barber, he ups and says, in Romany, ‘Since you’re Romanys, +I’ll cut it for <i>two</i>pence, though it’s clear out of all +my rules.’ And he did <!-- page 124--><a +name="page124"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 124</span>it; but why that man +<i>rakkered Romanes</i> I don’t know, nor how it comes about; for he +hadn’t no more call to it than a pig has to be a preacher. But +I’ve known men in Sussex to take to diggin’ truffles on the +same principles, and one Gorgio in Hastings that adopted sellin’ +fried fish for his livin’, about the town, because he thought it was +kind of romantic. That’s it.”</p> +<p>Over the chimney-piece hung a large engraving of Milton and his +daughters. It was out of place, and our host knew it, and was +proud. He said he had bought it at an auction, and that it was a +picture of Middleton,—a poet, he believed; “anyhow, he was a +writing man.” But, on second thought, he remembered that the +name was not Middleton, but Millerton. And on further reflection, he +was still more convinced that Millerton <i>was</i> a poet.</p> +<p>I once asked old Matthew Cooper the Romany word for a poet. And he +promptly replied that he had generally heard such a man called a +<i>givellengero</i> or <i>gilliengro</i>, which means a song-master, but +that he himself regarded <i>shereskero-mush</i>, or head-man, as more +elegant and deeper; for poets make songs out of their heads, and are also +ahead of all other men in head-work. There is a touching and +unconscious tribute to the art of arts in this definition which is worth +recording. It has been said that, as people grow polite, they cease +to be poetical; it is certain that in the first circles they do not speak +of their poets with such respect as this.</p> +<p>Out again into the fresh air and the frost on the crisp, crackling road +and in the sunshine. At such a time, when cold inspires life, one can +understand why the old poets and mystics believed that there was fire <!-- +page 125--><a name="page125"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 125</span>in +ice. Therefore, Saint Sebaldus, coming into the hut of a poor and +pious man who was dying of cold, went out, and, bringing in an armful of +icicles, laid them on the andirons and made a good fire. Now this +fire was the inner glowing glory of God, and worked both ways,—of +course you see the connection,—as was shown in Adelheid von +Sigolsheim, the Holy Nun of Unterlinden, who was so full of it that she +passed the night in a freezing stream, and then stood all the morning, +ice-clad, in the choir, and never caught cold. And the pious +Peroneta, to avoid a sinful suitor, lived all winter, up to her neck, in +ice-water, on the highest Alp in Savoy. <a name="citation125"></a><a +href="#footnote125" class="citation">[125]</a> These were +saints. But there was a gypsy, named Dighton, encamped near Brighton, +who told me nearly the same story of another gypsy, who was no saint, and +which I repeat merely to show how extremes meet. It was that this +gypsy, who was inspired with anything but the inner glowing glory of God, +but who was, on the contrary, cram full of pure cussedness, being warmed by +the same,—and the devil,—when chased by the constable, took +refuge in a river full of freezing slush and broken ice, where he stood up +to his neck and defied capture; for he verily cared no more for it than did +Saint Peter of Alcantara, who was both ice and fire proof. +“Come out of that, my good man,” said the gentleman, whose hen +he had stolen, “and I’ll let you go.” “No, I +won’t come out,” said the gypsy. “My blood be on +your head!” So the gentleman offered him five pounds, and then +a suit of clothes, to come ashore. The gypsy reflected, and at last +said, “Well, if you’ll add a drink of spirits, I’ll come; +but it’s only to oblige you that I budge.”</p> +<p><!-- page 126--><a name="page126"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +126</span>Then we walked in the sober evening, with its gray gathering +shadows, as the last western rose light rippled in the river, yet fading in +the sky,—like a good man who, in dying, speaks cheerfully of earthly +things, while his soul is vanishing serenely into heaven. The swans, +looking like snowballs, unconscious of cold were taking their last swim +towards the reedy, brake-tangled islets where they nested, gossiping as +they went. The deepening darkness, at such a time, becomes more +impressive from the twinkling stars, just as the subduing silence is noted +only by the far-borne sounds from the hamlet or farm-house, or the +occasional whispers of the night-breeze. So we went on in the +twilight, along the Thames, till we saw the night-fire of the Romanys and +its gleam on the <i>tan</i>. A <i>tan</i> is, strictly speaking, a +tent, but a tent is a dwelling, or stopping-place; and so from earliest +Aryan time, the word <i>tan</i> is like Alabama, or “here we +rest,” and may be found in <i>tun</i>, the ancestor of town, and in +<i>stan</i>, as in Hindostan,—and if I blunder, so much the better +for the philological gentlemen, who, of all others, most delight in setting +erring brothers right, and never miss a chance to show, through +others’ shame, how much they know.</p> +<p>There was a bark of a dog, and a voice said, “The Romany +rye!” They had not seen us, but the dog knew, and they knew his +language.</p> +<p>“<i>Sarishan ryor</i>!”</p> +<p>“<i>O boro duvel atch’ pa leste</i>!” (The great +Lord be on you!) This is not a common Romany greeting. It is of +ancient days and archaic. Sixty or seventy years ago it was +current. Old Gentilla Cooper, the famous fortune-teller of the +Devil’s Dike, near Brighton, knew it, and when she heard it from me +she <!-- page 127--><a name="page127"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +127</span>was moved,—just as a very old negro in London was, when I +said to him, “<i>Sady</i>, uncle.” I said it because I +had recognized by the dog’s bark that it was Sam Smith’s +tan. Sam likes to be considered as <i>deep</i> Romany. He tries +to learn old gypsy words, and he affects old gypsy ways. He is +pleased to be called Petulengro, which means Smith. Therefore, my +greeting was a compliment.</p> +<p>In a few minutes we were in camp and at home. We talked of many +things, and among others of witches. It is remarkable that while the +current English idea of a witch is that of an old woman who has sold +herself to Satan, and is a distinctly marked character, just like Satan +himself, that of the witch among gypsies is general and Oriental. +There is no Satan in India. Mrs. Smith—since dead—held +that witches were to be found everywhere. “You may know a +natural witch,” she said, “by certain signs. One of these +is straight hair which curls at the ends. Such women have it in +them.”</p> +<p>It was only recently, as I write, that I was at a very elegant art +reception, which was fully reported in the newspapers. And I was very +much astonished when a lady called my attention to another young and very +pretty lady, and expressed intense disgust at the way the latter wore her +hair. It was simply parted in the middle, and fell down on either +side, smooth as a water-fall, and then broke into curls at the ends, just +as water, after falling, breaks into waves and rapids. But as she +spoke, I felt it all, and saw that Mrs. Petulengro was in the right. +The girl with the end-curled hair was uncanny. Her hair curled at the +ends,—so did her eyes; she <i>was</i> a witch.</p> +<p><!-- page 128--><a name="page128"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +128</span>“But there’s a many witches as knows clever +things,” said Mrs. Petulengro. “And I learned from one of +them how to cure the rheumatiz. Suppose you’ve got the +rheumatiz. Well, just you carry a potato in your pocket. As the +potato dries up, your rheumatiz will go away.”</p> +<p>Sam Smith was always known on the roads as Fighting Sam. Years +have passed, and when I have asked after him I have always heard that he +was either in prison or had just been let out. Once it happened that, +during a fight with a Gorgio, the Gorgio’s watch disappeared, and Sam +was arrested under suspicion of having got up the fight in order that the +watch might disappear. All of his friends declared his +innocence. The next trouble was for <i>chorin a gry</i>, or stealing +a horse, and so was the next, and so on. As horse-stealing is not a +crime, but only “rough gambling,” on the roads, nobody defended +him on these counts. He was, so far as this went, only a sporting +character. When his wife died he married Athalía, the widow of +Joshua Cooper, a gypsy, of whom I shall speak anon. I always liked +Sam. Among the travelers, he was always spoken of as genteel, owing +to the fact, that whatever the state of his wardrobe might be, he always +wore about his neck an immaculate white woolen scarf, and on <i>jours de +fête</i>, such as horse-races, sported a <i>boro stardī</i>, or +chimney-pot hat. O my friend, Colonel Dash, of the club! Change +but the name, this fable is of thee!</p> +<p>“There’s to be a <i>walgoro</i>, <i>kaliko i +sala</i>—a fair to-morrow morning, at Cobham,” said Sam, as he +departed.</p> +<p>“All right. We’ll be there.”</p> +<p><!-- page 129--><a name="page129"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +129</span>As I went forth by the river into the night, and the stars looked +down like loving eyes, there shot a meteor across the sky, one long trail +of light, out of darkness into darkness, one instant bright, then dead +forever. And I remembered how I once was told that stars, like +mortals, often fall in love. O love, forever in thy glory go! +And that they send their starry angels forth, and that the meteors are +their messengers. O love, forever in thy glory go! For love and +light in heaven, as on earth, were ever one, and planets speak with +light. Light is their language; as they love they speak. O +love, forever in thy glory go!</p> +<h3><!-- page 130--><a name="page130"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +130</span>III. COBHAM FAIR.</h3> +<p>The walk from Oatlands Park Hotel to Cobham is beautiful with memorials +of Older England. Even on the grounds there is a quaint brick +gateway, which is the only relic of a palace which preceded the present +pile. The grandfather was indeed a stately edifice, built by Henry +VIII., improved and magnified, according to his lights, by Inigo Jones, and +then destroyed during the civil war. The river is here very +beautiful, and the view was once painted by Turner. It abounds in +“short windings and reaches.” Here it is, indeed, the +Olerifera Thamesis, as it was called by Guillaume le Breton in his +“Phillipeis,” in the days of Richard the Lion Heart. Here +the eyots and banks still recall Norman days, for they are “wild and +were;” and there is even yet a wary otter or two, known to the +gypsies and fishermen, which may be seen of moonlight nights plunging or +swimming silently in the haunted water.</p> +<p>Now we pass Walton Church, and look in, that my friend may see the massy +Norman pillars and arches, the fine painted glass, and the brasses. +One of these represents John Selwyn, who was keeper of the royal park of +Oatlands in 1587. Tradition, still current in the village, says that +Selwyn was a man of wondrous strength and of rare skill in +horsemanship. <!-- page 131--><a name="page131"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 131</span>Once, when Queen Elizabeth was present at a +stag hunt, he leaped from his horse upon the back of the stag, while both +were running at full speed, kept his seat gracefully, guided the animal +towards the queen, and stabbed him so deftly that he fell dead at her +majesty’s feet. It was daintily done, and doubtless Queen Bess, +who loved a proper man, was well pleased. The brass plate represents +Selwyn as riding on the stag, and there is in the village a shop where the +neat old dame who presides, or her daughter, will sell you for a penny a +picture of the plate, and tell you the story into the bargain. In it +the valiant ranger sits on the stag, which he is stabbing through the neck +with his <i>couteau de chasse</i>, looking meanwhile as solemn as if he +were sitting in a pew and listening to <i>De profundis</i>. He who is +great in one respect seldom fails in some other, and there is in the church +another and a larger brass, from which it appears that Selwyn not only had +a wife, but also eleven children, who are depicted in successive grandeur +or gradation. There are monuments by Roubiliac and Chantrey in the +church, and on the left side of the altar lies buried William Lilly, the +great astrologer, the Sidrophel of Butler’s +“Hudibras.” And look into the chancel. There is a +tablet to his memory, which was put up by Elias Ashmole, the antiquary, who +has left it in print that this “fair black marble stone” cost +him £6 4<i>s</i>. 6<i>d</i>. When I was a youth, and used to +pore in the old Franklin Library of Philadelphia over Lilly, I never +thought that his grave would be so near my home. But a far greater +literary favorite of mine lies buried in the church-yard without. +This is Dr. Maginn, the author of “Father Tom and the Pope,” +and many <!-- page 132--><a name="page132"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +132</span>another racy, subtle jest. A fellow of infinite +humor,—the truest disciple of Rabelais,—and here he lies +without a monument!</p> +<p>Summon the sexton, and let us ask him to show us the scold’s, or +gossip’s, bridle. This is a rare curiosity, which is kept in +the vestry. It would seem, from all that can be learned, that two +hundred years ago there were in England viragoes so virulent, women so +gifted with gab and so loaded and primed with the devil’s own +gunpowder, that all moral suasion was wasted on them, and simply showed, as +old Reisersberg wrote, that <i>fatue agit qui ignem conatur extinguere +sulphure</i> (’t is all nonsense to try to quench fire with +brimstone). For such diavolas they had made—what the sexton is +just going to show you—a muzzle of thin iron bars, which pass around +the head and are padlocked behind. In front a flat piece of iron +enters the mouth and keeps down the tongue. On it is the date 1633, +and certain lines, no longer legible:—</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“Chester presents Walton with a bridle,<br /> +To curb women’s tongues that talk too idle.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>A sad story, if we only knew it all! What tradition tells is that +long ago there was a Master Chester, who lost a fine estate through the +idle, malicious clack of a gossiping, lying woman. “What is +good for a bootless bene?” What he did was to endow the church +with this admirable piece of head-gear. And when any woman in the +parish was unanimously adjudged to be deserving of the honor, the bridle +was put on her head and tongue, and she was led about town by the beadle as +an example to all the scolding sisterhood. Truly, if it could only be +applied to the women and men who repeat gossip, rumors <!-- page 133--><a +name="page133"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 133</span>reports, <i>on +dits</i>, small slanders, proved or unproved, to all gobe-mouches, +club-gabblers, tea-talkers and tattlers, chatterers, church-twaddlers, +wonderers if-it-be-true-what-they-say; in fine, to the entire sister and +brother hood of tongue-waggers, I for one would subscribe my mite to have +one kept in every church in the world, to be zealously applied to their +vile jaws. For verily the mere Social Evil is an angel of light on +this earth as regards doing evil, compared to the Sociable Evil,—and +thus endeth the first lesson.</p> +<p>We leave the church, so full of friendly memories. In this one +building alone there are twenty things known to me from a boy. For +from boyhood I have held in my memory those lines by Queen Elizabeth which +she uttered here, and have read Lilly and Ashmole and Maginn; and this is +only one corner in merrie England! Am I a stranger here? There +is a father-land of the soul, which has no limits to him who, far sweeping +on the wings of song and history, goes forth over many lands.</p> +<p>We have but a little farther to go on our way before we come to the +quaint old manor-house which was of old the home of President Bradshaw, the +grim old Puritan. There is an old sailor in the village, who owns a +tavern, and he says, and the policeman agrees with him, that it was in this +house that the death-warrant of King Charles the First was signed. +Also, that there is a subterranean passage which leads from it to the +Thames, which was in some way connected with battle, murder, plots, +Puritans, sudden death, and politics; though how this was is more than +legend can clearly explain. Whether his sacred majesty was led to +execution through this <!-- page 134--><a name="page134"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 134</span>cavity, or whether Charles the Second had it +for one of his numerous hiding-places, or returned through it with Nell +Gwynn from his exile, are other obscure points debated among the +villagers. The truth is that the whole country about Walton is +subterrened with strange and winding ways, leading no one knows whither, +dug in the days of the monks or knights, from one long-vanished monastery +or castle to the other. There is the opening to one of these hard by +the hotel, but there was never any gold found in it that ever I heard +of. And all the land is full of legend, and ghosts glide o’ +nights along the alleys, and there is an infallible fairy well at hand, +named the Nun, and within a short walk stands the tremendous Crouch oak, +which was known of Saxon days. Whoever gives but a little of its bark +to a lady will win her love. It takes its name from <i>croix</i> (a +cross), according to Mr. Kemble, <a name="citation134"></a><a +href="#footnote134" class="citation">[134]</a> and it is twenty-four feet +in girth. Its first branch, which is forty-eight feet long, shoots +out horizontally, and is almost as large as the trunk. Under this +tree Wickliffe preached, and Queen Elizabeth dined.</p> +<p>It has been well said by Irving that the English, from the great +prevalence of rural habits throughout every class of society, have been +extremely fond of those festivals and holidays which agreeably interrupt +the stillness of country life. True, the days have gone when +burlesque pageant and splendid procession made even villages +magnificent. Harp and tabor and viol are no longer heard in every inn +when people would be merry, and men have forgotten how to give themselves +up to headlong roaring revelry. The last of this tremendous +frolicking in Europe <!-- page 135--><a name="page135"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 135</span>died out with the last yearly <i>kermess</i> +in Amsterdam, and it was indeed wonderful to see with what utter +<i>abandon</i> the usually stolid Dutch flung themselves into a rushing +tide of frantic gayety. Here and there in England a spark of the old +fire, lit in mediæval times, still flickers, or perhaps flames, as at +Dorking in the annual foot-ball play, which is carried on with such vigor +that two or three thousand people run wild in it, while all the windows and +street lamps are carefully screened for protection. But +notwithstanding the gradually advancing republicanism of the age, which is +dressing all men alike, bodily and mentally, the rollicking democracy of +these old-fashioned festivals, in which the peasant bonneted the peer +without ceremony, and rustic maids ran races <i>en chemise</i> for a pound +of tea, is entirely too leveling for culture. There are still, +however, numbers of village fairs, quietly conducted, in which there is +much that is pleasant and picturesque, and this at Cobham was as pretty a +bit of its kind as I ever saw. These are old-fashioned and gay in +their little retired nooks, and there the plain people show themselves as +they really are. The better class of the neighborhood, having no +sympathy with such sports or scenes, do not visit village fairs. It +is, indeed, a most exceptional thing to see any man who is a +“gentleman,” according to the society standard, in any fair +except Mayfair in London.</p> +<p>Cobham is well built for dramatic display. Its White Lion Inn is +of the old coaching days, and the lion on its front is a very impressive +monster, one of the few relics of the days when signs were signs in spirit +and in truth. In this respect the tavern keeper of to-day is a poor +snob, that he thinks a sign painted <!-- page 136--><a +name="page136"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 136</span>or carven is +degenerate and low, and therefore announces, in a line of letters, that his +establishment is the Pig and Whistle, just as his remote predecessor +thought it was low, or slow, or old-fashioned to dedicate his ale-shop to +Pigen Wassail or Hail to the Virgin, and so changed it to a more genteel +and secular form. In the public place were rows of booths arranged in +streets forming <i>imperium in imperio</i>, a town within a town. +There was of course the traditional gilt gingerbread, and the cheering but +not inebriating ginger-beer, dear to the youthful palate, and not less +loved by the tired pedestrian, when, mixed half and half with ale, it foams +before him as <i>shandy gaff</i>. There, too, were the stands, +presided over by jaunty, saucy girls, who would load a rifle for you and +give you a prize or a certain number of shots for a shilling. You may +be a good shot, but the better you shoot the less likely will you be to hit +the bull’s-eye with the rifle which that black-eyed Egyptian minx +gives you; for it is artfully curved and false-sighted, and the rifle was +made only to rifle your pocket, and the damsel to sell you with her smiles, +and the doll is stuffed with sawdust, and life is not worth living for, and +Miching Mallocko says it,—albeit I believe he lives at times as if +there might be moments when it was forgot.</p> +<p>And we had not been long on the ground before we were addressed +furtively and gravely by a man whom it required a second glance to +recognize as Samuel Petulengro, so artfully was he disguised as a +simple-seeming agriculturalist of the better lower-class. But that +there remained in Sam’s black eyes that glint of the Romany which +nothing could disguise, one would have longed to buy a horse of him. +<!-- page 137--><a name="page137"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +137</span>And in the same quiet way there came, one by one, out of the +crowd, six others, all speaking in subdued voices, like conspirators, and +in Romany, as if it were a sin. And all were dressed rustically, and +the same with intent to deceive, and all had the solemn air of very small +farmers, who must sell that horse at any sacrifice. But when I saw +Sam’s horses I marked that his disguise of himself was nothing to the +wondrous skill with which he had converted his five-pound screws into +something comparatively elegant. They had been curried, clipped, +singed, and beautified to the last resource, and the manner in which the +finest straw had been braided into mane and tail was a miracle of +art. This was <i>jour de fête</i> for Sam and his +<i>diddikai</i>, or half-blood pals; his foot was on his native heath in +the horse-fair, where all inside the ring knew the gypsy, and it was with +pride that he invited us to drink ale, and once in the bar-room, where all +assembled were jockeys and sharps, conversed loudly in Romany, in order to +exhibit himself and us to admiring friends. A Romany rye, on such +occasions, is to a Sam Petulengro what a scion of royalty is to minor +aristocracy when it can lure him into its nets. To watch one of these +small horse-dealers at a fair, and to observe the manner in which he +conducts his bargains, is very curious. He lounges about all day, +apparently doing nothing; he is the only idler around. Once in a +while somebody approaches him and mutters something, to which he gives a +brief reply. Then he goes to a tap-room or stable-yard, and is merged +in a mob of his mates. But all the while he is doing sharp clicks of +business. There is somebody talking to another party about <i>that +horse</i>; somebody telling a farmer that he knows <!-- page 138--><a +name="page138"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 138</span>a young man as has +got a likely ’oss at ’arf price, the larst of a lot which he +wants to clear out, and it may be ’ad, but if the young man sees +’im [the farmer] he may put it on ’eavy.</p> +<p>Then the agent calls in one of the disguised Romanys to testify to the +good qualities of the horse. They look at it, but the third +<i>deguisé</i>, who has it in charge, avers that it has just been +sold to a gentleman. But they have another. By this time the +farmer wishes he had bought the horse. When any coin slips from +between our fingers, and rolls down through a grating into the sewer, we +are always sure that it was a sovereign, and not a half-penny. Yes, +and the fish which drops back from the line into the river is always the +biggest take—or mistake—of the day. And this horse was a +bargain, and the three in disguise say so, and wish they had a hundred like +it. But there comes a Voice from the depths, a casual remark, +offering to bet that ’ere gent won’t close on that hoss. +“Bet yer ten bob he will.” “Done.” +“How do yer know he don’t take the hoss?” “He +carn’t; he’s too heavy loaded with Bill’s mare. +Says he’ll sell it for a pound better.” The farmer begins +to see his way. He is shrewd; it may be that he sees through all this +myth of “the gentleman.” But his attention has been +attracted to the horse. Perhaps he pays a little more, or “the +pound better;” in greater probability he gets Sam’s horse for +the original price. There are many ways among gypsies of making such +bargains, but the motive power of them all is <i>táderin</i>, or +drawing the eye of the purchaser, a game not unknown to Gorgios. I +have heard of a German <i>yahūd</i> in Philadelphia, whose little boy +Moses would shoot from the door <!-- page 139--><a name="page139"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 139</span>with a pop-gun or squirt at passers-by, or +abuse them vilely, and then run into the shop for shelter. They of +course pursued him and complained to the parent, who immediately whipped +his son, to the great solace of the afflicted ones. And then the +afflicted seldom failed to buy something in that shop, and the corrected +son received ten per cent. of the profit. The attention of the public +had been drawn.</p> +<p>As we went about looking at people and pastimes, a Romany, I think one +of the Ayres, said to me,—</p> +<p>“See the two policemen? They’re following you two +gentlemen. They saw you pallin’ with Bowers. That Bowers +is the biggest blackguard on the roads between London and Windsor. I +don’t want to hurt his charáckter, but it’s no bad +talkin’ nor <i>dusherin</i> of him to say that no decent Romanys care +to go with him. Good at a mill? Yes, he’s that. A +reg’lar <i>wastimengro</i>, I call him. And that’s why it +is.”</p> +<p>Now there was in the fair a vast institution which proclaimed by a +monstrous sign and by an excessive eruption of advertisement that it was +<span class="smcap">The Sensation of the Age</span>. This was a giant +hand-organ in connection with a forty-bicycle merry-go-round, all propelled +by steam. And as we walked about the fair, the two rural policemen, +who had nothing better to do, shadowed or followed us, their bucolic +features expressing the intensest suspicion allied to the extremest +stupidity; when suddenly the Sensation of the Age struck up the +Gendarme’s chorus, “We’ll run ’em in,” from +Genevieve de Brabant, and the arrangement was complete. Of all airs +ever composed this was the most appropriate to the occasion, and therefore +it played itself. The whole formed quite a little opera-bouffe, +gypsies not being wanting. <!-- page 140--><a +name="page140"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 140</span>And as we came round, +in our promenade, the pretty girl, with her rifle in hand, implored us to +take a shot, and the walk wound up by her finally letting fly herself and +ringing the bell.</p> +<p>That pretty girl might or might not have a touch of Romany blood in her +veins, but it is worth noting that among all these show-men and show-women, +acrobats, exhibitors of giants, purse-droppers, gingerbread-wheel gamblers, +shilling knife-throwers, pitch-in-his-mouths, Punches, Cheap-Jacks, +thimble-rigs, and patterers of every kind there is always a leaven and a +suspicion of gypsiness. If there be not descent, there is affinity by +marriage, familiarity, knowledge of words and ways, sweethearting and +trafficking, so that they know the children of the Rom as the house-world +does not know them, and they in some sort belong together. It is a +muddle, perhaps, and a puzzle; I doubt if anybody quite understands +it. No novelist, no writer whatever, has as yet <i>clearly</i> +explained the curious fact that our entire nomadic population, excepting +tramps, is not, as we thought in our childhood, composed of English people +like ourselves. It is leavened with direct Indian blood; it has, more +or less modified, a peculiar <i>morale</i>. It was old before the +Saxon heptarchy.</p> +<p>I was very much impressed at this fair with the extensive and +unsuspected amount of Romany existent in our rural population. We had +to be satisfied, as we came late into the tavern for lunch, with cold +boiled beef and carrots, of which I did not complain, as cold carrots are +much nicer than warm, a fact too little understood in cookery. There +were many men in the common room, mostly well dressed, and decent even if +doubtful looking. I observed <!-- page 141--><a +name="page141"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 141</span>that several used +Romany words in casual conversation. I came to the conclusion at last +that all who were present knew something of it. The greatly +reprobated Bowers was not himself a gypsy, but he had a gypsy wife. +He lived in a cottage not far from Walton, and made baskets, while his wife +roamed far and near, selling them; and I have more than once stopped and +sent for a pot of ale, and shared it with Bill, listening meantime to his +memories of the road as he caned chairs or “basketed.” I +think his reputation came rather from a certain Bohemian disregard of +<i>convenances</i> and of appearances than from any deeply-seated +sinfulness. For there are Bohemians even among gypsies; everything in +this life being relative and socially-contractive. When I came to +know the disreputable William well, I found in him the principles of +Panurge, deeply identified with the <i>morale</i> of Falstaff; a wondrous +fund of unbundled humor, which expressed itself more by tones than words; a +wisdom based on the practices of the prize-ring; and a perfectly +sympathetic admiration of my researches into Romany. One day, at +Kingston Fair, as I wished to depart, I asked Bill the way to the +station. “I will go with you and show you,” he +said. But knowing that he had business in the fair I declined his +escort. He looked at me as if hurt.</p> +<p>“<i>Does tute pen mandy’d chore tute</i>?” (Do +you think I would rob <i>you</i> or pick your pockets?) For he +believed I was afraid of it. I knew Bill better. I knew that he +was perfectly aware that I was about the only man in England who had a good +opinion of him in any way, or knew what good there was in him. When a +<i>femme incomprise</i>, a woman not as yet found out, discovers at last +the man who is so <!-- page 142--><a name="page142"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 142</span>much a master of the art of flattery as to +satisfy somewhat her inordinate vanity, she is generally grateful enough to +him who has thus gratified her desires to refrain from speaking ill of him, +and abuse those who do, especially the latter. In like manner, Bill +Bowers, who was every whit as interesting as any <i>femme incomprise</i> in +Belgravia, or even Russell Square, believing that I had a little better +opinion of him than anybody else, would not only have refrained from +robbing me, but have proceeded to lam with his fists anybody else who would +have done so,—the latter proceeding being, from his point of view, +only a light, cheerful, healthy, and invigorating exercise, so that, as he +said, and as I believe truthfully, “I’d rather be walloped than +not fight.” Even as my friend H. had rather lose than not play +“farrer.”</p> +<p>This was a very pretty little country fair at Cobham; pleasant and +purely English. It was very picturesque, with its flags, banners, +gayly bedecked booths, and mammoth placards, there being, as usual, no lack +of color or objects. I wonder that Mr. Frith, who has given with such +idiomatic genius the humors of the Derby, has never painted an +old-fashioned rural fair like this. In a few years the last of them +will have been closed, and the last gypsy will be there to look on.</p> +<p>There was a pleasant sight in the afternoon, when all at once, as it +seemed to me, there came hundreds of pretty, rosy-cheeked children into the +fair. There were twice as many of them as of grown people. I +think that, the schools being over for the day, they had been sent +a-fairing for a treat. They swarmed in like small bee-angels, just +escaped from some upset celestial hive; they crowded around the booths, +buying <!-- page 143--><a name="page143"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +143</span>little toys, chattering, bargaining, and laughing, when my eye +caught theirs, as though to be noticed was the very best joke in the whole +world. They soon found out the Sensation of the Age, and the mammoth +steam bicycle was forthwith crowded with the happy little creatures, +raptured in all the glory of a ride. The cars looked like baskets +full of roses. It was delightful to see them: at first like grave and +stolid little Anglo-Saxons, occupied seriously with the new Sensation; then +here and there beaming with thawing jollity; then smiling like sudden +sun-gleams; and then laughing, until all were in one grand chorus, as the +speed became greater, and the organ roared out its notes as rapidly as a +runaway musical locomotive, and the steam-engine puffed in time, until a +high-pressure scream told that the penn’orth of fun was up.</p> +<p>As we went home in the twilight, and looked back at the trees and roofs +of the village, in dark silhouette against the gold-bronze sky, and heard +from afar and fitfully the music of the Great Sensation mingled with the +beat of a drum and the shouts of the crowd, rising and falling with the +wind, I felt a little sad, that the age, in its advancing refinement, is +setting itself against these old-fashioned merry-makings, and shrinking +like a weakling from all out-of-doors festivals, on the plea of their being +disorderly, but in reality because they are believed to be vulgar. +They come down to us from rough old days; but they are relics of a time +when life, if rough, was at least kind and hearty. We admire that +life on the stage, we ape it in novels, we affect admiration and +appreciation of its rich picturesqueness and vigorous originality, and we +lie in so doing; for there is not an æsthetic prig <!-- page 144--><a +name="page144"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 144</span>in London who could +have lived an hour in it. Truly, I should like to know what +François Villon and Chaucer would have thought of some of their +modern adorers, or what the lioness Fair-sinners of the olden time would +have had to say to the nervous weaklings who try to play the genial +blackguard in their praise! It is to me the best joke of the age that +those who now set themselves up for priests of the old faith are the men, +of all others, whom the old gods would have kicked, <i>cum magna +injuria</i>, out of the temple. When I sit by Bill Bowers, as he +baskets, and hear the bees buzz about his marigolds, or in Plato +Buckland’s van, or with a few hearty and true men of London town of +whom I wot, <i>then</i> I know that the old spirit liveth in its ashes; but +there is little of it, I trow, among its penny prig-trumpeters.</p> +<h3><!-- page 145--><a name="page145"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +145</span>IV. THE MIXED FORTUNES.</h3> +<blockquote> +<p>“Thus spoke the king to the great Master: ‘Thou didst bless +and ban the people; thou didst give benison and curse, luck and sorrow, to +the evil or the good.’</p> +<p>“And the Master said, ‘It may be so.’</p> +<p>“And the king continued, ‘There came two men, and one was +good and the other bad. And one thou didst bless, thinking he was +good; but he was wicked. And the other thou didst curse, and thought +him bad; but he was good.’</p> +<p>“The Master said, ‘And what came of it?’</p> +<p>“The king answered, ‘All evil came upon the good man, and +all happiness to the bad.’</p> +<p>“And the Master said, ‘I write letters, but I am not the +messenger; I hunt the deer, but I am not the cook; I plant the vine, but I +do not pour the wine to the guests; I ordain war, yet do not fight; I send +ships forth on the sea, but do not sail them. There is many a slip +between cup and lip, as the chief of the rebel spirits said when he was +thrown out of heaven, and I am not greater nor wiser than he was before he +fell. Hast thou any more questions, O son?’</p> +<p>“And the king went his way.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>One afternoon I was walking with three ladies. One was married, +one was a young widow, and one, no longer very young, had not as yet +husbanded her resources. And as we went by the Thames, conversation +turned upon many things, and among them the mystery of the future and +mediums; and the widow at last said she would like to have her fortune +told.</p> +<p>“You need not go far to have it done,” I said. +“There is a gypsy camp not a mile away, and in it one of the +cleverest fortune-tellers in England.”</p> +<p>“I am almost afraid to go,” said the maiden lady. <!-- +page 146--><a name="page146"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +146</span>“It seems to me to be really wrong to try to look into the +awful secrets of futurity. One can never be certain as to what a +gypsy may not know. It’s all very well, I dare say, to declare +it’s all rubbish, but then you know you never can tell what may be in +a rubbish-heap, and they may be predicting true things all the time while +they think they’re humbugging you. And they do often foretell +the most wonderful things; I know they do. My aunt was told that she +would marry a man who would cause her trouble, and, sure enough, she did; +and it was such a shame, she was such a sweet-tempered, timid woman, and he +spent half her immense fortune. Now wasn’t that +wonderful?”</p> +<p>It would be a curious matter for those who like studying statistics and +chance to find out what proportion in England of sweet-tempered, timid +women of the medium-middle class, in newly-sprouted families, with immense +fortunes, do <i>not</i> marry men who only want their money. Such +heiresses are the natural food of the noble shark and the swell sucker, and +even a gypsy knows it, and can read them at a glance. I explained +this to the lady; but she knew what she knew, and would not know +otherwise.</p> +<p>So we came along the rippling river, watching the darting swallows and +light water-gnats, as the sun sank afar into the tawny, golden west, and +Night, in ever-nearing circles, wove her shades around us. We saw the +little tents, like bee-hives,—one, indeed, not larger than the hive +in which Tyll Eulenspiegel slept his famous nap, and in which he was +carried away by the thieves who mistook him for honey and found him +vinegar. And the outposts, or advanced pickets of small, brown, +black-eyed elves, were tumbling about <!-- page 147--><a +name="page147"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 147</span>as usual, and shouted +their glad greeting; for it was only the day before that I had come down +with two dozen oranges, which by chance proved to be just one apiece for +all to eat except for little Synfie Cooper, who saved hers up for her +father when he should return.</p> +<p>I had just an instant in which to give the gypsy sorceress a +“straight tip,” and this I did, saying in Romany that one of +the ladies was married and one a widow. I was indeed quite sure that +she must know the married lady as such, since she had lived near at hand, +within a mile, for months. And so, with all due solemnity, the +sorceress went to her work.</p> +<p>“You will come first, my lady, if you please,” she said to +the married dame, and led her into a hedge-corner, so as to be remote from +public view, while we waited by the camp.</p> +<p>The hand was inspected, and properly crossed with a shilling, and the +seeress began her prediction.</p> +<p>“It’s a beautiful hand, my lady, and there’s luck in +it. The line o’ life runs lovely and clear, just like a smooth +river from sea to sea, and that means you’ll never be in danger +before you die, nor troubled with much ill. And it’s written +that you’ll have another husband very soon.”</p> +<p>“But I don’t want another,” said the lady.</p> +<p>“Ah, my dear lady, so you’ll say till you get him, but when +he comes you’ll be glad enough; so do you just get the first one out +of your head as soon as you can, for the next will be the better one. +And you’ll cross the sea and travel in a foreign land, and remember +what I told you to the end of your life days.”</p> +<p><!-- page 148--><a name="page148"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +148</span>Then the widow had her turn.</p> +<p>“This is a lucky hand, and little need you had to have your +fortune told. You’ve been well married once, and once is enough +when it’s all you need. There’s others as is never +satisfied and wants everything, but you’ve had the best, and more you +needn’t want, though there’ll be many a man who’ll be in +love with you. Ay, indeed, there’s fair and dark as will feel +the favor of your beautiful eyes, but little good will it do them, and +barons and lords as would kiss the ground you tread on; and no wonder, +either, for you have the charm which nobody can tell what it is. But +it will do ’em no good, nevermore.”</p> +<p>“Then I’m never to have another husband,” said the +widow.</p> +<p>“No, my lady. He that you married was the best of all, and, +after him, you’ll never need another; and that was written in your +hand when you were born, and it will be your fate, forever and ever: and +that is the gypsy’s production over the future, and what she has +producted will come true. All the stars in the fermentation of heaven +can’t change it. But if you ar’n’t satisfied, I can +set a planet for you, and try the cards, which comes more expensive, for I +never do that under ten shillings.”</p> +<p>There was a comparing of notes among the ladies and much laughter, when +it appeared that the priestess of the hidden spell, in her working, had +mixed up the oracles. Jacob had manifestly got Esau’s +blessing. It was agreed that the <i>bonnes fortunes</i> should be +exchanged, that the shillings might not be regarded as lost, and all this +was explained to the unmarried lady. She said nothing, but in due +time was also <i>dukkered</i> or fortune-told. With the same mystery +she was conducted <!-- page 149--><a name="page149"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 149</span>to the secluded corner of the hedge, and a +very long, low-murmuring colloquy ensued. What it was we never knew, +but the lady had evidently been greatly impressed and awed. All that +she would tell was that she had heard things that were “very +remarkable, which she was sure no person living could have known,” +and in fact that she believed in the gypsy, and even the blunder as to the +married lady and the widow, and all my assurances that chiromancy as +popularly practiced was all humbug, made no impression. There was +once “a disciple in Yabneh” who gave a hundred and fifty +reasons to prove that a reptile was no more unclean than any other +animal. But in those days people had not been converted to the law of +turtle soup and the gospel of Saint Terrapin, so the people said it was a +vain thing. And had I given a hundred and fifty reasons to this lady, +they would have all been vain to her, for she wished to believe; and when +our own wishes are served up unto us on nice brown pieces of the +well-buttered toast of flattery, it is not hard to induce us to devour +them.</p> +<p>It is written that when Ashmedai, or Asmodeus, the chief of all the +devils of mischief, was being led a captive to Solomon, he did several +mysterious things while on the way, among others bursting into extravagant +laughter, when he saw a magician conjuring and predicting. On being +questioned by Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, why he had seemed so much +amused, Ashmedai answered that it was because the seer was at the very time +sitting on a princely treasure, and he did not, with all his magic and +promising fortune to others, know this. Yet, if this had been told to +all the world, the conjurer’s business would <!-- page 150--><a +name="page150"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 150</span>not have +suffered. Not a bit of it. <i>Entre Jean</i>, <i>passe +Jeannot</i>: one comes and goes, another takes his place, and the poor will +disappear from this world before the too credulous shall have departed.</p> +<p>It was on the afternoon of the following day that I, by chance, met the +gypsy with a female friend, each with a basket, by the roadside, in a +lonely, furzy place, beyond Walton.</p> +<p>“You are a nice fortune-teller, aren’t you now?” I +said to her. “After getting a tip, which made it all as clear +as day, you walk straight into the dark. And here you promise a lady +two husbands, and she married already; but you never promised me two wives, +that I might make merry withal. And then to tell a widow that she +would never be married again! You’re a <i>bori chovihani</i> [a +great witch],—indeed, you aren’t.”</p> +<p>“<i>Rye</i>,” said the gypsy, with a droll smile and a +shrug,—I think I can see it now,—“the <i>dukkerin</i> +[prediction] was all right, but I pet the right <i>dukkerins</i> on the +wrong ladies.”</p> +<p>And the Master said, “I write letters, but I am not the +messenger.” His orders, like the gypsy’s, had been all +right, but they had gone to the wrong shop. Thus, in all ages, those +who affect superior wisdom and foreknowledge absolute have found that a +great practical part of the real business consisted in the plausible +explanation of failures. The great Canadian weather prophet is said +to keep two clerks busy, one in recording his predictions, the other in +explaining their failures; which is much the case with the rain-doctors in +Africa, who are as ingenious and fortunate in explaining a miss as a hit, +as, indeed, they need be, since they must, in case of error, submit <!-- +page 151--><a name="page151"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 151</span>to be +devoured alive by ants,—insects which in Africa correspond in several +respects to editors and critics, particularly the stinging kind. +“<i>Und ist man bei der Prophezeiung angestellt</i>,” as Heine +says; “when a man has a situation in a prophecy-office,” a +great part of his business is to explain to the customers why it is that so +many of them draw blanks, or why the trains of fate are never on time.</p> +<h3><!-- page 152--><a name="page152"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +152</span>V. HAMPTON RACES.</h3> +<p>On a summer day, when waking dreams softly wave before the fancy, it is +pleasant to walk in the noon-stillness along the Thames, for then we pass a +series of pictures forming a gallery which I would not exchange for that of +the Louvre, could I impress them as indelibly upon the eye-memory as its +works are fixed on canvas. There exists in all of us a spiritual +photographic apparatus, by means of which we might retain accurately all we +have ever seen, and bring out, at will, the pictures from the pigeon-holes +of the memory, or make new ones as vivid as aught we see in dreams, but the +faculty must be developed in childhood. So surely as I am now writing +this will become, at some future day, a branch of education, to be +developed into results of which the wildest imagination can form no +conception, and I put the prediction on record. As it is, I am sorry +that I was never trained to this half-thinking, half-painting art, since, +if I had been, I should have left for distant days to come some charming +views of Surrey as it appears in this decade.</p> +<p>The reedy eyots and the rising hills; the level meadows and the little +villes, with their antique perpendicular Gothic churches, which form the +points around which they have clustered for centuries, even as groups of +boats in the river are tied around their mooring-posts; <!-- page 153--><a +name="page153"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 153</span>the bridges and trim +cottages or elegant mansions with their flower-bordered grounds sweeping +down to the water’s edge, looking like rich carpets with new baize +over the centre, make the pictures of which I speak, varying with every +turn of the Thames; while the river itself is, at this season, like a +continual regatta, with many kinds of boats, propelled by stalwart young +Englishmen or healthy, handsome damsels, of every rank, the better class by +far predominating. There is a disposition among the English to don +quaint holiday attire, to put on the picturesque, and go to the very limits +which custom permits, which would astonish an American. Of late years +this is becoming the case, too, in Trans-Atlantis, but it has always been +usual in England, to mark the fête day with a festive dress, to wear +gay ribbons, and to indulge the very harmless instinct of youth to be +gallant and gay.</p> +<p>I had started one morning on a walk by the Thames, when I met a friend, +who asked,—</p> +<p>“Aren’t you going to-day to the Hampton races?”</p> +<p>“How far is it?”</p> +<p>“Just six miles. On Molesy Hurst.”</p> +<p>Six miles, and I had only six shillings in my pocket. I had some +curiosity to see this race, which is run on the Molesy Hurst, famous as the +great place for prize-fighting in the olden time, and which has never been +able to raise itself to respectability, inasmuch as the local chronicler +says that “the course attracts considerable and not very reputable +gatherings.” In fact, it is generally spoken of as the +Costermonger’s race, at which a mere welsher is a comparatively +respectable character, and every man in a good coat a swell. I was +nicely attired, by chance, for the occasion, <!-- page 154--><a +name="page154"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 154</span>for I had come out, +thinking of a ride, in a white hat, new corduroy pantaloons and waistcoat, +and a velveteen coat, which dress is so greatly admired by the gypsies that +it may almost be regarded as their “national costume.”</p> +<p>There was certainly, to say the least, a rather <i>bourgeois</i> tone at +the race, and gentility was conspicuous by its absence; but I did not find +it so outrageously low as I had been led to expect. I confess that I +was not encouraged to attempt to increase my little hoard of silver by +betting, and the certainty that if I lost I could not lunch made me +timid. But the good are never alone in this world, and I found +friends whom I dreamed not of. Leaving the crowd, I sought the gypsy +vans, and by one of these was old Liz Buckland.</p> +<p>“<i>Sarishan rye</i>! And glad I am to see you. Why +didn’t you come down into Kent to see the hoppin’? Many a +time the Romanys says they expected to see their <i>rye</i> there. +Just the other night, your Coopers was a-lyin’ round their fire, +every one of ’em in a new red blanket, lookin’ so beautiful as +the light shone on ’em, and I says, ‘If our <i>rye</i> was to +see you, he’d just have that book of his out, and take all your +pictures.’”</p> +<p>After much gossip over absent friends, I said,—</p> +<p>“Well, <i>dye</i>, I stand a shilling for beer, and that’s +all I can do to-day, for I’ve come out with only <i>shove +trin-grushi</i>.”</p> +<p>Liz took the shilling, looked at it and at me with an earnest air, and +shook her head.</p> +<p>“It’ll never do, <i>rye</i>,—never. A gentleman +wants more than six shillin’s to see a race through, and a +reg’lar Romany rye like you ought to slap down his <!-- page 155--><a +name="page155"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 155</span><i>lovvo</i> with the +best of ’em for the credit of his people. And if you want a +<i>bar</i> [a pound] or two, I’ll lend you the money, and never fear +about your payment.”</p> +<p>It was kind of the old <i>dye</i>, but I thought that I would pull +through on my five shillings, before I would draw on the Romany bank. +To be considered with sincere sympathy, as an object of deserving charity, +on the lowest race-ground in England, and to be offered eleemosynary relief +by a gypsy, was, indeed, touching the hard pan of humiliation. I went +my way, idly strolling about, mingling affably with all orders, for my +watch was at home. <i>Vacuus viator cantabit</i>. As I stood by +a fence, I heard a gentlemanly-looking young man, who was evidently a +superior pickpocket, or “a regular fly gonoff,” say to a +friend,—</p> +<p>“She’s on the ground,—a great woman among the +gypsies. What do they call her?”</p> +<p>“Mrs. Lee.”</p> +<p>“Yes. A swell Romany she is.”</p> +<p>Whenever one hears an Englishman, not a scholar, speak of gypsies as +“Romany,” he may be sure that man is rather more on the loose +than becomes a steady citizen, and that he walks in ways which, if not of +darkness, are at least in a shady <i>demi-jour</i>, with a gentle down +grade. I do not think there was anybody on the race-ground who was +not familiar with the older word.</p> +<p>It began to rain, and before long my new velveteen coat was very +wet. I looked among the booths for one where I might dry myself and +get something to eat, and, entering the largest, was struck by the +appearance of the landlady. She was a young and decidedly pretty +woman, nicely dressed, and was unmistakably <!-- page 156--><a +name="page156"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 156</span>gypsy. I had +never seen her before, but I knew who she was by a description I had +heard. So I went up to the bar and spoke:—</p> +<p>“How are you, Agnes?”</p> +<p>“Bloomin’. What will you have, sir?”</p> +<p>“<i>Dui curro levinor</i>, <i>yeck for tute</i>, <i>yeck for +mandy</i>.” (Two glasses for ale,—one for you, one for +me.)</p> +<p>She looked up with a quick glance and a wondering smile, and then +said,—</p> +<p>“You must be the Romany rye of the Coopers. I’m glad +to see you. Bless me, how wet you are. Go to the fire and dry +yourself. Here, Bill, I say! Attend to this +gentleman.”</p> +<p>There was a tremendous roaring fire at the farther end of the booth, at +which were pieces of meat, so enormous as to suggest a giant’s roast +or a political barbecue rather than a kitchen. I glanced with some +interest at Bill, who came to aid me. In all my life I never saw a +man who looked so thoroughly the regular English bull-dog bruiser of the +lowest type, but battered and worn out. His nose, by oft-repeated +pummeling, had gradually subsided almost to a level with his other +features, just as an ancient British grave subsides, under the pelting +storms of centuries, into equality with the plain. His eyes looked +out from under their bristly eaves like sleepy wild-cats from a pig-pen, +and his physique was tremendous. He noticed my look of curiosity.</p> +<p>“Old Bruisin’ Bill, your honor. I was well knowed in +the prize-ring once. Been in the newspapers. Now, you +mus’n’t dry your coat that way! New welweteen ought +always to be wiped afore you dry it. I was a gamekeeper myself for +six years, an’ wore it all that time nice and proper, I did, and know +how <!-- page 157--><a name="page157"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +157</span>may be you’ve got a thrip’ny bit for old Bill. +Thanky.”</p> +<p>I will do Mrs. Agnes Wynn the credit to say that in her booth the best +and most abundant meal that I ever saw for the price in England was given +for eighteen pence. Fed and dried, I was talking with her, when there +came up a pretty boy of ten, so neat and well dressed and altogether so +nice that he might have passed current for a gentleman’s son +anywhere.</p> +<p>“Well, Agnes. You’re Wynn by name and winsome by +nature, and all the best you have has gone into that boy. They say +you gypsies used to steal children. I think it’s time to turn +the tables, and when I take the game up I’ll begin by stealing your +<i>chavo</i>.”</p> +<p>Mrs. Wynn looked pleased. “He is a good boy, as good as he +looks, and he goes to school, and don’t keep low company.”</p> +<p>Here two or three octoroon, duodecaroon, or vigintiroon Romany female +friends of the landlady came up to be introduced to me, and of course to +take something at my expense for the good of the house. This they did +in the manner specially favored by gypsies; that is to say, a quart of ale, +being ordered, was offered first to me, in honor of my social position, and +then passed about from hand to hand. This rite accomplished, I went +forth to view the race. The sun had begun to shine again, the damp +flags and streamers had dried themselves in its cheering rays, even as I +had renewed myself at Dame Wynn’s fire, and I crossed the +race-course. The scene was lively, picturesque, and thoroughly +English. There are certain pleasures and pursuits which, however <!-- +page 158--><a name="page158"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 158</span>they +may be perfected in other countries, always seem to belong especially to +England, and chief among these is the turf. As a fresh start was +made, as the spectators rushed to the ropes, roaring with excitement, and +the horses swept by amid hurrahs, I could realize the sympathetic feeling +which had been developed in all present by ancient familiarity and many +associations with such scenes. Whatever the moral value of these may +be, it is certain that anything so racy with local color and so distinctly +fixed in popular affection as the <i>race</i> will always appeal to the +artist and the student of national scenes.</p> +<p>I found Old Liz lounging with Old Dick, her husband, on the other +side. There was a canvas screen, eight feet high, stretched as a +background to stop the sticks hurled by the players at +“coker-nuts,” while the nuts themselves, each resting on a +stick five feet high, looked like disconsolate and starved spectres, +waiting to be cruelly treated. In company with the old couple was a +commanding-looking, eagle-eyed Romany woman, in whom I at once recognized +the remarkable gypsy spoken of by the pickpocket.</p> +<p>“My name is Lee,” she said, in answer to my greeting. +“What is yours?”</p> +<p>“Leland.”</p> +<p>“Yes, you have added land to the lee. You are luckier than I +am. I’m a Lee without land.”</p> +<p>As she spoke she looked like an ideal Meg Merrilies, and I wished I had +her picture. It was very strange that I made the wish at that +instant, for just then she was within an ace of having it taken, and +therefore arose and went away to avoid it. An itinerant photographer, +seeing me talking with the gypsies, was attempting, though I knew it not, +to take <!-- page 159--><a name="page159"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +159</span>the group. But the keen eye of the Romany saw it all, and +she went her way, because she was of the real old kind, who believe it is +unlucky to have their portraits taken. I used to think that this +aversion was of the same kind as that which many good men evince in a +marked manner when requested by the police to sit for their photographs for +the rogues’ gallery. But here I did the gypsies great +injustice; for they will allow their likenesses to be taken if you will +give them a shoe-string. That this old superstition relative to the +binding and loosing of ill-luck by the shoe-string should exist in this +connection is of itself curious. In the earliest times the +shoe-latchet brought luck, just as the shoe itself did, especially when +filled with corn or rice, and thrown after the bride. It is a great +pity that the ignorant Gentiles, who are so careful to do this at every +wedding, do not know that it is all in vain unless they cry aloud in +Hebrew, “<i>Peru urphu</i>!” <a name="citation159"></a><a +href="#footnote159" class="citation">[159]</a> with all their might when +the shoe is cast, and that the shoe should be filled with rice.</p> +<p>She went away, and in a few minutes the photographer came in great glee +to show a picture which he had taken.</p> +<p>“’Ere you are, sir. An elegant photograph, +surroundin’ sentimental scenery and horiental coker-nuts thrown +in,—all for a diminitive little shillin’.”</p> +<p>“Now that time you missed it,” I said; “for on my +honor as a gentleman, I have only ninepence in all my pockets.”</p> +<p>“A gent like you with only ninepence!” said the artist.</p> +<p><!-- page 160--><a name="page160"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +160</span>“If he hasn’t got money in his pocket now,” +said Old Liz, speaking up in my defense, “he has plenty at +home. He has given pounds and pounds to us gypsies.”</p> +<p>“<i>Dovo’s a huckaben</i>,” I said to her in +Romany. “<i>Mandy kekker delled tute kūmi’n a +trin-grushi</i>.” (That is untrue. I never gave you more +than a shilling.)</p> +<p>“Anyhow,” said Liz, “ninepence is enough for +it.” And the man, assenting, gave it to me. It was a very +good picture, and I have since had several copies taken of it.</p> +<p>“Yes, <i>rya</i>,” said Old Liz, when I regretted the +absence of my Lady Lee, and talked with her about shoe-strings and old +shoes, and how necessary it was to cry out “<i>Peru urphu</i>!” +when you throw them,—“yes. That’s the way the +Gorgis always half does things. You see ’em get a horse-shoe +off the roads, and what do they do with it! Goes like <i>dinneli</i> +idiots and nails it up with the p’ints down, which, as is well +beknown, brings all the bad luck there is flyin’ in the air into the +house, and <i>taders chovihanees</i> [draws witches] like anise-seed does +rats. Now common sense ought to teach that the shoe ought to be put +like horns, with the p’ints up. For if it’s lucky to put +real horns up, of course the horse-shoe goes the same <i>drom</i> +[road]. And it’s lucky to pick up a red string in the +morning,—yes, or at any time; but it’s sure love from a girl if +you do,—specially silk. And if so be she gives you a red string +or cord, or a strip of red stuff, <i>that</i> means she’ll be bound +to you and loves you.”</p> +<h3><!-- page 161--><a name="page161"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +161</span>VI. STREET SKETCHES.</h3> +<p>London, during hot weather, after the close of the wise season, suggests +to the upper ten thousand, and to the lower twenty thousand who reflect +their ways, and to the lowest millions who minister to them all, a scene of +doleful dullness. I call the time which has passed wise, because that +which succeeds is universally known as the silly season. Then the +editors in town have recourse to the American newspapers for amusing +murders, while their rural brethren invent great gooseberries. Then +the sea-serpent again lifts his awful head. I am always glad when +this sterling inheritance of the Northern races reappears; for while we +have <i>him</i> I know that the capacity for swallowing a big bouncer, or +for inventing one, is not lost. He is characteristic of a fine, bold +race. Long may he wave! It is true that we cannot lie as +gloriously as our ancestors did about him. When the great news-dealer +of Norse times had no home-news he took his lyre, and either spun a yarn +about Vinland such as would smash the “Telegraph,” or else sung +about “that sea-snake tremendous curled, whose girth encircles half +the world.” It is wonderful, it is awful, to consider how true +we remain to the traditions of the older time. The French boast that +they invented the <i>canard</i>. Let them boast. They also +invented the shirt-collar; but hoary legends say that an Englishman <!-- +page 162--><a name="page162"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +162</span>invented the shirt for it, as well as the art of washing +it. What the shirt is to the collar, that is the glorious, tough old +Northern <i>saga</i>, or maritime spun yarn, to the <i>canard</i>, or +duck. The yarn will wash; it passes into myth and history; it fits +exactly, because it was made to order; its age and glory illustrate the +survival of the fittest.</p> +<p>I have, during three or four summers, remained a month in London after +the family had taken flight to the sea-side. I stayed to finish books +promised for the autumn. It is true that nearly four million of +people remain in London during the later summer; but it is wonderful what +an influence the absence of a few exerts on them and on the town. +Then you realize by the long lines of idle vehicles in the ranks how few +people in this world can afford a cab; then you find out how scanty is the +number of those who buy goods at the really excellent shops; and then you +may finally find out by satisfactory experience, if you are inclined to +grumble at your lot in life or your fortune, how much better off you are +than ninety-nine in a hundred of your fellow-murmurers at fate.</p> +<p>It was my wont to walk out in the cool of the evening, to smoke my cigar +in Regent’s Park, seated on a bench, watching the children as they +played about the clock-and-bull fountain,—for it embraces these +objects among its adornments,—presented by Cowasie Jehanguire, who +added to these magnificent Persian names the prosaic English postscript of +Ready Money. In this his name sets forth the history of his Parsee +people, who, from being heroic Ghebers, have come down to being bankers, +who can “do” any Jew, and who might possibly tackle a Yankee so +long as they kept out of New Jersey. One evening I <!-- page 163--><a +name="page163"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 163</span>walked outside of the +Park, passing by the Gloucester Bridge to a little walk or boulevard, where +there are a few benches. I was in deep moon-shadow, formed by the +trees; only the ends of my boots shone like eyes in the moonlight as I put +them out. After a while I saw a nice-looking young girl, of the +humble-decent class, seated by me, and with her I entered into casual +conversation. On the bench behind us were two young Italians, +conversing in strongly marked Florentine dialect. They evidently +thought that no one could understand them; as they became more interested +they spoke more distinctly, letting out secrets which I by no means wished +to hear.</p> +<p>At that instant I recalled the famous story of Prince Bismarck and the +Esthonian young ladies and the watch-key. I whispered to the +girl,—</p> +<p>“When I say something to you in a language which you do not +understand, answer ‘<i>Si</i>’ as distinctly as you +can.”</p> +<p>The damsel was quick to understand. An instant after I +said,—</p> +<p>“<i>Ha veduto il mio ’havallo la sera</i>?”</p> +<p>“<i>Si</i>.”</p> +<p>There was a dead silence, and then a rise and a rush. My young +friend rolled her eyes up at me, but said nothing. The Italians had +departed with their awful mysteries. Then there came by a man who +looked much worse. He was a truculent, untamable rough, evidently +inspired with gin. At a glance I saw by the manner in which he +carried his coat that he was a traveler, or one who lived on the +roads. Seeing me he stopped, and said, grimly,—“Do you +love your Jesus?” This is certainly a pious question; but it +was <!-- page 164--><a name="page164"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +164</span>uttered in a tone which intimated that if I did not answer it +affirmatively I might expect anything but Christian treatment. I knew +why the man uttered it. He had just come by an open-air preaching in +the Park, and the phrase had, moreover, been recently chalked and stenciled +by numerous zealous and busy nonconformists all over northwestern +London. I smiled, and said, quietly,—</p> +<p>“<i>Pal</i>, <i>mor rakker sā drován</i>. +<i>Jā pukenus on the drum</i>.” (Don’t talk so loud, +brother. Go away quietly.)</p> +<p>The man’s whole manner changed. As if quite sober, he +said,—</p> +<p>“<i>Mang your shunaben</i>, <i>rye</i>. <i>But tute jins +chomany</i>. <i>Kushti ratti</i>!” (Beg your pardon, +sir. But you <i>do</i> know a thing or two. Good-night!)</p> +<p>“I was awfully frightened,” said the young girl, as the +traveler departed. “I’m sure he meant to pitch into +us. But what a wonderful way you have, sir, of sending people +away! I wasn’t so much astonished when you got rid of the +Italians. I suppose ladies and gentlemen know Italian, or else they +wouldn’t go to the opera. But this man was a common, bad +English tramp; yet I’m sure he spoke to you in some kind of strange +language, and you said something to him that changed him into as peaceable +as could be. What was it?”</p> +<p>“It was gypsy, young lady,—what the gypsies talk among +themselves.”</p> +<p>“Do you know, sir, I think you’re the most mysterious +gentleman I ever met.”</p> +<p>“Very likely. Good-night.”</p> +<p>“Good night, sir.”</p> +<p><!-- page 165--><a name="page165"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +165</span>I was walking with my friend the Palmer, one afternoon in June, +in one of the several squares which lie to the west of the British +Museum. As we went I saw a singular-looking, slightly-built man, +lounging at a corner. He was wretchedly clad, and appeared to be +selling some rudely-made, but curious contrivances of notched sticks, +intended to contain flowerpots. He also had flower-holders made of +twisted copper wire. But the greatest curiosity was the man +himself. He had such a wild, wasted, wistful expression, a face +marked with a life of almost unconscious misery. And most palpable in +it was the unrest, which spoke of an endless struggle with life, and had +ended by goading him into incessant wandering. I cannot imagine what +people can be made of who can look at such men without emotion.</p> +<p>“That is a gypsy,” I said to the Palmer. +“<i>Sarishan</i>, <i>pal</i>!”</p> +<p>The wanderer seemed to be greatly pleased to hear Romany. He +declared that he was in the habit of talking it so much to himself when +alone that his ordinary name was Romany Dick.</p> +<p>“But if you come down to the Potteries, and want to find me, you +mus’n’t ask for Romany Dick, but Divius Dick.” +“That means Wild Dick.” “Yes.” +“And why?” “Because I wander about so, and can +never stay more than a night in any one place. I can’t help +it. I must keep going.” He said this with that wistful, +sad expression, a yearning as for something which he had never +comprehended. Was it <i>rest</i>?</p> +<p>“And so I <i>rakker</i> Romany [talk gypsy to myself], when +I’m alone of a night, when the wind blows. It’s better +company than talkin’ Gorginess. More sociable. <i>He</i> +says—no—<i>I</i> say more sensible things <!-- page 166--><a +name="page166"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 166</span>Romaneskas than in +English. You understand me?” he exclaimed suddenly, with the +same wistful stare.</p> +<p>“Perfectly. It’s quite reasonable. It must be +like having two heads instead of one, and being twice as knowing as anybody +else.”</p> +<p>“Yes, that’s it. But everybody don’t know +it.”</p> +<p>“What do you ask for one of those flower-stands, Dick?”</p> +<p>“A shillin’, sir.”</p> +<p>“Well, here is my name and where I live, on an envelope. And +here are two shillings. But if you <i>chore mandy</i> [cheat me] and +don’t leave it at the house, I’ll look you up in the Potteries, +and <i>koor tute</i> [whip you].”</p> +<p>He looked at me very seriously. “Ah, yes. You could +<i>koor me kennā</i> [whip me now]. But you couldn’t have +<i>koored</i> my <i>dadas</i> [whipped my father]. Leastways not +afore he got his leg broken fightin’ Lancaster Sam. You must +have heard of my father,—Single-stick Dick. But if +your’re comin’ down to the Potteries, don’t come next +Sunday. Come Sunday three weeks. My brother is <i>stardo +kennā</i> for <i>chorin</i> a <i>gry</i> [in prison for +horse-stealing]. In three weeks he’ll be let out, and +we’re goin’ to have a great family party to welcome him, and +we’ll be glad to see you. Do come.”</p> +<p>The flower-stand was faithfully delivered, but another engagement +prevented an acceptance of the invitation, and I have never seen Dick +since.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p>I was walking along Marylebone Road, which always seems to be a worn and +wind-beaten street, very pretty once, and now repenting it; when just +beyond Baker Street station I saw a gypsy van <!-- page 167--><a +name="page167"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 167</span>hung all round with +baskets and wooden-ware. Smoke issued from its pipe, and it went +along smoking like any careless pedestrian. It always seems strange +to think of a family being thus conveyed with its dinner cooking, the +children playing about the stove, over rural roads, past common and gorse +and hedge, in and out of villages, and through Great Babylon itself, as if +the family had a <i>pied à terre</i>, and were as secluded all the +time as though they lived in Little Pedlington or Tinnecum. For they +have just the same narrow range of gossip, and just the same set of +friends, though the set are always on the move. Traveling does not +make a cosmopolite.</p> +<p>By the van strolled the lord and master, with his wife. I accosted +him.</p> +<p>“<i>Sarishan</i>?”</p> +<p>“<i>Sarishan rye</i>!”</p> +<p>“Did you ever see me before? Do you know me?”</p> +<p>“No, sir.”</p> +<p>“I’m sorry for that. I have a nice velveteen coat +which I have been keeping for your father. How’s your brother +Frank? Traveling about Kingston, I suppose. As usual. But +I don’t care about trusting the coat to anybody who don’t know +me.”</p> +<p>“I’ll take it to him, safe enough, sir.”</p> +<p>“Yes, I dare say. On your back. And wear it yourself +six months before you see him.”</p> +<p>Up spoke his wife: “That he shan’t. I’ll take +good care that the <i>pooro mush</i> [the old man] gets it all right, in a +week.”</p> +<p>“Well, <i>dye</i>, I can trust you. You remember me. +And, Anselo, here is my address. Come to the house in half an +hour.”</p> +<p><!-- page 168--><a name="page168"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +168</span>In half an hour the housekeeper, said with a quiet +smile,—</p> +<p>“If you please, sir, there’s a gentleman—a +<i>gypsy</i> gentleman—wishes to see you.”</p> +<p>It is an English theory that the master can have no +“visitors” who are not gentlemen. I must admit that +Anselo’s dress was not what could be called gentlemanly. From +his hat to his stout shoes he looked the impenitent gypsy and sinful +poacher, unaffected and natural. There was a cutaway, sporting look +about his coat which indicated that he had grown to it from boyhood +“in woodis grene.” He held a heavy-handled whip, a +regular Romany <i>tchupni</i> or <i>chūckni</i>, which Mr. Borrow +thinks gave rise to the word “jockey.” I thought the same +once, but have changed my mind, for there were “jockeys” in +England before gypsies. Altogether, Anselo (which comes from +Wenceslas) was a determined and vigorous specimen of an old-fashioned +English gypsy, a type which, with all its faults, is not wanting in sundry +manly virtues.</p> +<p>I knew that Anselo rarely entered any houses save ale-houses, and that +he had probably never before been in a study full of books, arms, and +bric-a-brac. And he knew that I was aware of it. Now, if he had +been more of a fool, like a red Indian or an old-fashioned fop, he would +have affected a stoical indifference, for fear of showing his +ignorance. As it was, he sat down in an arm-chair, glanced about him, +and said just the right thing.</p> +<p>“It must be a pleasant thing, at the end of the day, after one has +been running about, to come home to such a room as this, so full of fine +things, and sit down in such a comfortable chair.” “Will +I have <!-- page 169--><a name="page169"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +169</span>a glass of old ale? Yes, I thank you.” +“That is <i>kushto levinor</i> [good ale]. I never tasted +better.” “Would I rather have wine or spirits? No, +I thank you; such ale as this is fit for a king.”</p> +<p>Here Anselo’s keen eye suddenly rested on something which he +understood.</p> +<p>“What a beautiful little rifle! That’s what I call a +<i>rinkno yāg-engree</i> [pretty gun].”</p> +<p>“Has it been a <i>wafedo wen</i> [hard winter], Anselo?”</p> +<p>“It has been a dreadful winter, sir. We have been hard put +to it sometimes for food. It’s dreadful to think of. +I’ve acti’lly seen the time when I was almost desperated, and +if I’d had such a gun as that I’m afraid, if I’d been +tempted, I could a-found it in my heart to knock over a +pheasant.”</p> +<p>I looked sympathetically at Anselo. The idea of his having been +brought to the very brink of such a terrible temptation and awful crime was +touching. He met the glance with the expression of a good man, who +had done no more than his duty, closed his eyes, and softly shook his +head. Then he took another glass of ale, as if the memory of the +pheasants or something connected with the subject had been too much for +him, and spoke:—</p> +<p>“I came here on my horse. But he’s an ugly old white +punch. So as not to discredit you, I left him standing before a +gentleman’s house, two doors off.”</p> +<p>Here Anselo paused. I acknowledged this touching act of thoughtful +delicacy by raising my glass. He drank again, then +resumed:—</p> +<p>“But I feel uneasy about leaving a horse by himself in the streets +of London. He’ll stand like a driven nail wherever you put +him—but there’s always plenty of claw-hammers to draw such +nails.”</p> +<p><!-- page 170--><a name="page170"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +170</span>“Don’t be afraid, Anselo. The park-keeper will +not let anybody take him through the gates. I’ll pay for him if +he goes.”</p> +<p>But visions of a stolen horse seemed to haunt Anselo. One would +have thought that something of the kind had been familiar to him. So +I sent for the velveteen coat, and, folding it on his arm, he mounted the +old white horse, while waving an adieu with the heavy-handled whip, rode +away in the mist, and was seen no more.</p> +<p>Farewell, farewell, thou old brown velveteen! I had thee first in +by-gone years, afar, hunting ferocious fox and horrid hare, near Brighton, +on the Downs, and wore thee well on many a sketching tour to churches old +and castles dark or gray, when winter went with all his raines wete. +Farewell, my coat, and benedicite! I bore thee over France unto +Marseilles, and on the steamer where we took aboard two hundred Paynim +pilgrims of Mahound. Farewell, my coat, and benedicite! Thou +wert in Naples by great Virgil’s tomb, and borest dust from +Posilippo’s grot, and hast been wetted by the dainty spray from bays +and shoals of old Etrurian name. Farewell, my coat, and +benedicite! And thou wert in the old Egyptian realm: I had thee on +that morning ’neath the palms when long I lingered where of yore had +stood the rose-red city, half as old as time. Farewell, my coat, and +benedicite! It was a lady called thee into life. She said, +Methinks ye need a velvet coat. It is a seemly guise to ride to +hounds. Another gave me whip and silvered spurs. Now all have +vanished in the darkening past. Ladies and all are gone into the +gloom. Farewell, my coat, and benedicite. Thou’st had a +venturous and traveled life, for thou <!-- page 171--><a +name="page171"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 171</span>wert once in Moscow +in the snow. A true Bohemian thou hast ever been, and as a right +Bohemian thou wilt die, the garment of a roving Romany. Fain would I +see and hear what thou’rt to know of reckless riding and the gypsy +<i>tan</i>, of camps in dark green lanes, afar from towns. Farewell, +mine coat, and benedicite!</p> +<h3><!-- page 172--><a name="page172"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +172</span>VII. OF CERTAIN GENTLEMEN AND GYPSIES.</h3> +<p>One morning I was walking with Mr. Thomas Carlyle and Mr. Froude. +We went across Hyde Park, and paused to rest on the bridge. This is a +remarkable place, since there, in the very heart of London, one sees a view +which is perfectly rural. The old oaks rise above each other like +green waves, the houses in the distance are country-like, while over the +trees, and far away, a village-looking spire completes the picture. I +think that it was Mr. Froude who called my attention to the beauty of the +view, and I remarked that it needed only a gypsy tent and the curling smoke +to make it in all respects perfectly English.</p> +<p>“You have paid some attention to gypsies,” said Mr. +Carlyle. “They’re not altogether so bad a people as many +think. In Scotland, we used to see many of them. I’ll not +say that they were not rovers and reivers, but they could be honest at +times. The country folk feared them, but those who made friends +wi’ them had no cause to complain of their conduct. Once there +was a man who was persuaded to lend a gypsy a large sum of money. My +father knew the man. It was to be repaid at a certain time. The +day came; the gypsy did not. And months passed, and still the +creditor had nothing of money but the memory of it; and ye remember <!-- +page 173--><a name="page173"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +173</span>‘<i>nessun maggior dolore</i>,’—that +there’s na greater grief than to remember the siller ye once +had. Weel, one day the man was surprised to hear that his +frien’ the gypsy wanted to see him—interview, ye call it in +America. And the gypsy explained that, having been arrested, and +unfortunately detained, by some little accident, in preeson, he had na been +able to keep his engagement. ‘If ye’ll just gang +wi’ me,’ said the gypsy, ‘aw’ll mak’ it all +right.’ ‘Mon, aw wull,’ said the +creditor,—they were Scotch, ye know, and spoke in deealect. So +the gypsy led the way to the house which he had inhabited, a cottage which +belonged to the man himself to whom he owed the money. And there he +lifted up the hearthstone; the hard-stane they call it in Scotland, and it +is called so in the prophecy of Thomas of Ercildowne. And under the +hard-stane there was an iron pot. It was full of gold, and out of +that gold the gypsy carle paid his creditor. Ye wonder how ’t +was come by? Well, ye’ll have heard it’s best to let +sleeping dogs lie.”</p> +<p>“Yes. And what was said of the Poles who had, during the +Middle Ages, a reputation almost as good as that of gypsies? <i>Ad +secretas Poli</i>, <i>curas extendere noli</i>.” (Never concern +your soul as to the secrets of a Pole.)</p> +<p>Mr. Carlyle’s story reminds me that Walter Simpson, in his history +of them, says that the Scottish gypsies have ever been distinguished for +their gratitude to those who treated them with civility and kindness, anent +which he tells a capital story, while other instances sparkle here and +there with many brilliant touches in his five hundred-and-fifty-page +volume.</p> +<p>I have more than once met with Romanys, when <!-- page 174--><a +name="page174"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 174</span>I was in the company +of men who, like Carlyle and Bilderdijk, “were also in the world of +letters known,” or who might say, “We have deserved to +be.” One of the many memories of golden days, all in the merrie +tyme of summer song in England, is of the Thames, and of a pleasure party +in a little steam-launch. It was a weenie affair,—just room for +six forward outside the cubby, which was called the cabin; and of these +six, one was Mr. Roebuck,—“the last Englishman,” as some +one has called him, but as the late Lord Lytton applies the same term to +one of his characters about the time of the Conquest, its accuracy may be +doubted. Say the last type of a certain phase of the Englishman; say +that Roebuck was the last of the old iron and oak men, the <i>triplex +æs et robur</i> chiefs of the Cobbet kind, and the phrase may +pass. But it will only pass over into a new variety of true +manhood. However frequently the last Englishman may die, I hope it +will be ever said of him, <i>Le roi est mort</i>,—<i>vive le +roi</i>! I have had talks with Lord Lytton on gypsies. He, too, +was once a Romany rye in a small way, and in the gay May heyday of his +young manhood once went off with a band of Romanys, and passed weeks in +their tents,—no bad thing, either, for anybody. I was more than +once tempted to tell him the strange fact that, though he had been among +the black people and thought he had learned their language, what they had +imposed upon him for that was not Romany, but cant, or English +thieves’ slang. For what is given, in good faith, as the gypsy +tongue in “Paul Clifford” and the “Disowned,” is +only the same old mumping <i>kennick</i> which was palmed off on Bampfylde +Moore Carew; or which he palmed on his readers, as the secret of <!-- page +175--><a name="page175"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 175</span>the +Roms. But what is the use or humanity of disillusioning an author by +correcting an error forty years old. If one could have corrected it +in the proof, <i>à la bonne heure</i>! Besides, it was of no +particular consequence to anybody whether the characters in “Paul +Clifford” called a clergyman a <i>patter-cove</i> or a +<i>rashai</i>. It is a supreme moment of triumph for a man when he +discovers that his specialty—whatever it be—is not of such +value as to be worth troubling anybody with it. As for Everybody, +<i>he</i> is fair game.</p> +<p>The boat went up the Thames, and I remember that the river was, that +morning, unusually beautiful. It is graceful, as in an outline, even +when leaden with November mists, or iron-gray in the drizzle of December, +but under the golden sunlight of June it is lovely. It becomes every +year, with gay boating parties in semi-fancy dresses, more of a carnival, +in which the carnivalers and their carnivalentines assume a more decided +character. It is very strange to see this tendency of the age to +unfold itself in new festival forms, when those who believe that there can +never be any poetry or picturing in life but in the past are wailing over +the vanishing of May-poles and old English sports. There may be, from +time to time, a pause between the acts; the curtain may be down a little +longer than usual; but in the long run the world-old play of the +Peoples’ Holiday will go on, as it has been going ever since Satan +suggested that little apple-stealing excursion to Eve, which, as explained +by the Talmudists, was manifestly the direct cause of all the flirtations +and other dreadful doings in all little outings down to the present day, in +the drawing-room or “on the leads,” world without end.</p> +<p>And as the boat went along by Weybridge we <!-- page 176--><a +name="page176"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 176</span>passed a bank by +which was a small gypsy camp; tents and wagons, donkeys and all, reflected +in the silent stream, as much as were the swans in the fore-water. +And in the camp was a tall, handsome, wild beauty, named Britannia, who +knew me well; a damsel fond of larking, with as much genuine devil’s +gunpowder in her as would have made an entire pack or a Chinese hundred of +sixty-four of the small crackers known as fast girls, in or around +society. She was a splendid creature, long and lithe and lissom, but +well rounded, of a figure suggestive of leaping hedges; and as the sun +shone on her white teeth and burning black eyes, there was a hint of +biting, too, about her. She lay coiled and basking, in feline +fashion, in the sun; but at sight of me on the boat, up she bounded, and +ran along the bank, easily keeping up with the steamer, and crying out to +me in Romanes.</p> +<p>Now it just so happened that I by no means felt certain that <i>all</i> +of the company present were such genial Bohemians as to appreciate anything +like the joyous intimacy which Britannia was manifesting, as she, +Atalanta-like, coursed along. Consequently, I was not delighted with +her attentions.</p> +<p>“What a fine girl!” said Mr. Roebuck. “How well +she would look on the stage! She seems to know you.”</p> +<p>“Certainly,” said one of the ladies, “or she would not +be speaking her language. Why don’t you answer her? Let +us hear a conversation.”</p> +<p>Thus adjured, I answered,—</p> +<p>“<i>Miri pen</i>, <i>miri kushti pen</i>, <i>beng lel tute</i>, +<i>mā rakker sā drován</i>! <i>Or ma rakker +Romaneskas</i>. <i>Mān dikesa te rānia shan akai</i>. +<i>Miri kameli</i>—<i>mān kair </i><!-- page 177--><a +name="page177"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 177</span><i>mandy +ladge</i>!” (My sister, my nice, sweet sister!—devil take +you! don’t hallo at me like that! Or else don’t talk +Romany. Don’t you see there are ladies here? My dear, +don’t put me to shame!)</p> +<p>“<i>Pen the rani ta wusser mandy a +trin-grushi</i>—<i>who</i>—<i>op</i>, +<i>hallo</i>!” (Tell the lady to shy me a +shilling—whoop!) cried the fast damsel.</p> +<p>“<i>Pa miri duvels kām</i>, <i>pen</i>—<i>o bero se ta +duro</i>. <i>Mandy’ll dé tute a pash-korauna keratti if +tu tevel jā</i>. <i>Gorgie shan i foki kavakoi</i>!” +(For the Lord’s sake, sister!—the boat is too far from +shore. I’ll give you half a crown this evening if you’ll +clear out. These be Gentiles, these here.)</p> +<p>“It seems to be a melodious language,” said Mr. Roebuck, +greatly amused. “What are you saying?”</p> +<p>“I am telling her to hold her tongue, and go.”</p> +<p>“But how on earth does it happen that you speak such a +language?” inquired a lady. “I always thought that the +gypsies only talked a kind of English slang, and this sounds like a foreign +tongue.”</p> +<p>All this time Britannia, like the Cork Leg, never tired, but kept on the +chase, neck and neck, till we reached a lock, when, with a merry laugh like +a child, she turned on her track and left us.</p> +<p>“Mr. L.’s proficiency in Romany,” said Mr. Roebuck, +“is well known to me. I have heard him spoken of as the +successor to George Borrow.”</p> +<p>“That,” I replied, “I do not deserve. There are +other gentlemen in England who are by far my superiors in knowledge of the +people.”</p> +<p>And I spoke very sincerely. Apropos of Mr. George Borrow, I knew +him, and a grand old fellow he was,—a fresh and hearty giant, holding +his six feet two or three inches as uprightly at eighty as he <!-- page +178--><a name="page178"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 178</span>ever had at +eighteen. I believe that was his age, but may be wrong. Borrow +was like one of the old Norse heroes, whom he so much admired, or an +old-fashioned gypsy bruiser, full of craft and merry tricks. One of +these he played on me, and I bear him no malice for it. The manner of +the joke was this: I had written a book on the English gypsies and their +language; but before I announced it, I wrote a letter to Father George, +telling him that I proposed to print it, and asking his permission to +dedicate it to him. He did not answer the letter, but “worked +the tip” promptly enough, for he immediately announced in the +newspapers on the following Monday his “Word-Book of the Romany +Language,” “with many pieces in gypsy, illustrative of the way +of speaking and thinking of the English gypsies, with specimens of their +poetry, and an account of various things relating to gypsy life in +England.” This was exactly what I had told him that my book +would contain; for I intended originally to publish a vocabulary. +Father George covered the track by not answering my letter; but I +subsequently ascertained that it had been faithfully delivered to him by a +gentleman from whom I obtained the information.</p> +<p>It was like the contest between Hildebrand the elder and his +son:—</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“A ready trick tried Hildebrand,<br /> + That old, gray-bearded man;<br /> +For when the younger raised to strike,<br /> + Beneath his sword he ran.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>And, like the son, I had no ill feeling about it. My obligations +to him for “Lavengro” and the “Romany Rye” and his +other works are such as I owe to few men. I have enjoyed gypsying +more than any <!-- page 179--><a name="page179"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 179</span>sport in the world, and I owe my love of it +all to George Borrow. I have since heard that a part of Mr. +Borrow’s “Romano Lavo-Lil” had been in manuscript for +thirty years, and that it might never have been published but for my own +work. I hope that this is true; for I am sincerely proud to think +that I may have been in any way, directly or indirectly, the cause of his +giving it to the world. I would gladly enough have burnt my own book, +as I said, with a hearty laugh, when I saw the announcement of the +“Lavo-Lil,” if it would have pleased the old Romany rye, and I +never spoke a truer word. He would not have believed it; but it would +have been true, all the same.</p> +<p>I well remember the first time I met George Borrow. It was in the +British Museum, and I was introduced to him by Mrs. Estelle +Lewis,—now dead,—the well known-friend of Edgar A. Poe. +He was seated at a table, and had a large old German folio open before +him. We talked about gypsies, and I told him that I had +unquestionably found the word for “green,” <i>shelno</i>, in +use among the English Romany. He assented, and said that he knew +it. I mention this as a proof of the manner in which the +“Romano Lavo-Lil” must have been hurried, because he declares +in it that there is no English gypsy word for “green.” In +this work he asserts that the English gypsy speech does not probably amount +to fourteen hundred words. It is a weakness with the Romany rye +fraternity to believe that there are no words in gypsy which they to not +know. I am sure that my own collection contains nearly four thousand +Anglo-Romany terms, many of which I feared were doubtful, but which I am +constantly verifying. <!-- page 180--><a name="page180"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 180</span>America is a far better place in which to +study the language than England. As an old Scotch gypsy said to me +lately, the deepest and cleverest old gypsies all come over here to +America, where they have grown rich, and built the old language up +again.</p> +<p>I knew a gentleman in London who was a man of extraordinary +energy. Having been utterly ruined, at seventy years of age, by a +relative, he left England, was absent two or three years in a foreign +country, during which time he made in business some fifty thousand pounds, +and, returning, settled down in England. He had been in youth for a +long time the most intimate friend of George Borrow, who was, he said, a +very wild and eccentric youth. One night, when skylarking about +London, Borrow was pursued by the police, as he wished to be, even as +Panurge so planned as to be chased by the night-watch. He was very +tall and strong in those days, a trained shoulder-hitter, and could run +like a deer. He was hunted to the Thames, “and there they +thought they had him.” But the Romany rye made for the edge, +and, leaping into the wan water, like the Squyre in the old ballad, swam to +the other side, and escaped.</p> +<p>I have conversed with Mr. Borrow on many subjects,—horses, +gypsies, and Old Irish. Anent which latter subject I have heard him +declare that he doubted whether there was any man living who could really +read an old Irish manuscript. I have seen the same statement made by +another writer. My personal impressions of Mr. Borrow were very +agreeable, and I was pleased to learn afterwards from Mrs. Lewis that he +had expressed himself warmly as regarded myself. As he was not +invariably disposed to like those whom be met, it is a source of great +pleasure to me to <!-- page 181--><a name="page181"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 181</span>reflect that I have nothing but pleasant +memories of the good old Romany rye, the Nestor of gypsy gentlemen. +It is commonly reported among gypsies that Mr. Borrow was one by blood, and +that his real name was Boro, or great. This is not true. He was +of pure English extraction.</p> +<p>When I first met “George Eliot” and G. H. Lewes, at their +house in North Bank, the lady turned the conversation almost at once to +gypsies. They spoke of having visited the Zincali in Spain, and of +several very curious meetings with the <i>Chabos</i>. Mr. Lewes, in +fact, seldom met me—and we met very often about town, and at many +places, especially at the Trübners’—without conversing on +the Romanys. The subject evidently had for him a special +fascination. I believe that I have elsewhere mentioned that after I +returned from Russia, and had given him, by particular request, an account +of my visits to the gypsies of St. Petersburg and Moscow, he was much +struck by the fact that I had chiromanced to the Romany clan of the latter +city. To tell the fortunes of gypsy girls was, he thought, the +refinement of presumption. “There was in this world nothing so +impudent as a gypsy when determined to tell a fortune; and the idea of not +one, but many gypsy girls believing earnestly in my palmistry was like a +righteous retribution.”</p> +<p>The late Tom Taylor had, while a student at Cambridge, been +<i>aficionado</i>, or smitten, with gypsies, and made a manuscript +vocabulary of Romany words, which he allowed me to use, and from which I +obtained several which were new to me. This fact should make all +smart gypsy scholars “take tent” and heed as to believing that +they know everything. <!-- page 182--><a name="page182"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 182</span>I have many Anglo-Romany words—purely +Hindi as to origin—which I have verified again and again, yet which +have never appeared in print. Thus far the Romany vocabulary field +has been merely scratched over.</p> +<p>Who that knows London knoweth not Sir Patrick Colquhoun? I made +his acquaintance in 1848, when, coming over from student-life in Paris and +the Revolution, I was most kindly treated by his family. A glorious, +tough, widely experienced man he was even in early youth. For then he +already bore the enviable reputation of being the first amateur sculler on +the Thames, the first gentleman light-weight boxer in England, a graduate +with honors of Cambridge, a Doctor Ph. of Heidelberg, a diplomat, and a +linguist who knew Arabic, Persian, and Gaelic, Modern Greek and the Omnium +Botherum tongues. They don’t make such men nowadays, or, if +they do, they leave out the genial element.</p> +<p>Years had passed, and I had returned to London in 1870, and found Sir +Patrick living, as of yore, in the Temple, where I once and yet again and +again dined with him. It was in the early days of this new spring of +English life that we found ourselves by chance at a boat-race on the +Thames. It was on the Thames, by his invitation, that I had twenty +years before first seen an English regatta, and had a place in the gayly +decked, superbly luncheoned barge of his club. It is a curious point +in English character that the cleverest people do not realize or understand +how festive and genial they really are, or how gayly and picturesquely they +conduct their sports. It is a generally accepted doctrine with them +that they do this kind of thing better in France; they believe sincerely +<!-- page 183--><a name="page183"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +183</span>that they take their own amusements sadly; it is the tone, the +style, with the wearily-witty, dreary clowns of the weekly press, in their +watery imitations of Thackeray’s worst, to ridicule all English +festivity and merry-making, as though sunshine had faded out of life, and +God and Nature were dead, and in their place a great wind-bag +Jesuit-Mallock were crying, in tones tainted with sulphuretted hydrogen, +“<i>Ah bah</i>!” Reader mine, I have seen many a +fête in my time, all the way from illuminations of Paris to the +Khedive’s fifteen-million-dollar spree in 1873 and the last grand +flash of the Roman-candle carnival of 1846, but for true, hearty enjoyment +and quiet beauty give me a merry party on the Thames. Give me, I say, +its sparkling waters, its green banks, the joyous, beautiful girls, the +hearty, handsome men. Give me the boats, darting like fishes, the gay +cries. And oh—oh!—give me the Alsopp’s ale in a +quart mug, and not a remark save of approbation when I empty it.</p> +<p>I had met Sir Patrick in the crowd, and our conversation turned on +gypsies. When living before-time in Roumania, he had Romany servants, +and learned a little of their language. Yes, he was inclined to be +“affected” into the race, and thereupon we went gypsying. +Truly, we had not far to seek, for just outside the crowd a large and +flourishing community of the black-blood had set itself up in the +<i>pivlioi</i> (cocoa-nut) or <i>kashta</i> (stick) business, and as it was +late in the afternoon, and the entire business-world was about as drunk as +mere beer could make it, the scene was not unlively. At that time I +was new to England, and unknown to every gypsy on the ground. In +after-days I learned to know them well, very well, for they were chiefly +Coopers and their congeners, <!-- page 184--><a name="page184"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 184</span>who came to speak of me as <i>their</i> rye +and own special property or proprietor,—an allegiance which involved +on one side an amount of shillings and beer which concentrated might have +set up a charity, but which was duly reciprocated on the other by jocular +tenures of cocoa-nuts, baskets, and choice and deep words in the language +of Egypt.</p> +<p>As we approached the cock-shy, where sticks were cast at cocoa-nuts, a +young gypsy <i>chai</i>, whom I learned to know in after-days as Athalia +Cooper, asked me to buy some sticks. A penny a throw, all the +cocoa-nuts I could hit to be my own. I declined; she became urgent, +jolly, riotous, insistive. I endured it well, for I held the winning +cards. <i>Qui minus propĕrè</i>, <i>minus +prospĕrè</i>. And then, as her voice rose +<i>crescendo</i> into a bawl, so that all the Romanys around laughed aloud +to see the green Gorgio so chaffed and bothered, I bent me low, and +whispered softly in her ear a single monosyllable.</p> +<p>Why are all those sticks dropped so suddenly? Why does Athalia in +a second become sober, and stand up staring at me, all her chaff and +urgency forgotten. Quite polite and earnest now. But there is +joy behind in her heart. This <i>is</i> a game, a jolly game, and no +mistake. And uplifting her voice again, as the voice of one who +findeth an exceeding great treasure even in the wilderness, she cried +aloud,—“<i>It’s a Romany rye</i>!”</p> +<p>The spiciest and saltest and rosiest of Sir Patrick’s own stories, +told after dinner over his own old port to a special conventicle of +clergymen about town, was never received with such a roar of delight as +that cry of Athalia’s was by the Romany clan. Up went three +sheers at the find; further afield went the shout proclaiming <!-- page +185--><a name="page185"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 185</span>the +discovery of an aristocratic stranger of their race, a <i>rye</i>, who was +to them as wheat,—a gypsy gentleman. Neglecting business, they +threw down their sticks, and left their cocoanuts to grin in solitude; the +<i>dyes</i> turned aside from fortune-telling to see what strange fortune +had sent such a visitor. In ten minutes Sir Patrick and I were +surrounded by such a circle of sudden admirers and vehement applauders, as +it seldom happens to any mortal to acquire—out of Ireland—at +such exceedingly short notice and on such easy terms.</p> +<p>They were not particular as to what sort of a gypsy I was, or where I +came from, or any nonsense of that sort, you know. It was about +<i>cerevisia vincit omnia</i>, or the beery time of day with them, and they +cared not for anything. I was extremely welcome; in short, there was +poetry in me. I had come down on them by a way that was dark and a +trick that was vain, in the path of mystery, and dropped on Athalia and +picked her up. It was gypsily done and very creditable to me, and +even Sir Patrick was regarded as one to be honored as an accomplice. +It is a charming novelty in every life to have the better class of +one’s own kind come into it, and nobody feels so keenly as a jolly +Romany that <i>jucundum nihil est nisi quod rĕf ǐcit +varietas</i>—naught pleases us without variety.</p> +<p>Then and there I drew to me the first threads of what became in +after-days a strange and varied skein of humanity. There was the +Thames upon a holiday. Now I look back to it, I ask, <i>Ubi +sunt</i>? (Where are they all?) Joshua Cooper, as good and +earnest a Rom as ever lived, in his grave, with more than one of those who +made my acquaintance by hurrahing for <!-- page 186--><a +name="page186"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 186</span>me. Some in +America, some wandering wide. Yet there by Weybridge still the Thames +runs on.</p> +<p>By that sweet river I made many a song. One of these, to the tune +of “Waves in Sunlight Dancing,” rises and falls in memory like +a fitful fairy coming and going in green shadows, and that it may not +perish utterly I here give it a place:—</p> +<blockquote> +<p>AVELLA PARL O PĀNI.</p> +<p>Av’ kushto parl o pāni,<br /> + Av’ kushto mir’ akai!<br /> +Mi kameli chovihani,<br /> + Avel ke tiro rye!</p> +<p>Shan raklia rinkenidiri,<br /> + Mukkellan rinkeni se;<br /> +Kek rakli ’dré i temia<br /> + Se rinkenidiri mi.</p> +<p>Shan dudnidiri yākka,<br /> + Mukkelan dudeni;<br /> +Kek yākk peshel’ sā kushti<br /> + Pā miro kameli zi.</p> +<p>Shan balia longi diri,<br /> + Mukk ’lende bori ’pré,<br /> +Kek waveri raklia balia,<br /> + Te lian man opré.</p> +<p>Yoi lela angūstrini,<br /> + I miri tācheni,<br /> +Kek wavei mūsh jinella,<br /> + Sā dovo covva se.</p> +<p>Adré, adré o doeyav<br /> + Patrinia pellelan,<br /> +Kennā yek chumer kérdo<br /> + O wavero well’ án.</p> +<p>Te wenna būtidiri,<br /> + Ke jana sig akoi<br /> +<!-- page 187--><a name="page187"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 187</span>Sa +sig sa yeck si gillo<br /> + Shan waveri adoi.</p> +<p>Avella parl o pāni,<br /> + Avella sig akai!<br /> +Mi kamli tāni-rāni<br /> + Avell’ ke tiro rye!</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p>COME OVER THE RIVER</p> +<p>O love, come o’er the water,<br /> + O love, where’er you be!<br /> +My own sweetheart, my darling,<br /> + Come over the river to me!</p> +<p>If any girls are fairer,<br /> + Then fairer let them be;<br /> +No maid in all the country<br /> + Is half so fair to me.</p> +<p>If other eyes are brighter,<br /> + Then brighter let them shine;<br /> +I know that none are lighter<br /> + Upon this heart of mine.</p> +<p>If other’s locks are longer,<br /> + Then longer let them grow;<br /> +Hers are the only fish-lines<br /> + Which ever caught me so.</p> +<p>She wears upon her finger<br /> + A ring we know so well,<br /> +And we and that ring only<br /> + Know what the ring can tell.</p> +<p>From trees into the water<br /> + Leaves fall and float away,<br /> +So kisses come and leave us,<br /> + A thousand in a day.</p> +<p>Yet though they come by thousands,<br /> + Yet still they show their face;<br /> +<!-- page 188--><a name="page188"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 188</span>As +soon as one has left us<br /> + Another fills its place.</p> +<p>O love, come o’er the water,<br /> + O lore, where’er you be!<br /> +My own sweetheart, my darling,<br /> + Come over the river to me!</p> +</blockquote> +<h2><!-- page 189--><a name="page189"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +189</span>WELSH GYPSIES.</h2> +<h3>I. MAT WOODS THE FIDDLER.</h3> +<p>The gypsies of Wales are to those of England what the Welsh themselves +are to the English; more antique and quaint, therefore to a collector of +human bric-a-brac more curious. The Welsh Rom is specially grateful +for kindness or courtesy; he is deeper as to language, and preserves many +of the picturesque traits of his race which are now so rapidly +vanishing. But then he has such excellent opportunity for +gypsying. In Wales there are yet thousands of acres of wild land, +deep ravines, rocky corners, and roadside nooks, where he can boil the +kettle and <i>hatch the tan</i>, or pitch his tent, undisturbed by the +rural policeman. For it is a charming country, where no one need +weary in summer, when the days are long, or in early autumn,—</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“When the barley is ripe,<br /> +And the frog doth pipe,<br /> +In golden stripe<br /> +And green all dressed;<br /> +When the red apples<br /> +Roll in the chest.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Then it is pleasant walking in Wales, and there too at times, between +hedge-rows, you may meet with the Romany.</p> +<p><!-- page 190--><a name="page190"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +190</span>I was at Aberystwith by the sea, and one afternoon we went, a +party of three gentlemen and three ladies, in a char-a-banc, or wagonette, +to drive. It was a pleasant afternoon, and we had many a fine view of +distant mountains, on whose sides were mines of lead with silver, and of +which there were legends from the time of Queen Elizabeth. The hills +looked leaden and blue in the distance, while the glancing sea far beyond +recalled silver,—for the alchemy of imagery, at least, is never +wanting to supply ideal metals, though the real may show a sad +<i>deficit</i> in the returns.</p> +<p>As we drove we suddenly overtook a singular party, the first of whom was +the leader, who had lagged behind. He was a handsome, slender, very +dark young man, carrying a violin. Before him went a little open +cart, in which lay an old woman, and by her a harp. With it walked a +good-looking gypsy girl, and another young man, not a gypsy. He was +by far the handsomest young fellow, in form and features, whom I ever met +among the agricultural class in England; we called him a peasant +Apollo. It became evident that the passional affinity which had drawn +this rustic to the gypsy girl, and to the roads, was according to the law +of natural selection, for they were wonderfully well matched. The +young man had the grace inseparable from a fine figure and a handsome face, +while the girl was tall, lithe, and pantherine, with the diavolesque charm +which, though often attributed by fast-fashionable novelists to their +heroines, is really never found except among the lowborn beauties of +nature. It is the beauty of the Imp and of the Serpent; it fades with +letters; it dies in the drawing-room or on the stage. You are +mistaken <!-- page 191--><a name="page191"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +191</span>when you think you see it coming out of the synagogue, unless it +be a very vulgar one. Your Lahova has it not, despite her black eyes, +for she is too clever and too conscious; the devil-beauty never knows how +to read, she is unstudied and no actress. Rachel and the Bernhardt +have it not, any more than Saint Agnes or Miss Blanche Lapin. It is +not of good or of evil, or of culture, which is both; it is all and only of +nature, and it does not know itself.</p> +<p>As the wagonette stopped I greeted the young man at first in English, +then in Romany. When he heard the gypsy tongue he started, his +countenance expressing the utmost surprise and delight. As if he +could hardly believe in such a phenomenon he inquired, +“<i>Romany</i>?” and as I nodded assent, he clasped my hand, +the tears coming into his eyes. Such manifestations are not common +among gypsies, but I can remember how one, the wife of black Ben Lee, was +thus surprised and affected. How well I recall the time and +scene,—by the Thames, in the late twilight, when every tree and twig +was violet black against the amber sky, where the birds were +chirp-chattering themselves to roost and rest, and the river rippled and +murmured a duet with the evening breeze. I was walking homeward to +Oatlands when I met the tawny Sinaminta, bearing her little stock of +baskets to the tent and van which I had just quitted, and where Ben and his +beautiful little boy were lighting the <i>al fresco</i> fire. +“I have prayed to see this day!” exclaimed the gypsy +woman. “I have so wanted to see the Romany rye of the +Coopers. And I laid by a little <i>delaben</i>, a small present, for +you when we should meet. It’s a photograph of Ben and me and +our child.” I might have forgotten the evening <!-- page +192--><a name="page192"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 192</span>and the +amber sky, rippling river and dark-green hedge-rows, but for this strange +meeting and greeting of an unknown friend, but a few kind words fixed them +all for life. That must be indeed a wonderful landscape which +humanity does not make more impressive.</p> +<p>I spoke but a few words to the gypsy with the violin, and we drove on to +a little wayside inn, where we alighted and rested. After a while the +gypsies came along.</p> +<p>“And now, if you will, let us have a real frolic,” I said to +my friends. A word was enough. A quart of ale, and the fiddle +was set going, and I sang in Romany, and the rustic landlord and his +household wondered what sort of guests we could be. That they had +never before entertained such a mixed party I can well believe. Here, +on one hand, were indubitable swells, above their usual range; there, on +the other, were the dusky vagabonds of the road; and it could be no common +condescending patronage, for I was speaking neither Welsh nor English, and +our friendly fraternity was evident. Yes, many a time, in England, +have I seen the civil landlady or the neat-handed Phillis awed with +bewilderment, as I have introduced Plato Buckland, or the most +disreputable-looking but oily—yea, glycerine-politeful—old +Windsor Frog, into the parlor, and conversed with him in mystic +words. Such an event is a rare joy to the gypsy. For he loves +to be lifted up among men; he will tell you with pride of the times when he +was pointed at, and people said, “<i>He’s</i> the man!” +and how a real gentleman once invited him into his house and gave him a +glass of wine. But to enter the best room of the familiar tavern, to +order, in politest but <!-- page 193--><a name="page193"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 193</span>imperative tones, +“beer”—sixpenny beer—for himself and “the +other gentleman,” is indeed bliss. Then, in addition to the +honor of moving in distinguished society, before the very eyes and in the +high places of those who have hitherto always considered him as a lowly +cuss, the Romany realizes far more than the common peasant the +contrast-contradiction, or the humor of the drama, its bit of +mystification, and especially the mystification of the house-folk. +This is unto him the high hour of the soul, and it is not forgotten. +It passes unto the golden legends of the heart, and you are tenderly +enshrined in it.</p> +<p>Once, when I was wandering afoot with old Cooper, we stopped at an inn, +and in a room by ourselves ordered luncheon. The gypsy might have had +poultry of the best; he preferred cold pork. While the attendant was +in the room, he sat with exemplary dignity at the table; but as the girl +left, he followed her step sounds with his ears, like a dog, moved his +head, glanced at me with a nod, turned sideways from the table, and, +putting his plate on his knees, proceeded to eat without a fork.</p> +<p>“For it isn’t proper for me to eat at the table with you, or +<i>as</i> you do.”</p> +<p>The Welsh gypsy played well, and his sister touched the harp and sang, +the ale circulated, and the villagers, assembling, gazed in a crowd into +the hall. Then the girl danced solo, just as I have seen her sisters +do in Egypt and in Russia, to her brother’s fiddling. Even so +of old, Syrian and Egyptian girls haunted gardens and taverns, and danced +<i>pas seul</i> all over the Roman empire, even unto Spain, behaving so +gypsily that wise men have conjectured that they were gypsies in very +truth. And who shall say they were not? For it is <!-- page +194--><a name="page194"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 194</span>possible +that prehistorically, and beyond all records of Persian Luri and Syrian +Ballerine and Egyptian Almeh, there was all over the East an outflowing of +these children of art from one common primeval Indian stock. From one +fraternity, in Italy, at the present day, those itinerant pests, the +hand-organ players, proceed to the ends of the earth and to the +gold-diggings thereof, and time will yet show that before all time, or in +its early dawn, there were root-born Romany itinerants singing, piping, and +dancing unto all the known world; yea, and into the unknown darkness +beyond, <i>in partibus infidelium</i>.</p> +<p>A gentleman who was in our party had been long in the East. I had +known him in Alexandria during the carnival, and he had lived long time +<i>outre mer</i>, in India. Hearing me use the gypsy +numerals—<i>yeck</i>, <i>dui</i>, <i>trin</i>, <i>shtor</i>, +<i>panj</i>,—he proceeded to count in Hindustani or Persian, in which +the same words from one to ten are almost identical with Romany. All +of this was carefully noted by the old gypsy mother,—as, also, that +my friend is of dark complexion, with sparkling black eyes. Reduced +in dress, or diluted down to worn corduroy and a red tie, he might easily +pass muster, among the Sons of the Road, as one of them.</p> +<p>And now the ladies must, of course, have their fortunes told, and this, +I could observe, greatly astonished the gypsies in their secret souls, +though they put a cool face on it. That we, ourselves, were some kind +of a mysterious high-caste Romany they had already concluded, and what +faith could we put in <i>dukkerin</i>? But as it would indubitably +bring forth shillings to their benefit, they wisely raised no questions, +but calmly took this windfall, which had fallen <!-- page 195--><a +name="page195"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 195</span>as it were, from the +skies, even as they had accepted the beer, which had come, like a +providential rain, unto them, in the thirst of a dry journey.</p> +<p>It is customary for all gypsy sorceresses to take those who are to be +fortune-told aside, and, if possible, into a room by themselves. This +is done partly to enhance the mystery of the proceeding, and partly to +avoid the presence of witnesses to what is really an illegal act. And +as the old sorceress led a lady into the little parlor, the gypsy man, +whose name was Mat, glanced up at me, with a droll, puzzled expression, and +said, “Patchessa <i>tu</i> adovo?” (Do <i>you</i> believe +in that?) With a wink, I answered, “Why not? I, too, tell +fortunes myself.” <i>Anch io sono pittore</i>. It seemed +to satisfy him, for he replied, with a nod-wink, and proceeded to pour +forth the balance of his thoughts, if he had any, into the music of his +violin.</p> +<p>When the ladies had all been instructed as to their future, my friend, +who had been in the East, must needs have his destiny made known unto +him. He did not believe in this sort of thing, you know,—of +course not. But he had lived a long time among Orientals, and he just +happened to wish to know how certain speculations would fall out, and he +loves, above all things, a lark, or anything out of the common. So he +went in. And when alone with the sybil, she began to talk to him in +Romany.</p> +<p>“Oh, I say, now, old lady, stow that!” he exclaimed. +“I don’t understand you.”</p> +<p>“You don’t understand me!” exclaimed the +fortune-teller. “Perhaps you didn’t understand your own +mother when she talked Romany to you. What’s the use of your +tryin’ to make yourself out a Gorgio <!-- page 196--><a +name="page196"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 196</span>to <i>me</i>? +Don’t I know our people? Didn’t your friend there talk +Romanes? Isn’t he all Romaneskas? And didn’t I hear +you with my own ears count up to ten in Romany? And now, after that, +you would deny your own blood and people! Yes, you’ve dwelt in +Gorgines so long that you think your eyes are blue and your hair is yellow, +my son, and you have been far over the sea; but wherever you went you knew +Romanes, if you don’t know your own color. But you shall hear +your fortune. There is lead in the mines and silver in the lead, and +wealth for him who is to win it, and that will be a dark man who has been +nine times over the sea, and eaten his bread under the black tents, and +been three times near death, once from a horse, and once from a man, and +once through a woman. And you will know something you don’t +know now before a month is over, and something will be found that is now +hidden, and has been hidden since the world was made. And +there’s a good fortune coming to the man it was made for, before the +oldest tree that’s a-growing was a seed, and that’s a man as +knows how to count Romanes up to ten, and many a more thing beside that, +that he’s learned beyond the great water.”</p> +<p>And so we went our ways, the harp and violin sounds growing fainter as +we receded, till they were like the buzzing of bees in drying clover, and +the twilight grew rosier brown. I never met Mat Woods again, though I +often heard of his fame as a fiddler. Whether my Anglo-Indian friend +found the fortune so vaguely predicted is to me as yet unknown. But I +believe that the prediction encouraged him. That there are evils in +palmistry, and sin in card-drawing, and iniquity in coffee-grounding, and +vice in all the <!-- page 197--><a name="page197"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 197</span>planets, is established by statute, and yet +withal I incline to believe that the art of prediction cheers up many a +despondent soul, and does some little good, even as good ale, despite the +wickedness of drinking, makes some hearts merry and others stronger. +If there are foolish maids who have had their heads turned by being told of +coming noblemen and prospective swells, who loved the ground they trod on, +and were waiting to woo and win and wed, and if the same maidens herein +described have thereby, in the manner set forth, been led by the aforesaid +devices unto their great injury, as written in the above indictment, it may +also <i>per contra</i> and on the other hand be pleaded that divers girls, +to wit, those who believe in prediction, have, by encouragement and hope to +them held out of legally marrying sundry young men of good estate, been +induced to behave better than they would otherwise have done, and led by +this hope have acted more morally than was their wont, and thereby lifted +themselves above the lowly state of vulgarity, and even of vice, in which +they would otherwise have groveled, hoveled, or cottaged. And there +have been men who, cherishing in their hearts a prediction, or, what +amounts to the same thing, a conviction, or a set fancy, have persevered in +hope until the hope was realized. You, O Christian, who believe in a +millennium, you, O Jew, who expect a Messiah, and await the fulfillment of +your <i>dukkerin</i>, are both in the right, for both will come true when +you <i>make</i> them do so.</p> +<h3><!-- page 198--><a name="page198"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +198</span>II. THE PIOUS WASHERWOMAN.</h3> +<p>There is not much in life pleasanter than a long ramble on the road in +leaf-green, sun-gold summer. Then it is Nature’s merry-time, +when fowls in woods them maken blithe, and the crow preaches from the fence +to his friends afield, and the honeysuckle winketh to the wild rose in the +hedge when she is wooed by the little buzzy bee. In such times it is +good for the heart to wander over the hills and far away, into haunts known +of old, where perhaps some semi-Saxon church nestles in a hollow behind a +hill, where grass o’ergrows each mouldering tomb, and the brook, as +it ripples by in a darksome aldered hollow, speaks in a language which man +knows no more, but which is answered in the same forgotten tongue by the +thousand-year yew as it rustles in the breeze. And when there are +Runic stones in this garden of God, where He raises souls, I often fancy +that this old dialect is written in their rhythmic lines. The +yew-trees were planted by law, lang-syne, to yield bows to the realm, and +now archery is dead and Martini-Henry has taken its place, but the yews +still live, and the Runic fine art of the twisted lines on the tombs, after +a thousand years’ sleep, is beginning to revive. Every thing at +such a time speaks of joy and resurrection—tree and tomb and bird and +flower and bee.</p> +<p>These are all memories of a walk from the town <!-- page 199--><a +name="page199"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 199</span>of Aberystwith, in +Wales, which walk leads by an ancient church, in the soul garden of which +are two Runic cross tombstones. One day I went farther afield to a +more ancient shrine, on the top of a high mountain. This was to the +summit of Cader Idris, sixteen miles off. On this summit there is a +Druidical circle, of which the stones, themselves to ruin grown, are +strange and death-like old. Legend says that this is the burial-place +of Taliesin, the first of Welsh bards, the primeval poet of Celtic +time. Whoever sleeps on the grave will awake either a madman or a +poet, or is at any rate unsafe to become one or the other. I went, +with two friends, afoot on this little pilgrimage. Both were +professors at one of the great universities. The elder is a gentleman +of great benevolence, learning, and gentleness; the other, a younger man, +has been well polished and sharpened by travel in many lands. It is +rumored that he has preached Islam in a mosque unto the Moslem even unto +taking up a collection, which is the final test of the faith which reaches +forth into a bright eternity. That he can be, as I have elsewhere +noted, a Persian unto Persians, and a Romany among Roms, and a professional +among the hanky-pankorites, is likewise on the cards, as surely as that he +knows the roads and all the devices and little games of them that dwell +thereon. Though elegant enough in his court dress and rapier when he +kisses the hand of our sovereign lady the queen, he appears such an +abandoned rough when he goes a-fishing that the innocent and guileless +gypsies, little suspecting that a <i>rye</i> lies <i>perdu</i> in his +wrap-rascal, will then confide in him as if he and in-doors had never been +acquainted.</p> +<p>We had taken with us a sparing lunch of thin <!-- page 200--><a +name="page200"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 200</span>sandwiches and a +frugal flask of modest, blushing brandy, which we diluted at a stingy +little fountain spring which dropped economically through a rift in the +rock, as if its nymph were conscious that such a delicious drink should not +be wasted. As it was, it refreshed us, and we were resting in a +blessed repose under the green leaves, when we heard footsteps, and an old +woman came walking by.</p> +<p>She was the ideal of decent and extreme poverty. I never saw +anybody who was at once so poor and so clean. In her face and in her +thin garments was marked the mute, resolute struggle between need and +self-respect, which, to him who understands it, is as brave as any battle +between life and death. She walked on as if she would have gone past +without a word, but when we greeted her she paused, and spoke +respectfully. Without forwardness she told her sad and simple story: +how she belonged to the Wesleyan confession, how her daughter was dying in +the hospital at Caernarvon; how she had walked sixty miles to see her, and +hoped to get there in time to close her eyes. In reply to a question +as to her means, she admitted that they were exhausted, but that she could +get through without money; she did not beg. And then came naturally +enough the rest of the little artless narrative, as it generally happens +among the simple annals of the poor: how she had been for forty years a +washerwoman, and had a letter from her clergyman.</p> +<p>There was a tear in the eye of the elder professor, and his hand was in +his pocket. The younger smoked in silence. I was greatly moved +myself,—perhaps bewildered would be the better word,—when, all +at once, as the old woman turned in the sunlight, I caught the expression +<i>of the corner of an eye</i>!</p> +<p><!-- page 201--><a name="page201"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +201</span>My friend Salaman, who boasts that he is of the last of the +Sadducees,—that strange, ancient, and secret sect, who disguise +themselves as the <i>Neu Reformirte</i>,—declares that the Sephardim +may be distinguished from the Ashkenazim as readily as from the confounded +Goyim, by the corners of their eyes. This he illustrated by pointing +out to me, as they walked by in the cool of the evening, the difference +between the eyes of Fraulein Eleonora Kohn and Senorita Linda Abarbanel and +divers and sundry other young ladies,—the result being that I +received in return thirty-six distinct <i>œillades</i>, several of +which expressed indignation, and in all of which there was evidently an +entire misconception of my object in looking at them. Now the eyes of +the Sephardesses are unquestionably fascinating; and here it may be +recalled that, in the Middle Ages, witches were also recognized by having +exactly the same corners, or peaks, to the eye. This is an ancient +mystery of darksome lore, that the enchantress always has the bird-peaked +eye, which betokens danger to somebody, be she of the Sephardim, or an +ordinary witch or enchantress, or a gypsy.</p> +<p>Now, as the old Wesleyan washerwoman turned around in the sunshine, I +saw the witch-pointed eye and the glint of the Romany. And then I +glanced at her hands, and saw that they had not been long familiar with +wash-tubs; for, though clean, they were brown, and had never been blanched +with an age of soap-suds. And I spoke suddenly, and said,—</p> +<p>“<i>Can tute rakker Romanes</i>, <i>miri dye</i>?” +(Can you speak Romany, my mother?) And she answered, as if +bewildered,—</p> +<p><!-- page 202--><a name="page202"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +202</span>“The Lord forbid, sir, that I should talk any of them +wicked languages.”</p> +<p>The younger professor’s eyes expressed dawning delight. I +followed my shot with,—</p> +<p>“<i>Tute needn’t be attrash to rakker</i>. +<i>Mandy’s been apré the drom mi-kokero</i>.” (You +needn’t be afraid to speak. I have been upon the road +myself.)</p> +<p>And, still more confused, she answered in English,—</p> +<p>“Why, sir, you be upon the road now!”</p> +<p>“It seems to me, old lady,” remarked the younger professor, +“that you understand Romany very well for one who has been for forty +years in the Methodist communion.”</p> +<p>It may be observed that he here confounded washing with worshiping.</p> +<p>The face of the true believer was at this point a fine study. All +her confidence had deserted her. Whether she thought we were of her +kind in disguise, or that, in the unknown higher world of respectability, +there might be gypsies of corresponding rank, even as there might be gypsy +angels among the celestial hierarchies, I cannot with confidence +assert. About a week ago a philologist and purist told me that there +is no exact synonym in English for the word <i>flabbergasted</i>, as it +expresses a peculiar state of bewilderment as yet unnamed by scholars, and +it exactly sets forth the condition in which our virtuous poverty +appeared. She was, indeed, flabbergasted. <i>Cornix scorpum +rapuit</i>,—the owl had come down on the rabbits, and lo! they had +fangs. I resumed,—</p> +<p>“Now, old lady, here is a penny. You are a very poor person, +and I pity you so much that I give you this penny for your poverty. +But there is a pocketful <!-- page 203--><a name="page203"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 203</span>where this came from, and you shall have the +lot if you’ll <i>rakker</i>,”—that is, talk gypsy.</p> +<p>And at that touch of the Ithuriel spear the old toad flashed up into the +Romany devil, as with gleaming eyes and a witch-like grin she cried in a +mixture of gypsy and tinker languages,—</p> +<p>“Gents, I’ll have tute jin when you tharis mandy you rakker +a reg’lar fly old bewer.” Which means, “Gentlemen, +I’ll have you know, when you talk to me, you talk to a reg’lar +shrewd old female thief.”</p> +<p>The face of the elder professor was a study of astonishment for +Lavater. His fingers relaxed their grasp of the shilling, his hand +was drawn from his pocket, and his glance, like Bill Nye’s, remarked: +“<i>Can</i> this be?” He tells the story to this day, and +always adds, “I <i>never</i> was so astonished in my +life.” But the venerable washerwoman was also changed, and, the +mask once thrown aside, she became as festive as a witch on the +Brocken. Truly, it is a great comfort to cease playing a part, +particularly a pious one, and be at home and at ease among your like; and +better still if they be swells. This was the delight of +Anderson’s ugly duck when it got among the swans, “and, blest +sensation, felt genteel.” And to show her gratitude, the +sorceress, who really seemed to have grown several shades darker, insisted +on telling our fortunes. I think it was to give vent to her feelings +in defiance of the law that she did this; certain it was that just then, +under the circumstances, it was the only way available in which the law +could be broken. And as it was, indeed, by heath and hill that the +priestess of the hidden spell bade the Palmer from over the sea hold out +his palm. And she began in the usual sing-song tone, mocking the +style of <!-- page 204--><a name="page204"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +204</span>gypsy fortune-tellers, and satirizing herself. And thus she +spoke,—</p> +<p>“You’re born under a lucky star, my good gentleman, and +you’re a married man; but there’s a black-eyed young lady +that’s in love with you.”</p> +<p>“Oh, mother of all the thieves!” I cried, +“you’ve put the <i>dukkerin</i> on the wrong man. +I’m the one that the dark girls go after.”</p> +<p>“Yes, my good gentleman. She’s in love with you +both.”</p> +<p>“And now tell my fortune!” I exclaimed, and with a grim +expression, casting up my palm, I said,—</p> +<p>“<i>Pen mengy if mandy’ll be bitchadé pādel for +chorin a gry</i>, <i>or nasherdo for merin a gav-mush</i>.” +(Tell me if I am to be transported for stealing a horse, or hung for +killing a policeman.)</p> +<p>The old woman’s face changed. “You’ll never need +to steal a horse. The man that knows what you know never need be poor +like me. I know who <i>you</i> are <i>now</i>; you’re not one +of these tourists. You’re the boro Romany rye [the tall gypsy +gentleman]. And go your way, and brag about it in your +house,—and well you may,—that Old Moll of the Roads +couldn’t take you in, and that you found her out. Never another +<i>rye</i> but you will ever say that again. Never.”</p> +<p>And she went dancing away in the sunshine, capering backwards along the +road, merrily shaking the pennies in her hand for music, while she sang +something in gypsy,—witch to the last, vanishing as witches only +can. And there came over me a feeling as of the very olden time, and +some memory of another witch, who had said to another man, +“<i>Thou</i> art no traveler, Great master, I know thee now;” +<!-- page 205--><a name="page205"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +205</span>and who, when he called her the mother of the giants, replied, +“Go thy way, and boast at home that no man will ever waken me again +with spells. Never.” That was the parting of Odin and the +Vala sorceress, and it was the story of oldest time; and so the myth of +ancient days becomes a tattered parody, and thus runs the world away to +Romanys and rags—when the gods are gone.</p> +<p>When I laughed at the younger professor for confounding forty years in +the church with as many at the wash-tub, he replied,—</p> +<p>“Cleanliness is with me so near to godliness that it is not +remarkable that in my hurry I mistook one for the other.”</p> +<p>So we went on and climbed Cader Idris, and found the ancient grave of +rocks in a mystic circle, whose meaning lies buried with the last Druid, +who would perhaps have told you they were—</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“Seats of stone nevir hewin with mennes hand<br /> +But wrocht by Nature as it ane house had bene<br /> +For Nymphes, goddis of floudes and woodis grene.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>And we saw afar the beautiful scene, “where fluddes rynnys in the +foaming sea,” as Gawain Douglas sings, and where, between the fresh +water and salt, stands a village, even where it stood in earliest Cymric +prehistoric dawn, and the spot where ran the weir in which the prince who +was in grief because his weir yielded no fish, at last fished up a poet, +even as Pharaoh’s daughter fished out a prophet. I shall not +soon forget that summer day, nor the dream-like panorama, nor the ancient +grave; nor how the younger professor lay down on the seat of stone nevir +hewin with mennes hand, and declared he had a nap,—just enough to +make him a poet. To prove which he <!-- page 206--><a +name="page206"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 206</span>wrote a long poem on +the finding of Taliesin in the nets, and sent it to the Aberystwith +newspaper; while I, not to be behindhand, wrote another, in imitation of +the triplets of Llydwarch Hen, which were so greatly admired as tributes to +Welsh poetry that they were forthwith translated faithfully into lines of +consonants, touched up with so many <i>w</i>’s that they looked like +saws; and they circulated even unto Llandudno, and, for aught I know, may +be sung at Eistedfodds, now and ever, to the twanging of small +harps,—<i>in sœcula sæculorum</i>. Truly, the day +which had begun with a witch ended fitly enough at the tomb of a prophet +poet.</p> +<h3><!-- page 207--><a name="page207"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +207</span>III. THE GYPSIES AT ABERYSTWITH.</h3> +<p>Aberystwith is a little fishing-village, which has of late years first +bloomed as a railway-station, and then fruited into prosperity as a +bathing-place. Like many <i>parvenus</i>, it makes a great display of +its Norman ancestor, the old castle, saying little about the long centuries +of plebeian obscurity in which it was once buried. This castle, after +being woefully neglected during the days when nobody cared for its early +respectability, has been suddenly remembered, now that better times have +come, and, though not restored, has been made comely with grass banks, +benches, and gravel walks, reminding one of an Irish grandfather in +America, taken out on a Sunday with “the childher,” and looking +“gintale” in the clean shirt and whole coat unknown to him for +many a decade in Tipperary. Of course the castle and the wealth, or +the hotels and parade, are well to the fore, or boldly displayed, as +Englishly as possible, while the little Welsh town shrinks quietly into the +hollow behind. And being new to prosperity, Aberystwith is also a +little muddled as to propriety. It would regard with horror the idea +of allowing ladies and gentlemen to bathe together, even though completely +clad; but it sees nothing out of the way when gentlemen in pre-fig-leaf +costume disport themselves, bathing just before the young ladies’ +boarding-school and the chief <!-- page 208--><a name="page208"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 208</span>hotel, or running joyous races on the +beach. I shall never forget the amazement and horror with which an +Aberystwithienne learned that in distant lands ladies and gentlemen went +into the water arm in arm, although dressed. But when it was urged +that the Aberystwith system was somewhat peculiar, she replied, “Oh, +<i>that</i> is a very different thing!”</p> +<p>On which words for a text a curious sermon might be preached to the +Philistiny souls who live perfectly reconciled to absurd paradoxes, simply +because they are accustomed to them. Now, of all human beings, I +think the gypsies are freest from trouble with paradoxes as to things being +different or alike, and the least afflicted with moral problems, burning +questions, social puzzles, or any other kind of mental rubbish. They +are even freer than savages or the heathen in this respect, since of all +human beings the Fijian, New Zealander, Mpongwe, or Esquimaux is most +terribly tortured with the laws of etiquette, religion, social position, +and propriety. Among many of these heathen unfortunates the meeting +with an equal involves fifteen minutes of bowing, re-bowing, surre-bowing, +and rejoinder-bowing, with complementary complimenting, according to old +custom, while the worship of Mrs. Grundy through a superior requires a half +hour wearisome beyond belief. “In Fiji,” says Miss C. F. +Gordon Cumming, “strict etiquette rules every action of life, and the +most trifling mistake in such matters would cause as great dissatisfaction +as a breach in the order of precedence at a European +ceremonial.” In dividing cold baked missionary at a dinner, +especially if a chief be present, the host committing the least mistake as +to helping the proper guest to the proper piece in the proper way would +<!-- page 209--><a name="page209"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +209</span>find himself promptly put down in the <i>menu</i>. In Fiji, +as in all other countries, this punctilio is nothing but the direct result +of ceaseless effort on the part of the upper classes to distinguish +themselves from the lower. Cannibalism is a joint sprout from the +same root; “the devourers of the poor” are the scorners of the +humble and lowly, and they are all grains of the same corn, of the +devil’s planting, all the world over. Perhaps the quaintest +error which haunts the world in England and America is that so much of this +stuff as is taught by rule or fashion as laws for “the +<i>élite</i>” is the very nucleus of enlightenment and +refinement, instead of its being a remnant of barbarism. And when we +reflect on the degree to which this naïve and child-like faith exists +in the United States, as shown by the enormous amount of information in +certain newspapers as to what is the latest thing necessary to be done, +acted, or suffered in order to be socially saved, I surmise that some +future historian will record that we, being an envious people, turned out +the Chinese, because we could not endure the presence among us of a race so +vastly our superiors in all that constituted the true principles of culture +and “custom.”</p> +<p>Arthur Mitchell, in inquiring What is Civilization? <a +name="citation209"></a><a href="#footnote209" class="citation">[209]</a> +remarks that “all the things which gather round or grow upon a high +state of civilization are not necessarily true parts of it. These +conventionalities are often regarded as its very essence.” And +it is true that the greater the fool or snob, the deeper is the conviction +that the conventional is the core of “culture.” +“‘It is not genteel,’ ‘in good form,’ or +‘the mode,’ to do this or do that, or say this or say +that.” <!-- page 210--><a name="page210"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 210</span>“Such things are spoken of as marks of a +high civilization, or by those who do not confound civilization with +culture as differentiators between the cultured and the +uncultured.” Dr. Mitchell “neither praises nor condemns +these things;” but it is well for a man, while he is about it, to +know his own mind, and I, for myself, condemn them with all my heart and +soul, whenever anybody declares that such brass counters in the game of +life are real gold, and insists that I shall accept them as such. For +small play in a very small way with small people, I would endure them; but +many men and nearly all women make their capital of them. And +whatever may be said in their favor, it cannot be denied that they +constantly lead to lying and heartlessness. Even Dr. Mitchell, while +he says he does not condemn them, proceeds immediately to declare that +“while we submit to them they constitute a sort of tyranny, under +which we fret and secretly pine for escape. Does not the exquisite of +Rotten Row weary for his flannel shirt and shooting-jacket? Do not +‘well-constituted’ men want to fish and shoot or kill +something, themselves, by climbing mountains, when they can find nothing +else? In short, does it not appear that these conventionalities are +irksome, and are disregarded when the chance presents itself? And +does it not seem as if there were something in human nature pulling men +back to a rude and simple life?” To find that <i>men</i> suffer +under the conventionalities, “adds, on the whole,” says our +canny, prudent Scot, “to the respectability of human +nature.” <i>Tu ha ragione</i> (right you are), Dr. Mitchell, +there. For the conventional, whether found among Fijians as they +were, or in Mayfair as it is, whenever it is vexatious and merely serves as +a <!-- page 211--><a name="page211"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +211</span>cordon to separate “sassiety” from society, detracts +from the respectability of humanity, and is in itself vulgar. If +every man in society were a gentleman and every woman a lady, there would +be no more conventionalism. <i>Usus est tyrannus</i> (custom is a +tyrant), or, as the Talmud proverb saith, “Custom is the plague of +wise men, but is the idol of fools.” And he was a wise Jew, +whoever he was, who declared it.</p> +<p>But let us return to our black sheep, the gypsy. While happy in +not being conventional, and while rejoicing, or at least unconsciously +enjoying freedom from the bonds of etiquette, he agrees with the Chinese, +red Indians, May Fairies, and Fifth Avenoodles in manifesting under the +most trying circumstances that imperturbability which was once declared by +an eminent Philadelphian to be “the Corinthian ornament of a +gentleman.” He who said this builded better than he knew, for +the ornament in question, if purely Corinthian, is simply brass. One +morning I was sauntering with the Palmer in Aberystwith, when we met with a +young and good-looking gypsy woman, with whom we entered into conversation, +learning that she was a Bosville, and acquiring other items of news as to +Egypt and the roads, and then left.</p> +<p>We had not gone far before we found a tinker. He who catches a +tinker has got hold of half a gypsy and a whole cosmopolite, however bad +the catch may be. He did not understand the greeting +<i>Sarishan</i>!—he really could not remember to have heard it. +He did not know any gypsies,—“he could not get along with +them.” They were a bad lot. He had seen some gypsies +three weeks before on the road. They were curious dark people, who +lived in tents. He could not talk Romany.</p> +<p><!-- page 212--><a name="page212"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +212</span>This was really pitiable. It was too much. The Palmer +informed him that he was wasting his best opportunities, and that it was a +great pity that any man who lived on the roads should be so ignorant. +The tinker never winked. In the goodness of our hearts we even +offered to give him lessons in the <i>kalo jib</i>, or black +language. The grinder was as calm as a Belgravian image. And as +we turned to depart the professor said,—</p> +<p>“<i>Mandy’d del tute a shahori to pi moro kammaben</i>, +<i>if tute jinned sa mandi pukkers</i>.” (I’d give you a +sixpence to drink our health, if you knew what I am saying.)</p> +<p>With undisturbed gravity the tinker replied,—</p> +<p>“Now I come to think of it, I do remember to have heard +somethin’ in the parst like that. It’s a conwivial +expression arskin’ me if I won’t have a tanner for ale. +Which I will.”</p> +<p>“Now since you take such an interest in gypsies,” I +answered, “it is a pity that you should know so little about +them. I have seen them since you have. I saw a nice young +woman, one of the Bosvilles here, not half an hour ago. Shall I +introduce you?”</p> +<p>“That young woman,” remarked the tinker, with the same +immovable countenance, “is my wife. And I’ve come down +here, by app’intment, to meet some Romany pals.”</p> +<p>And having politely accepted his sixpence, the griddler went his way, +tinkling his bell, along the road. He did not disturb himself that +his first speeches did not agree with his last; he was not in the habit of +being disturbed about anything, and he knew that no one ever learned Romany +without learning with it not to be astonished at any little +inconsistencies. Serene <!-- page 213--><a name="page213"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 213</span>and polished as a piece of tin in the +sunshine, he would not stoop to be put out by trifles. He was a +typical tinker. He knew that the world had made up proverbs +expressing the utmost indifference either for a tinker’s blessing or +a tinker’s curse, and he retaliated by not caring a curse whether the +world blessed or banned him. In all ages and in all lands the tinker +has always been the type of this droning indifference, which goes through +life bagpiping its single melody, or whistling, like the serene Marquis de +Crabs, “Toujours Santerre.”</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“Es ist und bleibt das alte Lied<br /> +Von dem versoff’nen Pfannenschmied,<br /> +Und wer’s nicht weiter singen kann,<br /> +Der fang’s von Vorne wieder an.”</p> +<p>’T will ever be the same old song<br /> +Of tipsy tinkers all day long,<br /> +And he who cannot sing it more<br /> +May sing it over, as before.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>I should have liked to know John Bunyan. As a half-blood gypsy +tinker he must have been self-contained and pleasant. He had his wits +about him, too, in a very Romanly way. When confined in prison he +made a flute or pipe out of the leg of his three legged-stool, and would +play on it to pass time. When the jailer entered to stop the noise, +John replaced the leg in the stool, and sat on it looking innocent as only +a gypsy tinker could,—calm as a summer morning. I commend the +subject for a picture. Very recently, that is, in the beginning of +1881, a man of the same tinkering kind, and possibly of the same blood as +Honest John, confined in the prison of Moyamensing, Philadelphia, did +nearly the same thing, only that instead of making his stool leg into a +musical <!-- page 214--><a name="page214"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +214</span>pipe he converted it into a pipe for tobacco. But when the +watchman, led by the smell, entered his cell, there was no pipe to be +found; only a deeply injured man complaining that “somebody, had been +smokin’ outside, and it had blowed into his cell through the +door-winder from the corridore, and p’isoned the atmosphere. +And he didn’t like it.” And thus history repeats +itself. ’T is all very well for the sticklers for Wesleyan +gentility to deny that John Bunyan was a gypsy, but he who in his life +cannot read Romany between the lines knows not the jib nor the cut +thereof. Tough was J. B., “and de-vil-ish sly,” and +altogether a much better man than many suppose him to have been.</p> +<p>The tinker lived with his wife in a “tramps’ +lodging-house” in the town. To those Americans who know such +places by the abominable dens which are occasionally reported by American +grand juries, the term will suggest something much worse than it is. +In England the average tramp’s lodging is cleaner, better regulated, +and more orderly than many Western “hotels.” The police +look closely after it, and do not allow more than a certain number in a +room. They see that it is frequently cleaned, and that clean sheets +are frequently put on the beds. One or two hand-organs in the hall, +with a tinker’s barrow or wheel, proclaimed the character of the +lodgers, and in the sitting-room there were to be found, of an evening, +gypsies, laborers with their families seeking work or itinerant +musicians. I can recall a powerful and tall young man, with a badly +expressive face, one-legged, and well dressed as a sailor. He was a +beggar, who measured the good or evil of all mankind by what they gave +him. He was very bitter as to <!-- page 215--><a +name="page215"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 215</span>the bad. Yet +this house was in its way upper class. It was not a den of despair, +dirt, and misery, and even the Italians who came there were obliged to be +decent and clean. It would not have been appropriate to have written +for them on the door, “<i>Voi che intrate lasciate ogni +speranza</i>.” (He who enters here leaves soap behind.) +The most painful fact which struck me, in my many visits, was the +intelligence and decency of some of the boarders. There was more than +one who conversed in a manner which indicated an excellent early education; +more than one who read the newspaper aloud and commented on it to the +company, as any gentleman might have done. Indeed, the painful part +of life as shown among these poor people was the manifest fact that so many +of them had come down from a higher position, or were qualified for +it. And this is characteristic of such places. In his +“London Labour and the London Poor,” vol. i. p. 217, Mahew +tells of a low lodging-house “in which there were at one time five +university men, three surgeons, and several sorts of broken-down +clerks.” The majority of these cases are the result of parents +having risen from poverty and raised their families to +“gentility.” The sons are deprived by their bringing up +of the vulgar pluck and coarse energy by which the father rose, and yet are +expected to make their way in the world, with nothing but a so-called +“education,” which is too often less a help than a +hindrance. In the race of life no man is so heavily handicapped as a +young “gentleman.” The humblest and raggedest of all the +inmates of this house were two men who got their living by <i>shelkin +gallopas</i> (or selling ferns), as it is called in the Shelta, or +tinker’s and tramp’s slang. One of these, whom I <!-- +page 216--><a name="page216"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 216</span>have +described in another chapter as teaching me this dialect, could conjugate a +French verb; we thought he had studied law. The other was a poor old +fellow called Krooty, who could give the Latin names for all the plants +which he gathered and sold, and who would repeat poetry very appropriately, +proving sufficiently that he had read it. Both the fern-sellers spoke +better English than divers Lord Mayors and Knights to whom I have listened, +for they neither omitted <i>h</i> like the lowly, nor <i>r</i> like the +lofty ones of London.</p> +<p>The tinker’s wife was afflicted with a nervous disorder, which +caused her great suffering, and made it almost impossible for her to sell +goods, or contribute anything to the joint support. Her husband +always treated her with the greatest kindness; I have seldom seen an +instance in which a man was more indulgent and gentle. He made no +display whatever of his feelings; it was only little by little that I found +out what a heart this imperturbable rough of the road possessed. Now +the Palmer, who was always engaged in some wild act of unconscious +benevolence, bought for her some medicine, and gave her an order on the +first physician in the town for proper advice; the result being a decided +amelioration of her health. And I never knew any human being to be +more sincerely grateful than the tinker was for this kindness. +Ascertaining that I had tools for wood-carving, he insisted on presenting +me with crocus powder, “to put an edge on.” He had a +remarkably fine whetstone, “the best in England; it was worth half a +sovereign,” and this he often and vainly begged me to accept. +And he had a peculiar little trick of relieving his kindly feelings. +Whenever we dropped in of an <!-- page 217--><a name="page217"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 217</span>evening to the lodging-house, he would +cunningly borrow my knife, and then disappear. Presently the +<i>whiz-whiz</i>, <i>st’st</i> of his wheel would be heard without, +and then the artful dodger would reappear with a triumphant smile, and with +the knife sharpened to a razor edge. Anent which gratitude I shall +have more to say anon.</p> +<p>One day I was walking on the Front, when I overtook a gypsy van, loaded +with baskets and mats, lumbering along. The proprietor, who was a +stranger to me, was also slightly or lightly lumbering in his gait, being +cheerfully beery, while his berry brown wife, with a little three-year-old +boy, peddled wares from door to door. Both were amazed and pleased at +being accosted in Romany. In the course of conversation they showed +great anxiety as to their child, who had long suffered from some disorder +which caused them great alarm. The man’s first name was Anselo, +though it was painted Onslow on his vehicle. Mr. Anselo, though +himself just come to town, was at once deeply impressed with the duty of +hospitality to a Romany rye. I had called him <i>pal</i>, and this in +gypsydom involves the shaking of hands, and with the better class an extra +display of courtesy. He produced half a crown, and declared his +willingness to devote it all to beer for my benefit. I declined, but +he repeated his offer several times,—not with any annoying display, +but with a courteous earnestness, intended to set forth a sweet +sincerity. As I bade him good-by, he put the crown-piece into one +eye, and as he danced backward, gypsy fashion up the street and vanished in +the sunny purple twilight towards the sea I could see him winking with the +other, and hear him cry, “Don’t say no—now’s the +last chance—do I hear a bid?”</p> +<p><!-- page 218--><a name="page218"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +218</span>We found this family in due time at the lodging-house, where the +little boy proved to be indeed seriously ill, and we at once discovered +that the parents, in their ignorance, had quite misunderstood his malady +and were aggravating it by mal-treatment. To these poor people the +good Palmer also gave an order on the old physician, who declared that the +boy must have died in a few days, had he not taken charge of him. As +it was, the little fellow was speedily cured. There was, it appeared, +some kind of consanguinity between the tinker or his wife and the Anselo +family. These good people, anxious to do anything, yet able to do +little, consulted together as to showing their gratitude, and noting that +we were specially desirous of collecting old gypsy words gave us all they +could think of, and without informing us of their intention, which indeed +we only learned by accident a long time after, sent a messenger many miles +to bring to Aberystwith a certain Bosville, who was famed as being deep in +Romany lore, and in possession of many ancient words. Which was +indeed true, he having been the first to teach us <i>pisāli</i>, +meaning a saddle, and in which Professor Cowell, of Cambridge, promptly +detected the Sanskrit for sit-upon, the same double meaning also existing +in <i>boshto</i>; or, as old Mrs. Buckland said to me at Oaklands Park, in +Philadelphia, “a <i>pisāli</i> is the same thing with a +<i>boshto</i>.”</p> +<p>“What will gain thy faith?” said Quentin Durward to +Hayradden Maugrabhin. “Kindness,” answered the gypsy.</p> +<p>The joint families, solely with intent to please us, although they never +said a word about it, next sent for a young Romany, one of the Lees, and +his wife <!-- page 219--><a name="page219"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +219</span>whom they supposed we would like to meet. Walking along the +Front, I met the tinker’s wife with the handsomest Romany girl I ever +beheld. In a London ball-room or on the stage she would have been a +really startling beauty. This was young Mrs. Lee. Her husband +was a clever violinist, and it was very remarkable that when he gave +himself up to playing, with <i>abandon</i> or self-forgetfulness, there +came into his melodies the same wild gypsy expression, the same chords and +tones, which abound in the music of the Austrian Tsigane. It was not +my imagination which prompted the recognition; the Palmer also observed it, +without thinking it remarkable. From the playing of both Mat Woods +and young Lee, I am sure that there has survived among the Welsh gypsies +some of the spirit of their old Eastern music, just as in the solo dancing +of Mat’s sister there was precisely the same kind of step which I had +seen in Moscow. Among the hundreds of the race whom I have met in +Great Britain, I have never known any young people who were so purely +Romany as these. The tinker and Anselo with his wife had judged +wisely that we would be pleased with this picturesque couple. They +always seemed to me in the house like two wild birds, and tropical ones at +that, in a cage. There was a tawny-gold, black and scarlet tone about +them and their garb, an Indian Spanish duskiness and glow which I loved to +look at.</p> +<p>Every proceeding of the tinker and Anselo was veiled in mystery and +hidden in the obscurity so dear to such grown-up children, but as I +observed after a few days that Lee did nothing beyond acting as assistant +to the tinker at the wheel, I surmised that the visit was solely for our +benefit. As the tinker <!-- page 220--><a name="page220"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 220</span>was devoted to his poor wife, so was Anselo +and his dame devoted to their child. He was, indeed, a brave little +fellow, and frequently manifested the precocious pluck and sturdiness so +greatly admired by the Romanys of the road; and when he would take a whip +and lead the horse, or in other ways show his courage, the delight of his +parents was in its turn delightful. They would look at the child as +if charmed, and then at one another with feelings too deep for words, and +then at me for sympathetic admiration.</p> +<p>The keeper of the house where they lodged was in his way a character and +a linguist. Welsh was his native tongue and English his second +best. He also knew others, such as Romany, of which he was proud, and +the Shelta or Minklas of the tinkers, of which he was not. The only +language which he knew of which he was really ashamed was Italian, and +though he could maintain a common conversation in it he always denied that +he remembered more than a few words. For it was not as the tongue of +Dante, but as the lingo of organ-grinders and such “catenone” +that he knew it, and I think that the Palmer and I lost dignity in his eyes +by inadvertently admitting that it was familiar to us. “I +shouldn’t have thought it,” was all his comment on the +discovery, but I knew his thought, and it was that we had made ourselves +unnecessarily familiar with vulgarity.</p> +<p>It is not every one who is aware of the extent to which Italian is known +by the lower orders in London. It is not spoken as a language; but +many of its words, sadly mangled, are mixed with English as a jargon. +Thus the Italian <i>scappare</i>, to escape, or run away, has become +<i>scarper</i>; and a dweller in the <!-- page 221--><a +name="page221"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 221</span>Seven Dials has been +heard to say he would “<i>scarper</i> with the <i>feele</i> of the +<i>donna</i> of the <i>cassey</i>;” which means, run away with the +daughter of the landlady of the house, and which, as the editor of the +Slang Dictionary pens, is almost pure Italian,—<i>scappare colla +figlia della donna</i>, <i>della casa</i>. Most costermongers call a +penny a <i>saltee</i>, from <i>soldo</i>; a crown, a <i>caroon</i>; and one +half, <i>madza</i>, from <i>mezza</i>. They count as +follows:—</p> +<table> +<tr> +<td> +<p></p> +</td> +<td> +<p><span class="smcap">Italian</span>.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Oney saltee, a penny</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Uno soldo.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Dooey saltee, twopence</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Dui soldi.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Tray saltee, threepence</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Tre soldi.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Quarterer saltee, fourpence</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Quattro soldi.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Chinker saltee, fivepence</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Cinque soldi.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Say saltee, sixpence</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Sei soldi.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Say oney saltee, or setter saltee, sevenpence</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Sette soldi.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Say dooee saltee, or otter saltee, eightpence</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Otto soldi.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Say tray saltee, or nobba saltee, ninepence</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Nove soldi.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Say quarterer saltee, or dacha (datsha) saltee, tenpence</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Dieci soldi.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Say chinker saltee, or dacha one saltee, elevenpence</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Dieci uno soldi</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Oney beong, one shilling</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Uno bianco.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>A beong say saltee, one shilling and sixpence</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Uno bianco sei soldi.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Madza caroon, half a crown</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Mezza corona.</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<p>Mr. Hotten says that he could never discover the derivation of +<i>beong</i>, or <i>beonk</i>. It is very plainly the Italian +<i>bianco</i>, white, which, like <i>blanc</i> in French and <i>blank</i> +in German, is often applied slangily to a silver coin. It is as if +one had said, “a shiner.” Apropos <!-- page 222--><a +name="page222"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 222</span>of which word there +is something curious to be noted. It came forth in evidence, a few +years ago in England, that burglars or other thieves always carried with +them a piece of coal; and on this disclosure, a certain writer, in his +printed collection of curiosities, comments as if it were a superstition, +remarking that the coal is carried for an amulet. But the truth is +that the thief has no such idea. The coal is simply a sign for money; +and when the bearer meets with a man whom he thinks may be a +“fence,” or a purchaser of stolen goods, he shows the coal, +which is as much as to say, Have you money? Money, in vulgar gypsy, +is <i>wongur</i>, a corruption of the better word <i>angar</i>, which also +means a hot coal; and <i>braise</i>, in French <i>argôt</i>, has the +same double meaning. I may be wrong, but I suspect that <i>rat</i>, a +dollar in Hebrew, or at least in Schmussen, has its root in common with +<i>ratzafim</i>, coals, and possibly <i>poschit</i>, a farthing, with +<i>pecham</i>, coal. In the six kinds of fire mentioned in the +Talmud, <a name="citation222"></a><a href="#footnote222" +class="citation">[222]</a> there is no identification of coals with money; +but in the German legends of Rubezahl, there is a tale of a charcoal-burner +who found them changed to gold. Coins are called shiners because they +shine like glowing coals, and I dare say that the simile exists in many +more languages.</p> +<p>One twilight we found in the public sitting-room of the lodging-house a +couple whom I can never forget. It was an elderly gypsy and his +wife. The husband was himself characteristic; the wife was more than +merely picturesque. I have never met such a superb old Romany as she +was; indeed, I doubt if I ever saw any woman of her age, in any land or any +range of life, with a more magnificently proud <!-- page 223--><a +name="page223"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 223</span>expression or such +unaffected dignity. It was the whole poem of +“Crescentius” living in modern time in other form.</p> +<p>When a scholar associates much with gypsies there is developed in him in +due time a perception or intuition of certain kinds of men or minds, which +it is as difficult to describe as it is wonderful. He who has read +Matthew Arnold’s “Gipsy Scholar” may, however, find +therein many apt words for it. I mean very seriously what I say; I +mean that through the Romany the demon of Socrates acquires distinctness; I +mean that a faculty is developed which is as strange as divination, and +which is greatly akin to it. The gypsies themselves apply it directly +to palmistry; were they well educated they would feel it in higher +forms. It may be reached among other races and in other modes, and +Nature is always offering it to us freely; but it seems to live, or at +least to be most developed, among the Romany. It comes upon the +possessor far more powerfully when in contact with certain lives than with +others, and with the sympathetic it takes in at a glance that which may +employ it at intervals for years to think out.</p> +<p>And by this <i>dūk</i> I read in a few words in the Romany woman an +eagle soul, caged between the bars of poverty, ignorance, and custom; but a +great soul for all that. Both she and her husband were of the old +type of their race, now so rare in England, though commoner in +America. They spoke Romany with inflection and conjugation; they +remembered the old rhymes and old words, which I quoted freely, with the +Palmer. Little by little, the old man seemed to be deeply impressed, +indeed awed, by our utterly inexplicable <!-- page 224--><a +name="page224"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 224</span>knowledge. I +wore a velveteen coat, and had on a broad, soft felt hat.</p> +<p>“You talk as the old Romanys did,” said the old man. +“I hear you use words which I once heard from old men who died when I +was a boy. I thought those words were lying in graves which have long +been green. I hear songs and sayings which I never expected to hear +again. You talk like gypsies, and such gypsies as I never meet now; +and you look like Gorgios. But when I was still young, a few of the +oldest Romany <i>chals</i> still wore hats such as you have; and when I +first looked at you, I thought of them. I don’t understand +you. It is strange, very strange.”</p> +<p>“It is the Romany <i>soul</i>,” said his wife. +“People take to what is in them; if a bird were born a fox, it would +love to fly.”</p> +<p>I wondered what flights she would have taken if she had wings. But +I understood why the old man had spoken as he did; for, knowing that we had +intelligent listeners, the Palmer and I had brought forth all our best and +quaintest Romany curios, and these rural Welsh wanderers were not, like +their English pals, familiar with Romany ryes. And I was moved to +like them, and nobody perceives this sooner than a gypsy. The old +couple were the parents of young Lee, and said they had come to visit him; +but I think that it was rather to see us that we owed their presence in +Aberystwith. For the tinker and Anselo were at this time engaged, in +their secret and owl-like manner, as befitted men who were up to all manner +of ways that were dark, in collecting the most interesting specimens of +Romanys, for our especial study; and whenever this could be managed so that +it <!-- page 225--><a name="page225"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +225</span>appeared entirely accidental and a surprise, then they retired +into their shadowed souls and chuckled with fiendish glee at having managed +things so charmingly. But it will be long ere I forget how the old +man’s eye looked into the past as he recalled,—</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“The hat of antique shape and coat of gray,<br /> + The same the gypsies wore,”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>and went far away back through my words to words heard in the olden +time, by fires long since burnt out, beneath the flame-gilt branches of +forests which have sailed away as ships, farther than woods e’er went +from Dunsinane, and been wrecked in Southern seas. But though I could +not tell exactly what was in every room, I knew into what house his soul +had gone; and it was for this that the scholar-gypsy went from Oxford halls +“to learn strange arts and join a gypsy tribe.” His +friends had gone from earth long since, and were laid to sleep; some, +perhaps, far in the wold and wild, amid the rocks, where fox and wild bird +were their visitors; but for an instant they rose again from their graves, +and I knew them.</p> +<p>“They could do wonders by the power of the imagination,” +says Glanvil of the gypsies; “their fancy binding that of +others.” Understand by imagination and fancy all that Glanvil +really meant, and I agree with him. It is a matter of history that, +since the Aryan morning of mankind, the Romanys have been chiromancing, +and, following it, trying to read people’s minds and bind them to +belief. Thousands of years of transmitted hereditary influences +always result in something; it has really resulted with the gypsies in an +instinctive, though undeveloped, intuitive <!-- page 226--><a +name="page226"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 226</span>perception, which a +sympathetic mind acquires from them,—nay, is compelled to acquire, +out of mere self-defense; and when gained, it manifests itself in many +forms,</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“But it needs heaven-sent moments for this skill.”</p> +</blockquote> +<h2><!-- page 227--><a name="page227"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +227</span>AMERICAN GYPSIES.</h2> +<h3>I. GYPSIES IN PHILADELPHIA.</h3> +<p>It is true that the American gypsy has grown more vigorous in this +country, and, like many plants, has thriven better for being trans—I +was about to write incautiously <i>ported</i>, but, on second thought, say +<i>planted</i>. Strangely enough, he is more Romany than ever. +I have had many opportunities of studying both the elders from England and +the younger gypsies, born of English parents, and I have found that there +is unquestionably a great improvement in the race here, even from a gypsy +stand-point. The young sapling, under more favorable influences, has +pushed out from the old root, and grown stronger. The causes for this +are varied. Gypsies, like peacocks, thrive best when allowed to range +afar. <i>Il faut leur donner le clef des champs</i> (you must give +them the key of the fields), as I once heard an old Frenchman, employed on +Delmonico’s Long Island farm, lang syne, say of that splendid +poultry. And what a range they have, from the Atlantic to the +Pacific! Marry, sir, ’t is like roaming from sunrise to sunset, +east and west, “and from the aurora borealis to a Southern +blue-jay,” and no man shall make them afraid. Wood! +“Well, ’t is a <i>kushto tem for kāsht</i>” <!-- +page 228--><a name="page228"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 228</span>(a fair +land for timber), as a very decent <i>Romani-chal</i> said to me one +afternoon. It was thinking of him which led me to these remarks.</p> +<p>I had gone with my niece—who speaks Romany—out to a gypsyry +by Oaklands Park, and found there one of our good people, with his wife and +children, in a tent. Hard by was the wagon and the horse, and, after +the usual initiatory amazement at being accosted in the <i>kālo +jib</i>, or black language, had been survived, we settled down into +conversation. It was a fine autumnal day, Indian-summery,—the +many in one of all that is fine in weather all the world over, put into a +single glorious sense,—a sense of bracing air and sunshine not +over-bold or bright, and purple, tawny hues in western skies, and dim, +sweet feelings of the olden time. And as we sat lounging in lowly +seats, and talked about the people and their ways, it seemed to me as if I +were again in Devonshire or Surrey. Our host—for every gypsy +who is visited treats you as a guest, thus much Oriental politeness being +deeply set in him—had been in America from boyhood, but he seemed to +be perfectly acquainted with all whom I had known over the sea. Only +one thing he had not heard, the death of old Gentilla Cooper, of the +Devil’s Dyke, near Brighton, for I had just received a letter from +England announcing the sad news.</p> +<p>“Yes, this America is a good country for travelers. <i>We +can go South in winter</i>. Aye, the land is big enough to go to a +warm side in winter, and a cool one in summer. But I don’t go +South, because I don’t like the people; I don’t get along with +them. <i>Some Romanys do</i>. Yes, but I’m not on that +horse, I hear that the old country’s getting to be a hard <!-- page +229--><a name="page229"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 229</span>place for +our people. Yes, just as you say, there’s no <i>tan to +hatch</i>, no place to stay in there, unless you pay as much as if you went +to a hotel. ’T isn’t so here. Some places +they’re uncivil, but mostly we can get wood and water, and a place +for a tent, and a bite for the old <i>gry</i> [horse]. The country +people like to see us come, in many places. They’re more +high-minded and hon’rable here than they are in England. If we +can cheat them in horse-dealin’ they stand it as gentlemen always +ought to do among themselves in such games. Horse-dealin’ is +horse-stealin’, in a way, among real gentlemen. If I can Jew +you or you do me, it’s all square in gamblin’, and nobody has +any call to complain. Therefore, I allow that Americans are higher up +as gentlemen than what they are in England. It is not all of one +side, like a jug-handle, either. Many of these American farmers can +cheat me, and have done it, and are proud of it. Oh, yes; +they’re much higher toned here. In England, if you put off a +<i>bavolengro</i> [broken-winded horse] on a fellow he comes after you with +a <i>chinamāngri</i> [writ]. Here he goes like a man and +swindles somebody else with the <i>gry</i>, instead of sneaking off to a +magistrate.</p> +<p>“Yes,” he continued, “England’s a little +country, very little, indeed, but it is astonishing how many Romanys come +out of it over here. <i>Do I notice any change in them after +coming</i>? I do. When they first come, they drink liquor or +beer all the time. After a while they stop heavy drinking.”</p> +<p>I may here observe that even in England the gypsy, although his getting +drunk is too often regulated or limited simply by his means, seldom shows +in his person the results of long-continued intemperance. <!-- page +230--><a name="page230"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 230</span>Living in +the open air, taking much exercise, constantly practicing boxing, rough +riding, and other manly sports, he is “as hard as nails,” and +generally lives to a hearty old age. As he very much prefers beer to +spirits, it may be a question whether excess in such drinking is really any +serious injury to him. The ancestors of the common English peasants +have for a thousand, it may be for two thousand, years or more all got +drunk on beer, whenever they could afford it, and yet a more powerful human +being than the English peasant does not exist. It may be that the +weaklings all die at an early age. This I cannot deny, nor that those +who survive are simply so tough that beer cannot kill them. What this +gypsy said of the impartial and liberal manner in which he and his kind are +received by the farmers is also true. I once conversed on this +subject with a gentleman farmer, and his remarks were much like those of +the Rom. I inferred from what he said that the coming of a party of +gypsy horse-dealers into his neighborhood was welcomed much as the +passengers on a Southern steamboat were wont of old to welcome the +proprietor of a portable faro bank. “I think,” said he, +“that the last time the gypsies were here they left more than they +took away.” An old Rom told me once that in some parts of New +Jersey they were obliged to watch their tents and wagons very carefully for +fear of the country people. I do not answer for the truth of +this. It speaks vast volumes for the cleverness of gypsies that they +can actually make a living by trading horses in New Spain.</p> +<p>It is very true that in many parts of America the wanderers are welcomed +with <i>feux de joie</i>, or with salutes of shot-guns,—the guns, +unfortunately, being <!-- page 231--><a name="page231"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 231</span>shotted and aimed at them. I have +mentioned in another chapter, on a Gypsy Magic Spell, that once in +Tennessee, when an old Romany mother had succeeded in hoaxing a +farmer’s wife out of all she had in the world, the neighboring +farmers took the witch, and, with a view to preventing effectually further +depredation, caused her to pass “through flames material and temporal +unto flames immaterial and eternal;” that is to say, they burned her +alive. But the gypsy would much prefer having to deal with lynchers +than with lawyers. Like the hedge-hog, which is typically a gypsy +animal, he likes better to be eaten by those of his own kind than to be +crushed into dirt by those who do not understand him. This story of +the hedge-hog was cited from my first gypsy book by Sir Charles Dilke, in a +speech in which he made an application of it to certain conservatives who +remained blindly suffering by their own party. It will hold good +forever. Gypsies never flourished so in Europe as during the days +when every man’s hand was against them. It is said that they +raided and plundered about Scotland for fifty years before they were +definitely discovered to be mere marauders, for the Scots themselves were +so much given up to similar pursuits that the gypsies passed unnoticed.</p> +<p>The American gypsies do not beg, like their English brothers, and +particularly their English sisters. This fact speaks volumes for +their greater prosperity and for the influence which association with a +proud race has on the poorest people. Our friends at Oaklands always +welcomed us as guests. On another occasion when we went there, I said +to my niece, “If we find strangers who do not know us, do not <!-- +page 232--><a name="page232"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 232</span>speak +at first in Romany. Let us astonish them.” We came to a +tent, before which sat a very dark, old-fashioned gypsy woman. I +paused before her, and said in English,—</p> +<p>“Can you tell a fortune for a young lady?”</p> +<p>“She don’t want her fortune told,” replied the old +woman, suspiciously and cautiously, or it may be with a view of drawing us +on. “No, I can’t tell fortunes.”</p> +<p>At this the young lady was so astonished that, without thinking of what +she was saying, or in what language, she cried,—</p> +<p>“<i>Dordi</i>! <i>Can’t tute pen +dukkerin</i>?” (Look! Can’t you tell fortunes?)</p> +<p>This unaffected outburst had a greater effect than the most deeply +studied theatrical situation could have brought about. The old dame +stared at me and at the lady as if bewildered, and cried,—</p> +<p>“In the name of God, what kind of gypsies are +<i>you</i>?”</p> +<p>“Oh! <i>mendui shom bori chovihani</i>!” cried L., laughing; +“we are a great witch and a wizard, and if you can’t tell me my +fortune, I’ll tell yours. Hold out your hand, and cross mine +with a dollar, and I’ll tell you as big a lie as you ever +<i>penned</i> a <i>galderli Gorgio</i> [a green Gentile].”</p> +<p>“Well,” exclaimed the gypsy, “I’ll believe that +you can tell fortunes or do anything! <i>Dordi</i>! <i>dordi</i>! but +this is wonderful. Yet you’re not the first Romany +<i>rāni</i> [lady] I ever met. There’s one in Delaware: a +<i>boridiri</i> [very great] lady she is, and true Romany,—<i>flick o +the jib te rinkeni adosta</i> [quick of tongue and fair of face]. +Well, I am glad to see you.” “Who is that talking +there?” cried a man’s voice <!-- page 233--><a +name="page233"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 233</span>from within the +tent. He had heard Romany, and he spoke it, and came out expecting to +see familiar faces. His own was a study, as his glance encountered +mine. As soon as he understood that I came as a friend, he gave way +to infinite joy, mingled with sincerest grief that he had not at hand the +means of displaying hospitality to such distinguished Romanys as we +evidently were. He bewailed the absence of strong drink. Would +we have some tea made? Would I accompany him to the next tavern, and +have some beer? All at once a happy thought struck him. He went +into the tent and brought out a piece of tobacco, which I was compelled to +accept. Refusal would have been unkind, for it was given from the +very heart. George Borrow tells us that, in Spain, a poor gypsy once +brought him a pomegranate as a first acquaintanceship token. A gypsy +is a gypsy wherever you find him.</p> +<p>These were very nice people. The old dame took a great liking to +L., and showed it in pleasant manners. The couple were both English, +and liked to talk with me of the old country and the many mutual friends +whom we had left behind. On another visit, L. brought a scarlet silk +handkerchief, which she had bound round her head and tied under her chin in +a very gypsy manner. It excited, as I anticipated, great admiration +from the old dame.</p> +<p>“<i>Ah kennā tute dikks rinkeni</i>—now you look +nice. That’s the way a Romany lady ought to wear it! +Don’t she look just as Alfi used to look?” she cried to her +husband. “Just such eyes and hair!”</p> +<p>Here L. took off the <i>diklo</i>, or handkerchief, and passed it round +the gypsy woman’s head, and tied it under her chin, +saying,—</p> +<p><!-- page 234--><a name="page234"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +234</span>“I am sure it becomes you much more than it does me. +Now you look nice:—</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“‘Red and yellow for Romany,<br /> +And blue and pink for the Gorgiee.’”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>We rose to depart, the old dame offered back to L. her handkerchief, +and, on being told to keep it, was greatly pleased. I saw that the +way in which it was given had won her heart.</p> +<p>“Did you hear what the old woman said while she was telling your +fortune?” asked L., after we had left the tent.</p> +<p>“Now, I think of it, I remember that she or you had hold of my +hand, while I was talking with the old man, and he was making merry with my +whisky. I was turned away, and around so that I never noticed what +you two were saying.”</p> +<p>“She <i>penned</i> your <i>dukkerin</i>, and it was +wonderful. She said that she must tell it.”</p> +<p>And here L. told me what the old <i>dye</i> had insisted on reading in +my hand. It was simply very remarkable, and embraced an apparent +knowledge of the past, which would make any credulous person believe in her +happy predictions of the future.</p> +<p>“Ah, well,” I said, “I suppose the <i>dukk</i> told it +to her. She may be an eye-reader. A hint dropped here and +there, unconsciously, the expression of the face, and a life’s +practice will make anybody a witch. And if there ever was a +witch’s eye, she has it.”</p> +<p>“I would like to have her picture,” said L., “in that +<i>lullo diklo</i> [red handkerchief]. She looked like all the +sorceresses of Thessaly and Egypt in one, and, as Bulwer says of the Witch +of Vesuvius, was all the more terrible for having been +beautiful.”</p> +<p>Some time after this we went, with Britannia Lee <!-- page 235--><a +name="page235"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 235</span>a-gypsying, not +figuratively, but literally, over the river into New Jersey. And our +first greeting, as we touched the ground, was of good omen, and from a +great man, for it was Walt Whitman. It is not often that even a poet +meets with three sincerer admirers than the venerable bard encountered on +this occasion; so, of course, we stopped and talked, and L. had the +pleasure of being the first to communicate to Bon Gualtier certain pleasant +things which had recently been printed of him by a distinguished English +author, which is always an agreeable task. Blessed upon the +mountains, or at the Camden ferryboat, or anywhere, are the feet of anybody +who bringeth glad tidings.</p> +<p>“Well, are you going to see gypsies?”</p> +<p>“We are. We three gypsies be. By the abattoir. +<i>Au revoir</i>.”</p> +<p>And on we went to the place where I had first found gypsies in +America. All was at first so still that it seemed if no one could be +camped in the spot.</p> +<p>“<i>Se kekno adoi</i>.” (There’s nobody +there.)</p> +<p>“<i>Dordi</i>!” cried Britannia, “<i>Dikkava me o tuv +te tan te wardo</i>. [I see a smoke, a tent, a wagon.] I +declare, it is my <i>puro pal</i>, my old friend, W.”</p> +<p>And we drew near the tent and greeted its owner, who was equally +astonished and delighted at seeing such distinguished Romany <i>tāni +rānis</i>, or gypsy young ladies, and brought forth his wife and three +really beautiful children to do the honors. W. was a good specimen of +an American-born gypsy, strong, healthy, clean, and temperate, none the +worse for wear in out-of-dooring, through tropical summers and terrible +winters. Like all American Romanys, he was more <!-- page 236--><a +name="page236"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 236</span>straightforward than +most of his race in Europe. All Romanys are polite, but many of the +European kind are most uncomfortably and unconsciously naïve. +Strange that the most innocent people should be those who most offend +morality. I knew a lady once—Heaven grant that I may never meet +with such another!—who had been perfectly educated in entire purity +of soul. And I never knew any <i>devergondée</i> who could so +shock, shame, and pain decent people as this Agnes did in her sweet +ignorance.</p> +<p>“I shall never forget the first day you came to my camp,” +said W. to Britannia. “Ah, you astonished me then. You +might have knocked me down with a feather. And I didn’t know +what to say. You came in a carriage with two other ladies. And +you jumped out first, and walked up to me, and cried, +‘<i>Sa’shān</i>!’ That stunned me, but I +answered, ‘<i>Sa’shān</i>.’ Then I +didn’t speak Romanes to you, for I didn’t know but what you +kept it a secret from the other two ladies, and I didn’t wish to +betray you. And when you began to talk it as deep as any old Romany I +ever heard, and pronounced it so rich and beautiful, I thought I’d +never heard the like. I thought you must be a witch.”</p> +<p>“<i>Awer me shom chovihani</i>” (but I am a witch), cried +the lady. “<i>Mukka men jā adré o +tan</i>.” (Let us go into the tent.) So we entered, and +sat round the fire, and asked news of all the wanderers of the roads, and +the young ladies, having filled their pockets with sweets, produced them +for the children, and we were as much at home as we had ever been in any +salon; for it was a familiar scene to us all, though it would, perhaps, +have been a strange one to the reader, had <!-- page 237--><a +name="page237"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 237</span>he by chance, walking +that lonely way in the twilight, looked into the tent and asked his way, +and there found two young ladies—<i>bien mises</i>—with their +escort, all very much at their ease, and talking Romany as if they had +never known any other tongue from the cradle.</p> +<p>“What is the charm of all this?” It is that if one has +a soul, and does not live entirely reflected from the little thoughts and +little ways of a thousand other little people, it is well to have at all +times in his heart some strong hold of nature. No matter how much we +may be lost in society, dinners, balls, business, we should never forget +that there is an eternal sky with stars over it all, a vast, mysterious +earth with terrible secrets beneath us, seas, mountains, rivers, and +forests away and around; and that it is from these and what is theirs, and +not from gas-lit, stifling follies, that all strength and true beauty must +come. To this life, odd as he is, the gypsy belongs, and to be +sometimes at home with him by wood and wold takes us for a time from +“the world.” If I express myself vaguely and imperfectly, +it is only to those who know not the charm of nature, its ineffable +soothing sympathy,—its life, its love. Gypsies, like children, +feel this enchantment as the older grown do not. To them it is a song +without words; would they be happier if the world brought them to know it +as words without song, without music or melody? I never read a right +old English ballad of sumere when the leaves are grene or the not-broune +maid, with its rustling as of sprays quivering to the song of the +wode-wale, without thinking or feeling deeply how those who wrote them +would have been bound to the Romany. It is ridiculous to say that +gypsies are not “educated” <!-- page 238--><a +name="page238"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 238</span>to nature and art, +when, in fact, they live it. I sometimes suspect that æsthetic +culture takes more true love of nature out of the soul than it +inspires. One would not say anything of a wild bird or deer being +deficient in a sense of that beauty of which it is a part. There are +infinite grades, kinds, or varieties of feeling of nature, and every man is +perfectly satisfied that his is the true one. For my own part, I am +not sure that a rabbit, in the dewy grass, does not feel the beauty of +nature quite as much as Mr. Ruskin, and much more than I do.</p> +<p>No poet has so far set forth the charm of gypsy life better than Lenau +has done, in his highly-colored, quickly-expressive ballad of “Die +drei Zigeuner,” of which I here give a translation into English and +another into Anglo-American Romany.</p> +<blockquote> +<p>THE THREE GYPSIES.</p> +<p>I saw three gypsy men, one day,<br /> + Camped in a field together,<br /> +As my wagon went its weary way,<br /> + All over the sand and heather.</p> +<p>And one of the three whom I saw there<br /> + Had his fiddle just before him,<br /> +And played for himself a stormy air,<br /> + While the evening-red shone o’er him.</p> +<p>And the second puffed his pipe again<br /> + Serenely and undaunted,<br /> +As if he at least of earthly men<br /> + Had all the luck that he wanted.</p> +<p>In sleep and comfort the last was laid,<br /> + In a tree his cymbal <a name="citation238"></a><a +href="#footnote238" class="citation">[238]</a> lying,<br /> +Over its strings the breezes played,<br /> + O’er his heart a dream went flying.</p> +<p><!-- page 239--><a name="page239"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +239</span>Ragged enough were all the three,<br /> + Their garments in holes and tatters;<br /> +But they seemed to defy right sturdily<br /> + The world and all worldly matters.</p> +<p>Thrice to the soul they seemed to say,<br /> + When earthly trouble tries it,<br /> +How to fiddle, sleep it, and smoke it away,<br /> + And so in three ways despise it.</p> +<p>And ever anon I look around,<br /> + As my wagon onward presses,<br /> +At the gypsy faces darkly browned,<br /> + And the long black flying tresses.</p> +<p>TRIN ROMANI CHALIA.</p> +<p>Dikdom me trin geeria<br /> + Sār yeckno a tacho Rom,<br /> +Sā miro wardo ghias adūr<br /> + Apré a wafedo drom.</p> +<p>O yeckto sos boshengero,<br /> + Yuv kellde pes-kokero,<br /> +O kamlo-dūd te perelé<br /> + Sos lullo apré lo.</p> +<p>O duito sār a swägele<br /> + Dikde ’pré lestes tūv,<br /> +Ne kamde kūmi, penava me<br /> + ’Dré sār o midúvels pūv.</p> +<p>O trinto sovadé kushto-bāk<br /> + Lest ’zimbel adré rukk se,<br /> +O bavol kelld’ pré i tavia,<br /> + O sutto ’pré leskro zī.</p> +<p>Te sār i lengheri rūdaben<br /> + Shan katterdi-chingerdo<br /> +Awer me penav’ i Romani chals<br /> + Ne kesserden chi pā lo.</p> +<p><!-- page 240--><a name="page240"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +240</span>Trin dromia lende sikkerden kan<br /> + Sār dikela wafedo,<br /> +Ta bosher, tuver te sove-a-lé<br /> + Ajā sā bachtalo.</p> +<p>Dikdom palal, sā ghiom adūr<br /> + Talla yeckno Romani chal<br /> +’Pré lengheri kāli-brauni mūi,<br /> + Te lengheri kāli bal.</p> +</blockquote> +<h3><!-- page 241--><a name="page241"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +241</span>II. THE CROCUS-PITCHER. <a name="citation241"></a><a +href="#footnote241" class="citation">[241]</a> (PHILADELPHIA.)</h3> +<p>It was a fine spring noon, and the corner of Fourth and Library streets +in Philadelphia was like a rock in the turn of a rapid river, so great was +the crowd of busy business men which flowed past. Just out of the +current a man paused, put down a parcel which he carried, turned it into a +table, placed on it several vials, produced a bundle of hand-bills, and +began, in the language of his tribe, to <i>cant</i>—that is, +<i>cantare</i>, to sing—the virtues of a medicine which was certainly +<i>patent</i> in being spread out by him to extremest thinness. In an +instant there were a hundred people round him. He seemed to be well +known and waited for. I saw at a glance what he was. The dark +eye and brown face indicated a touch of the <i>diddikai</i>, or one with a +little gypsy blood in his veins, while his fluent patter and unabashed +boldness showed a long familiarity with race-grounds and the road, or with +the Cheap-Jack and Dutch auction business, and other pursuits requiring +unlimited eloquence and impudence. How many a man of learning, nay of +genius, might have paused and envied that vagabond the gifts which were +worth so little to their possessor! But what was remarkable about him +was that instead of endeavoring to conceal any gypsy <!-- page 242--><a +name="page242"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 242</span>indications, they +were manifestly exaggerated. He wore a broad-brimmed hat and +ear-rings and a red embroidered waistcoat of the most forcible old Romany +pattern, which was soon explained by his words.</p> +<p>“Sorry to keep you waiting,” he said. “I am +always sorry to detain a select and genteel audience. But I was +detained myself by a very interesting incident. I was invited to +lunch with a wealthy German gentleman; a very wealthy German, I say, one of +the pillars of your city and front door-step of your council, and who would +be the steeple of your exchange, if it had one. And on arriving at +his house he remarked, ‘Toctor, by tam you koom yust in goot dime, +for mine frau und die cook ish bote fall sick mit some-ding in a hoory, und +I kess she’ll die pooty quick-sudden.’ Unfortunately I +had with me, gentlemen, but a single dose of my world-famous Gypsy’s +Elixir and Romany Pharmacopheionepenthé. (That is the name, +gentlemen, but as I detest quackery I term it simply the Gypsy’s +Elixir.) When the German gentleman learned that in all probability +but one life could be saved he said, ‘Veil, denn, doctor, subbose you +gifes dat dose to de cook. For mine frau ish so goot dat it’s +all right mit her. She’s reaty to tie. But de boor gook +ish a sinner, ash I knows, und not reaty for de next world. And dere +ish no vomans in town dat can gook mine sauer-kraut ash she +do.’ Fortunately, gentlemen, I found in an unknown corner of a +forgotten pocket an unsuspected bottle of the Gypsy’s Elixir, and +both interesting lives were saved with such promptitude, punctuality, +neatness and dispatch that the cook proceeded immediately to conclude the +preparation of our meal—(thank you sir,—one dollar, if you +please, sir. You say I only <!-- page 243--><a +name="page243"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 243</span>charged half a dollar +yesterday! That was for a smaller bottle, sir. Same size, as +this, was it? Ah, yes, I gave you a large bottle by mistake,—so +you owe me fifty cents. Never mind, don’t give it back. +I’ll take the half dollar.”)</p> +<p>All of this had been spoken with the utmost volubility. As I +listened I almost fancied myself again in England, and at a country +fair. Taking in his audience at a glance, I saw his eye rest on me +ere it flitted, and he resumed,—</p> +<p>“We gypsies are, as you know, a remarkable race, and possessed of +certain rare secrets, which have all been formulated, concentrated, +dictated, and plenipotentiarated into this idealized Elixir. If I +were a mountebank or a charlatan I would claim that it cures a hundred +diseases. Charlatan is a French word for a quack. I speak +French, gentlemen; I speak nine languages, and can tell you the Hebrew for +an old umbrella. The Gypsy’s Elixir cures colds, gout, all +nervous affections, with such cutaneous disorders as are diseases of the +skin, debility, sterility, hostility, and all the illities that flesh is +heir to except what it can’t, such as small-pox and cholera. It +has cured cholera, but it don’t claim to do it. Others claim to +cure, but can’t. I am not a charlatan, but an Ann-Eliza. +That is the difference between me and a lady, as the pig said when he +astonished his missus by blushing at her remarks to the postman. +(<i>Better have another bottle</i>, <i>sir</i>. <i>Haven’t you +the change</i>? <i>Never mind</i>, <i>you can owe me fifty +cents</i>. <i>I know a gentleman when I see one</i>.) I was +recently Down East in Maine, where they are so patriotic, they all put the +stars and stripes into their beds for sheets, have the Fourth of July three +hundred and sixty-five times in <!-- page 244--><a name="page244"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 244</span>the year, and eat the Declaration of +Independence for breakfast. And they wouldn’t buy a bottle of +my Gypsy’s Elixir till they heard it was good for the Constitution, +whereupon they immediately purchased my entire stock. Don’t +lose time in securing this invaluable blessing to those who feel occasional +pains in the lungs. This is not taradiddle. I am engaged to +lecture this afternoon before the Medical Association of Germantown, as on +Wednesday before the University of Baltimore; for though I sell medicine +here in the streets, it is only, upon my word of honor, that the poor may +benefit, and the lowly as well as the learned know how to prize the +philanthropic and eccentric gypsy.”</p> +<p>He run on with his patter for some time in this vein, and sold several +vials of his panacea, and then in due time ceased, and went into a +bar-room, which I also entered. I found him in what looked like +prospective trouble, for a policeman was insisting on purchasing his +medicine, and on having one of his hand-bills. He was remonstrating, +when I quietly said to him in Romany, “Don’t trouble yourself; +you were not making any disturbance.” He took no apparent +notice of what I said beyond an almost imperceptible wink, but soon left +the room, and when I had followed him into the street, and we were out of +ear-shot, he suddenly turned on me and said,—</p> +<p>“Well, you <i>are</i> a swell, for a Romany. How do you do +it up to such a high peg?”</p> +<p>“Do what?”</p> +<p>“Do the whole lay,—look so gorgeous?”</p> +<p>“Why, I’m no better dressed than you are,—not so well, +if you come to that <i>vongree</i>” (waistcoat).</p> +<p>“’T isn’t <i>that</i>,—’t isn’t the +clothes. It’s the air <!-- page 245--><a +name="page245"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 245</span>and the style. +Anybody’d believe you’d had no end of an education. I +could make ten dollars a patter if I could do it as natural as you +do. Perhaps you’d like to come in on halves with me as a +bonnet. <i>No</i>? Well, I suppose you have a better +line. You’ve been lucky. I tell you, you astonished me +when you <i>rakkered</i>, though I spotted you in the crowd for one who was +off the color of the common Gorgios,—or, as the Yahudi say, the +<i>Goyim</i>. No, I carn’t <i>rakker</i>, or none to speak of, +and noways as deep as you, though I was born in a tent on Battersea Common +and grew up a fly fakir. What’s the drab made of that I sell in +these bottles? Why, the old fake, of course,—you needn’t +say <i>you</i> don’t know that. <i>Italic good +English</i>. Yes, I know I do. A fakir is bothered out of his +life and chaffed out of half his business when he drops his +<i>h</i>’s. A man can do anything when he must, and I must talk +fluently and correctly to succeed in such a business. <i>Would I like +a drop of something</i>? You paid for the last, now you must take a +drop with me. <i>Do I know of any Romany’s in town</i>? +Lots of them. There is a ken in Lombard Street with a regular fly +mort,—but on second thoughts we won’t go +there,—<i>and</i>—oh, I say—a very nice place in --- +Street. The landlord is a Yahud; his wife can <i>rakker</i> you, +I’m sure. <i>She’s</i> a good lot, too.”</p> +<p>And while on the way I will explain that my acquaintance was not to be +regarded as a real gypsy. He was one of that large nomadic class with +a tinge of gypsy blood who have grown up as waifs and strays, and who, +having some innate cleverness, do the best they can to live without +breaking the law—much. They deserve pity, for they have never +been cared for; they owe nothing to society for kindness, and <!-- page +246--><a name="page246"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 246</span>yet they are +held even more strictly to account by the law than if they had been +regularly Sunday-schooled from babyhood. This man when he spoke of +Romanys did not mean real gypsies; he used the word as it occurs in +Ainsworth’s song of</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“Nix my dolly, pals fake away.<br /> +And here I am both tight and free,<br /> +A regular rollicking Romany.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>For he meant <i>Bohemian</i> in its widest and wildest sense, and to him +all that was apart from the world was <i>his</i> world, whether it was Rom +or Yahudi, and whether it conversed in Romany or Schmussen, or any other +tongue unknown to the Gentiles. He had indeed no home, and had never +known one.</p> +<p>It was not difficult to perceive that the place to which he led me was +devoted in the off hours to some other business besides the selling of +liquor. It was neat and quiet, in fact rather sleepy; but its card, +which was handed to me, stated in a large capital head-line that it was +OPEN ALL NIGHT, and that there was pool at all hours. I conjectured +that a little game might also be performed there at all hours, and that, +like the fountain of Jupiter Ammon, it became livelier as it grew later, +and that it certainly would not be on the full boil before midnight.</p> +<p>“<i>Scheiker fur mich</i>, <i>der Isch will jain soreff +shaskenen</i>” (Beer for me and brandy for him), I said to the +landlord, who at once shook my hand and saluted me with +<i>Sholem</i>! Even so did Ben Daoud of Jerusalem, not long +ago. Ben knew me not, and I was buying a pocket-book of him at his +open-air stand in Market Street, and talking German, while he was +endeavoring to convince me that I ought to give five cents more for it than +I had given for a similar case the <!-- page 247--><a +name="page247"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 247</span>day before, on the +ground that it was of a different color, or under color that the leather +had a different ground, I forget which. In talking I let fall the +word <i>kesef</i> (silver). In an instant Ben had taken my hand, and +said <i>Sholem aleichum</i>, and “Can you talk +Spanish?”—which was to show that he was superfine Sephardi, and +not common Ashkenaz.</p> +<p>“Yes,” resumed the crocus-fakir; “a man must be able +to talk English very fluently, pronounce it correctly, and, above all +things, keep his temper, if he would do anything that requires chanting or +pattering. <i>How did I learn it</i>? A man can learn to do +anything when it’s business and his living depends on it. The +people who crowd around me in the streets cannot pronounce English +decently; not one in a thousand here can say <i>laugh</i>, except as a +sheep says it. Suppose that you are a Cheap Jack selling things from +a van. About once in an hour some tipsy fellow tries to chaff +you. He hears your tongue going, and that sets his off. He +hears the people laugh at your jokes, and he wants them to laugh at +his. When you say you’re selling to raise money for a +burned-out widow, he asks if she isn’t your wife. Then you +answer him, ‘No, but the kind-hearted old woman who found you on the +door-step and brought you up to the begging business.’ If you +say you are selling goods under cost, it’s very likely some yokel +will cry out, ‘Stolen, hey?’ And you patter as quick as +lightning, ‘Very likely; I thought your wife sold ’em to me too +cheap for the good of somebody’s clothes-line.’ If you +show yourself his superior in language awd wit, the people will buy better; +they always prefer a gentleman to a cad. Bless me! why, a swell in a +dress-coat and kid gloves, with good patter and hatter, can <!-- page +248--><a name="page248"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 248</span>sell a +hundred rat-traps while a dusty cad in a flash kingsman would sell +one. As for the replies, most of them are old ones. As the men +who interrupt you are nearly all of the same kind, and have heads of very +much the same make, with an equal number of corners, it follows that they +all say nearly the same things. Why, I’ve heard two duffers cry +out the same thing at once to me. So you soon have answers cut and +dried for them. We call ’em <i>cocks</i>, because they’re +just like half-penny ballads, all ready printed, while the pitcher always +has the one you want ready at his finger-ends. It is the same in all +canting. I knew a man once who got his living by singing of evenings +in the gaffs to the piano, and making up verses on the gentlemen and ladies +as they came in; and very nice verses he made, too,—always as smooth +as butter. <i>How do you do it</i>? I asked him one day. +‘Well, you wouldn’t believe it,’ said he; ‘but +they’re mostly cocks. The best ones I buy for a tanner +[sixpence] apiece. If a tall gentleman with a big beard comes in, I +strike a deep chord and sing,—</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“‘This tall and handsome party,<br /> + With such a lot of hair,<br /> +Who seems so grand and hearty,<br /> + Must be a <i>militaire</i>;<br /> +We like to see a swell come<br /> + Who looks so <i>distingué</i>,<br /> +So let us bid him welcome,<br /> + And hope he’ll find us gay.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>“The last half can be used for anybody. That’s the way +the improvisatory business is managed for visitors. Why, it’s +the same with fortune-telling. <i>You have noticed that</i>. +Well, if the Gorgios had, it would have been all up with the fake long +ago. The old woman has the same sort of girls come to her <!-- page +249--><a name="page249"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 249</span>with the +same old stories, over and over again, and she has a hundred dodges and +gets a hundred straight tips where nobody else would see anything; and of +course she has the same replies all ready. There is nothing like +being glib. And there’s really a great deal of the same in the +regular doctor business, as I know, coming close on to it and calling +myself one. Why, I’ve been called into a regular consultation +in Chicago, where I had an office,—’pon my honor I was, and no +great honor neither. It was all patter, and I pattered ’em +dumb.”</p> +<p>I began to think that the fakir could talk forever and ever +faster. If he excelled in his business, he evidently practiced at all +times to do so. I intimated as much, and he at once proceeded +fluently to illustrate this point also.</p> +<p>“You hear men say every day that if they only had an education +they would do great things. What it would all come to with most of +them is that they would <i>talk</i> so as to shut other men up and astonish +’em. They have not an idea above that. I never had any +schooling but the roads and race-grounds, but I can talk the hat off a +lawyer, and that’s all I can do. Any man of them could talk +well if he tried; but none of them will try, and as they go through life, +telling you how clever they’d have been if somebody else had only +done something for them, instead of doing something for themselves. +So you must be going. Well, I hope I shall see you again. Just +come up when you’re going by and say that your wife was raised from +the dead by my Elixir, and that it’s the best medicine you ever +had. And if you want to see some regular tent gypsies, there’s +a camp of them now just four miles from here; real old style <!-- page +250--><a name="page250"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +250</span>Romanys. Go out on the road four miles, and you’ll +find them just off the side,—anybody will show you the place. +<i>Sarishan</i>!”</p> +<p>I was sorry to read in the newspaper, a few days after, that the fakir +had been really arrested and imprisoned for selling a quack medicine. +For in this land of liberty it makes an enormous difference whether you +sell by advertisement in the newspapers or on the sidewalk, which shows +that there is one law for the rich and another for the poor, even in a +republic.</p> +<h3><!-- page 251--><a name="page251"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +251</span>III. GYPSIES IN CAMP. (NEW JERSEY.)</h3> +<p>The Weather had put on his very worst clothes, and was never so hard at +work for the agricultural interests, or so little inclined to see visitors, +as on the Sunday afternoon when I started gypsying. The rain and the +wind were fighting one with another, and both with the mud, even as the +Jews in Jerusalem fought with themselves, and both with the +Romans,—which was the time when the <i>Shaket</i>, or butcher, killed +the ox who drank the water which quenched the fire which the reader has +often heard all about, yet not knowing, perhaps, that the house which Jack +built was the Holy Temple of Jerusalem. It was with such reflections +that I beguiled time on a long walk, for which I was not unfitly equipped +in corduroy trousers, with a long Ulster and a most disreputable cap +befitting a stable-boy. The rig, however, kept out the wet, and I was +too recently from England to care much that it was raining. I had +seen the sun on color about thirty times altogether during the past year, +and so had not as yet learned to miss him. It is on record that when +the Shah was in England a lady said to him, “Can it be possible, your +highness, that there are in your dominions people who worship the +sun?” “Yes,” replied the monarch, musingly; +“and so would you, if you could only see him.”</p> +<p><!-- page 252--><a name="page252"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +252</span>The houses became fewer as I went on, till at last I reached the +place near which I knew the gypsies must be camped. As is their +custom in England, they had so established themselves as not to be seen +from the road. The instinct which they display in thus getting near +people, and yet keeping out of their sight, even as rats do, is +remarkable. I thought I knew the town of Brighton, in England, +thoroughly, and had explored all its nooks, and wondered that I had never +found any gypsies there. One day I went out with a Romany +acquaintance, who, in a short time, took me to half a dozen tenting-places, +round corners in mysterious by-ways. It often happens that the spots +which they select to <i>hatch the tan</i>, or pitch the tent, are +picturesque bits, such as artists love, and all gypsies are fully +appreciative of beauty in this respect. It is not a week, as I write, +since I heard an old horse-dealing veteran of the roads apologize to me +with real feeling for the want of a view near his tent, just as any other +man might have excused the absence of pictures from his walls. The +most beautiful spot for miles around Williamsport, in Pennsylvania, a river +dell, which any artist would give a day to visit, is the favorite +camping-ground of the Romany. Woods and water, rocks and loneliness, +make it lovely by day, and when, at eventide, the fire of the wanderers +lights up the scene, it also lights up in the soul many a memory of tents +in the wilderness, of pictures in the Louvre, of Arabs and of Wouvermanns +and belated walks by the Thames, and of Salvator Rosa. Ask me why I +haunt gypsydom. It has put me into a thousand sympathies with nature +and art, which I had never known without it. The Romany, like the red +Indian, and all who dwell <!-- page 253--><a name="page253"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 253</span>by wood and wold as outlawes wont to do, are +the best human links to bind us to their home-scenery, and lead us into its +inner life. What constitutes the antithetic charm of those wonderful +lines,</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“Afar in the desert, I love to ride,<br /> +With the silent bush-boy alone by my side,”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>but the presence of the savage who belongs to the scene, and whose +<i>being</i> binds the poet to it, and blends him with it as the flux +causes the fire to melt the gold?</p> +<p>I left the road, turned the corner, and saw before me the low, round +tents, with smoke rising from the tops, dark at first and spreading into +light gray, like scalp-locks and feathers upon Indian heads. Near +them were the gayly-painted vans, in which I at once observed a difference +from the more substantial-looking old-country <i>vardo</i>. The whole +scene was so English that I felt a flutter at the heart: it was a bit from +over the sea; it seemed as if hedge-rows should have been round, and an old +Gothic steeple looking over the trees. I thought of the last gypsy +camp I had seen near Henley-on-Thames, and wished Plato Buckland were with +me to share the fun which one was always sure to have on such an occasion +in his eccentric company. But now Plato was, like his father in the +song,</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“<i>Duro pardel the boro panī</i>,”<br /> +Far away over the broad-rolling sea,</p> +</blockquote> +<p>and I must introduce myself. There was not a sign of life about, +save in a sorrowful hen, who looked as if she felt bitterly what it was to +be a Pariah among poultry and a down-pin, and who cluttered as if she might +have had a history of being borne from her bower in the dark midnight by +desperate African <!-- page 254--><a name="page254"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 254</span>reivers, of a wild moonlit flitting and +crossing black roaring torrents, drawn all the while by the neck, as a +Turcoman pulls a Persian prisoner on an “alaman,” with a rope, +into captivity, and finally of being sold unto the Egyptians. I drew +near a tent: all was silent, as it always is in a <i>tan</i> when the +foot-fall of the stranger is heard; but I knew that it was packed with +inhabitants.</p> +<p>I called in Romany my greeting, and bade somebody come out. And +there appeared a powerfully built, dark-browed, good-looking man of thirty, +who was as gypsy as Plato himself. He greeted me very civilly, but +with some surprise, and asked me what he could do for me.</p> +<p>“Ask me in out of the rain, pal,” I replied. +“You don’t suppose I’ve come four miles to see you and +stop out here, do you?”</p> +<p>This was, indeed, reasonable, and I was invited to enter, which I did, +and found myself in a scene which would have charmed Callot or Goya. +There was no door or window to the black tent; what light there was came +through a few rifts and rents and mingled with the dull gleam of a +smoldering fire, producing a perfect Rembrandt blending of rosy-red with +dreamy half-darkness. It was a real witch-aura, and the denizens were +worthy of it. As my eyes gradually grew to the gloom, I saw that on +one side four brown old Romany sorceresses were “<i>beshing +apré ye pus</i>” (sitting on the straw), as the song has it, +with deeper masses of darkness behind them, in which other forms were +barely visible. Their black eyes all flashed up together at me, like +those of a row of eagles in a cage; and I saw in a second that, with men +and all I was in a party who were anything but milksops; <!-- page 255--><a +name="page255"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 255</span>in fact, with as +regularly determined a lot of hard old Romanys as ever battered a +policeman. I confess that a feeling like a thrill of joy came over +me—a memory of old days and by-gone scenes over the sea—when I +saw this, and knew they were not <i>diddikais</i>, or half-breed +mumpers. On the other side, several young people, among them three or +four good-looking girls, were eating their four-o’clock meal from a +canvas spread on the ground. There were perhaps twenty persons in the +place, including the children who swarmed about.</p> +<p>Even in a gypsy tent something depends on the style of a +self-introduction by a perfect stranger. Stepping forward, I divested +myself of my Ulster, and handed it to a nice damsel, giving her special +injunction to fold it up and lay it by. My <i>mise en +scène</i> appeared to meet with approbation, and I stood forth and +remarked,—</p> +<p>“Here I am, glad to see you; and if you want to see a regular +<i>Romany rye</i> [gypsy gentleman], just over from England, now’s +your chance. <i>Sarishan</i>!”</p> +<p>And I received, as I expected, a cordial welcome. I was invited to +sit down and eat, but excused myself as having just come from +<i>hābben</i>, or food, and settled myself to a cigar. But while +everybody was polite, I felt that under it all there was a reserve, a +chill. I was altogether too heavy a mystery. I knew my friends, +and they did not know me. Something, however, now took place which +went far to promote conviviality. The tent-flap was lifted, and there +entered an elderly woman, who, as a gypsy, might have been the other four +in one, she was so quadruply dark, so fourfold uncanny, so too-too +witch-like in her eyes. The others had so far been reserved as to +speaking <!-- page 256--><a name="page256"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +256</span>Romany; she, glancing at me keenly, began at once to talk it very +fluently, without a word of English, with the intention of testing me; but +as I understood her perfectly, and replied with a burning gush of the same +language, being, indeed, glad to have at last “got into my +plate,” we were friends in a minute. I did not know then that I +was talking with a celebrity whose name has even been groomily recorded in +an English book; but I found at once that she was truly “a +character.” She had manifestly been sent for to test the +stranger, and I knew this, and made myself agreeable, and was evidently +found <i>tacho</i>, or all right. It being a rule, in fact, with few +exceptions, that when you really like people, in a friendly way, and are +glad to be among them, they never fail to find it out, and the jury always +comes to a favorable verdict.</p> +<p>And so we sat and talked on in the monotone in which Romany is generally +spoken, like an Indian song, while, like an Indian drum, the rain pattered +an accompaniment on the tightly drawn tent. Those who live in cities, +and who are always realizing self, and thinking how they think, and are +while awake given up to introverting vanity, never <i>live</i> in +song. To do this one must be a child, an Indian, a dweller in fields +and green forests, a brother of the rain and road-puddles and rolling +streams, and a friend of the rustling leaves and the summer orchestra of +frogs and crickets and rippling grass. Those who hear this music and +think to it never think about it; those who live only in books never sing +to it in soul. As there are dreams which <i>will not</i> be +remembered or known to <i>reason</i>, so this music shrinks from it. +It is wonderful how beauty perishes like a shade-grown <!-- page 257--><a +name="page257"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 257</span>flower before the +sunlight of analysis. It is dying out all the world over in women, +under the influence of cleverness and “style;” it is perishing +in poetry and art before criticism; it is wearing away from manliness, +through priggishness; it is being crushed out of true gentleness of heart +and nobility of soul by the pessimist puppyism of miching Mallockos. +But nature is eternal and will return. When man has run one of his +phases of culture fairly to the end, and when the fruit is followed by a +rattling rococo husk, then comes a winter sleep, from which he awakens to +grow again as a child-flower. We are at the very worst of such a +time; but there is a morning redness far away, which shows that the +darkness is ending, the winter past, the rain is over and gone. +Arise, and come away!</p> +<p>“Sossi kair’d tute to av’akai pardel o boro +pāni?” (And what made you come here across the broad +water?) said the good old dame confidentially and kindly, in the same low +monotone. “Si lesti chorin a gry?” (Was it stealing +a horse?)</p> +<p><i>Dum</i>, <i>dum</i>, <i>dum</i>, <i>patter</i>, <i>patter</i>, +<i>dum</i>! played the rain.</p> +<p>“Avali I dikked your romus kaliko” (I saw your husband +yesterday), remarked some one aside to a girl.</p> +<p><i>Dum</i>, <i>dum</i>, <i>dum</i>, <i>patter</i>, <i>patter</i>, +<i>dum</i>!</p> +<p>“No, mother deari, it was not a horse, for I am on a better, +higher lay.”</p> +<p><i>Dum</i>, <i>dum</i>, <i>dum</i>, <i>patter</i>, <i>patter</i>, +<i>dum</i>!</p> +<p>“He is a first-rate dog, but mine’s as good.”</p> +<p><i>Dum</i>, <i>dum</i>, <i>dum</i>, <i>patter</i>, <i>dum</i>!</p> +<p>“Tacho! There’s money to be made by a gentleman like +you by telling fortunes.”</p> +<p><!-- page 258--><a name="page258"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +258</span><i>Dum</i>, <i>dum</i>, <i>dum</i>, <i>patter</i>, +<i>dum</i>!</p> +<p>“Yes, a five-hundred-dollar hit sometimes. But <i>dye</i>, I +work upon a better lay.”</p> +<p><i>Dum</i>, <i>dum</i>, <i>dum</i>, <i>patter</i>, <i>dum</i>!</p> +<p>“Perhaps you are <i>a boro drabengro</i>” (a great +physician).</p> +<p><i>Dum</i>, <i>dum</i>, <i>dum</i>, <i>patter</i>, <i>dum</i>!</p> +<p>“It was away among the rocks that he fell into the reeds, half in +the water, and kept still till they went by.”</p> +<p>“If any one is ill among you, I may be of use.”</p> +<p><i>Dum</i>, <i>dum</i>, <i>dum</i>, <i>patter</i>, <i>dum</i>!</p> +<p>“And what a wind! It blows as if the good Lord were +singing! Kushti chirus se atch a-kerri.” (This is a +pleasant day to be at home.)</p> +<p><i>Dum</i>, <i>dum</i>, <i>dum</i>, <i>patter</i>, <i>dum</i>!</p> +<p>“I thought you were a doctor, for you were going about in the town +with the one who sells medicine. I heard of it.”</p> +<p><i>Dum</i>, <i>dum</i>, <i>dum</i>, <i>patter</i>, <i>dum</i>!</p> +<p>“Do not hurry away! Come again and see us. I think the +Coopers are all out in Ohio.”</p> +<p><i>Dum</i>, <i>dum</i>, <i>dum</i>, <i>patter</i>, <i>dum</i>!</p> +<p>The cold wind and slight rain seemed refreshing and even welcome, as I +went out into the cold air. The captain showed me his stock of +fourteen horses and mules, and we interchanged views as to the best method +of managing certain maladies in such stock. I had been most kindly +entertained; indeed, with the home kindliness which good people in the +country show to some hitherto unseen and unknown relative who descends to +them from the great world of the city. Not but that my friends did +not know cities and men as well as Ulysses, but even Ulysses sometimes <!-- +page 259--><a name="page259"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 259</span>met +with a marvel. In after days I became quite familiar with the several +families who made the camp, and visited them in sunshine. But they +always occur to me in memory as in a deep Rembrandt picture, a wonderful +picture, and their voices as in vocal chiaroscuro; singing to the wind +without and the rain on the tent,—</p> +<p><i>Dum</i>, <i>dum</i>, <i>dum</i>, <i>patter</i>, <i>dum</i>!</p> +<h3><!-- page 260--><a name="page260"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +260</span>IV. HOUSE GYPSIES IN PHILADELPHIA</h3> +<p>This chapter was written by my niece through marriage, Miss Elizabeth +Robins. It is a part of an article which was published in “The +Century,” and it sets forth certain wanderings in seeking old houses +in the city of Philadelphia.</p> +<p>All along the lower part of Race Street, saith the lady, are wholesale +stores and warehouses of every description. Some carts belonging to +one of them had just been unloaded. The stevedores who do +this—all negroes—were resting while they waited for the next +load. They were great powerful men, selected for their strength, and +were of many hues, from <i>café au lait</i>, or coffee much milked, +up to the browned or black-scorched berry itself, while the very +<i>athletæ</i> were coal-black. They wore blue overalls, and on +their heads they had thrown old coffee-bags, which, resting on their +foreheads, passed behind their ears and hung loosely down their +backs. It was in fact the <i>haik</i> or bag-cloak of the East, and +it made a wonderfully effective Arab costume. One of them was half +leaning, half sitting, on a pile of bags; his Herculean arms were folded, +and he had unconsciously assumed an air of dignity and defiance. He +might have passed for an African chief. When we see such men in Egypt +or other sunny countries <i>outre mer</i>, we become artistically eloquent; +but it rarely occurs <!-- page 261--><a name="page261"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 261</span>to sketchers and word-painters to do much +business in the home-market.</p> +<p>The mixture of races in our cities is rapidly increasing, and we hardly +notice it. Yet it is coming to pass that a large part of our +population is German and Irish, and that our streets within ten years have +become fuller of Italian fruit dealers and organ-grinders, so that <i>Cives +sum Romanus</i> (I am a Roman citizen), when abroad, now means either +“I possess a monkey” or “I sell pea-nuts.” +Jews from Jerusalem peddle pocket-books on our sidewalks, Chinamen are +monoplizing our washing and ironing, while among laboring classes are +thousands of Scandinavians, Bohemians, and other Slaves. The prim +provincial element which predominated in my younger years is yielding +before this influx of foreigners, and Quaker monotony and stern +conservatism are vanishing, while Philadelphia becomes year by year more +cosmopolite.</p> +<p>As we left the handsome negroes and continued our walk on Water Street +an Italian passed us. He was indeed very dirty and dilapidated; his +clothes were of the poorest, and he carried a rag-picker’s bag over +his shoulder; but his face, as he turned it towards us, was really +beautiful.</p> +<p>“<i>Siete Italiano</i>?” (Are you an Italian?) asked +my uncle.</p> +<p>“<i>Si</i>, <i>signore</i>” (Yes, sir), he answered, +showing all his white teeth, and opening his big brown eyes very wide.</p> +<p>“<i>E come lei piace questo paese</i>?” (And how do +you like this country?)</p> +<p>“Not at all. It is too cold,” was his frank answer, +and laughing good-humoredly he continued his search through the +gutters. He would have made a good <!-- page 262--><a +name="page262"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 262</span>model for an artist, +for he had what we do not always see in Italians, the real southern beauty +of face and expression. Two or three weeks after this encounter, we +were astonished at meeting on Chestnut Street a little man, decently +dressed, who at once manifested the most extraordinary and extravagant +symptoms of delighted recognition. Never saw I mortal so grin-full, +so bowing. As we went on and crossed the street, and looked back, he +was waving his hat in the air with one hand, while he made gestures of +delight with the other. It was the little Italian rag-picker.</p> +<p>Then along and afar, till we met a woman, decently enough dressed, with +jet-black eyes and hair, and looking not unlike a gypsy. “A +Romany!” I cried with delight. Her red shawl made me think of +gypsies, and when I caught her eye I saw the indescrible flash of the +<i>kālorat</i>, or black blood. It is very curious that Hindus, +Persians, and gypsies have in common an expression of the eye which +distinguishes them from all other Oriental races, and chief in this +expression is the Romany. Captain Newbold, who first investigated the +gypsies of Egypt, declares that, however disguised, he could always detect +them by their glance, which is unlike that of any other human being, though +something resembling it is often seen in the ruder type of the rural +American. I believe myself that there is something in the gypsy eye +which is inexplicable, and which enables its possessor to see farther +through that strange mill-stone, the human soul, than I can explain. +Any one who has ever seen an old fortune-teller of “the people” +keeping some simple-minded maiden by the hand, while she holds her by her +glittering eye, like the Ancient Mariner, with a basilisk stare, will agree +with me. As Scheele de <!-- page 263--><a name="page263"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 263</span>Vere writes, “It must not be forgotten +that the human eye has, beyond question, often a power which far transcends +the ordinary purposes of sight, and approaches the boundaries of +magic.”</p> +<p>But one glance, and my companion whispered, “Answer me in Romany +when I speak, and don’t seem to notice her.” And then, in +loud tone, he remarked, while looking across the street,—</p> +<p>“<i>Adovo’s a kushto puro rinkeno kér +adoi</i>.” (That is a nice old pretty house there.)</p> +<p>“<i>Avali</i>, <i>rya</i>” (Yes, sir), I replied.</p> +<p>There was a perceptible movement by the woman in the red shawl to keep +within ear-shot of us. Mine uncle resumed,—</p> +<p>“<i>Boro kushto covva se ta rakker a jib te kek Gorgio +iinella</i>.” (It’s nice to talk a language that no +Gentile knows.)</p> +<p>The red shawl was on the trail. “<i>Je crois que ça +mord</i>,” remarked my uncle. We allowed our artist guide to +pass on, when, as I expected, I felt a twitch at my outer garment. I +turned, and the witch eyes, distended with awe and amazement, were glaring +into mine, while she said, in a hurried whisper,—</p> +<p>“Wasn’t it Romanes?”</p> +<p>“<i>Avah</i>,” I replied, “<i>mendui rakker sarja +adovo jib</i>. <i>Būtikūmi ryeskro lis se denna +Gorgines</i>.” (Yes, we always talk that language. Much +more genteel it is than English.)</p> +<p>“<i>Te adovo wavero rye</i>?” (And that <i>other</i> +gentleman?) with a glance of suspicion at our artist friend.</p> +<p>“<i>Sar tacho</i>” (He’s all right), remarked mine +uncle, which I greatly fear meant, when correctly translated in a Christian +sense, “He’s all wrong.” But there <!-- page +264--><a name="page264"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 264</span>is a natural +sympathy and intelligence between Bohemians of every grade, all the world +over, and I never knew a gypsy who did not understand an artist. One +glance satisfied her that he was quite worthy of our society.</p> +<p>“And where are you <i>tannin kennā</i>?” (tenting now), +I inquired.</p> +<p>“We are not tenting at this time of year; we’re +<i>kairin</i>,” <i>i.e.</i>, houseing, or home-ing. It is a +good verb, and might be introduced into English.</p> +<p>“And where is your house?”</p> +<p>“There, right by Mammy Sauerkraut’s Row. Come in and +sit down.”</p> +<p>I need not give the Romany which was spoken, but will simply +translate. The house was like all the others. We passed through +a close, dark passage, in which lay canvas and poles, a kettle and a +<i>sarshta</i>, or the iron which is stuck into the ground, and by which a +kettle hangs. The old-fashioned tripod, popularly supposed to be used +by gypsies, in all probability never existed, since the Roms of India +to-day use the <i>sarshta</i>, as mine uncle tells me he learned from a +<i>ci-devant</i> Indian gypsy Dacoit, or wandering thief, who was one of +his intimates in London.</p> +<p>We entered an inner room, and I was at once struck by its general +indescribable unlikeness to ordinary rooms. Architects declare that +the type of the tent is to be distinctly found in all Chinese and Arab or +Turkish architecture; it is also as marked in a gypsy’s +house—when he gets one. This room, which was evidently the +common home of a large family, suggested, in its arrangement of furniture +and the manner in which its occupants sat around the tent and the +wagon. There was a bed, it is true <!-- page 265--><a +name="page265"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 265</span>but there was a roll +of sail-cloth, which evidently did duty for sleeping on at night, but which +now, rolled up, acted the part described by Goldsmith:—</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“A thing contrived a double part to play,<br /> +A bed by night, a sofa during day.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>There was one chair and a saddle, a stove and a chest of drawers. +I observed an engraving hanging up which I have several times seen in gypsy +tents. It represents a very dark Italian youth. It is a +favorite also with Roman Catholics, because the boy has a consecrated +medal. The gypsies, however, believe that the boy stole the +medal. The Catholics think the picture is that of a Roman boy, +because the inscription says so; and the gypsies call it a Romany, so that +all are satisfied. There were some eight or nine children in the +room, and among them more than one whose resemblance to the dark-skinned +saint might have given color enough to the theory that he was</p> +<blockquote> +<p> “One whose blood<br /> +Had rolled through gypsies ever since the flood.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>There was also a girl, of the pantherine type, and one damsel of about +ten, who had light hair and fair complexion, but whose air was gypsy and +whose youthful countenance suggested not the golden, but the brazenest, age +of life. Scarcely was I seated in the only chair, when this little +maiden, after keenly scrutinizing my appearance, and apparently taking in +the situation, came up to me and said,—</p> +<p>“Yer come here to have yer fortune told. I’ll tell it +to yer for five cents.”</p> +<p>“<i>Can tute pen dukkerin aja</i>?” (Can you tell +fortunes already?) I inquired. And if that damsel had been lifted at +that instant by the hair into the infinite <!-- page 266--><a +name="page266"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 266</span>glory of the seventh +sphere, her countenance could not have manifested more amazement. She +stood <i>bouche beante</i>, stock still staring, open-mouthed wide. I +believe one might have put a brandy ball into it, or a “bull’s +eye,” without her jaws closing on the dainty. It was a stare of +twenty-four carats, and fourth proof.</p> +<p>“This here <i>rye</i>” remarked mine uncle, affably, in +middle English, “is a hartist. He puts ’is heart into all +he does; <i>that’s</i> why. He ain’t Romanes, but he may +be trusted. He’s come here, that wot he has, to draw this +’ere Mammy Sauerkraut’s Row, because it’s +interestin’. He ain’t a tax-gatherer. <i>We</i> +don’t approve o’ payin’ taxes, none of hus. We +practices heconomy, and dislike the po-lice. Who was Mammy +Sauerkraut?”</p> +<p>“I know!” cried the youthful would-be fortune-teller. +“She was a witch.”</p> +<p>“<i>Tool yer chib</i>!” (Hold your tongue!) cried the +parent. “Don’t bother the lady with stories about +<i>chovihanis</i>” (witches).</p> +<p>“But that’s just what I want to hear!” I cried. +“Go on, my little dear, about Mammy Sauerkraut, and you will get your +five cents yet, if you only give me enough of it.”</p> +<p>“Well, then, Mammy Sauerkraut was a witch, and a little black girl +who lives next door told me so. And Mammy Sauerkraut used to change +herself into a pig of nights, and that’s why they called her +Sauerkraut. This was because they had pig ketchers going about in +those times, and once they ketched a pig that belonged to her, and to be +revenged on them she used to look like a pig, and they would follow her +clear out of town way up the river, and <!-- page 267--><a +name="page267"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 267</span>she’d run, and +they’d run after her, till by and by fire would begin to fly out of +her bristles, and she jumped into the river and sizzed.”</p> +<p>This I thought worthy of the five cents. Then my uncle began to +put questions in Romany.</p> +<p>“Where is Anselo W.? He that was <i>staruben</i> for a +<i>gry</i>?” (imprisoned for a horse).</p> +<p>“<i>Staruben apopli</i>.” (Imprisoned again.)</p> +<p>“I am sorry for it, sister Nell. He used to play the fiddle +well. I wot he was a canty chiel’, and dearly lo’ed the +whusky, oh!”</p> +<p>“Yes, he was too fond of that. How well he could +play!”</p> +<p>“Yes,” said my uncle, “he could. And I have sung +to his fiddling when the <i>tatto-pāni</i> [hot water, <i>i.e.</i>, +spirits] boiled within us, and made us gay, oh, my golden sister! +That’s the way we Hungarian gypsy gentlemen always call the ladies of +our people. I sang in Romany.”</p> +<p>“I’d like to hear you sing now,” remarked a dark, +handsome young man, who had just made a mysterious appearance out of the +surrounding shadows.</p> +<p>“It’s a <i>kamaben gilli</i>” (a love-song), said the +<i>rye</i>; “and it is beautiful, deep old Romanes,—enough to +make you cry.”</p> +<p>There was the long sound of a violin, clear as the note of a horn. +I had not observed that the dark young man had found one to his hand, and, +as he accompanied, my uncle sang; and I give the lyric as he afterwards +gave it to me, both in Romany and English. As he frankly admitted, it +was his own composition.</p> +<blockquote> +<p><!-- page 268--><a name="page268"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +268</span>KE TEINALI.</p> +<p>Tu shan miri pireni<br /> + Me kamāva tute,<br /> +Kamlidiri, rinkeni,<br /> + Kāmes mande buti?</p> +<p>Sa o miro kūshto gry<br /> + Taders miri wardi,—<br /> +Sa o boro būno rye<br /> + Rikkers lesto stardi.</p> +<p>Sa o bokro dré o char<br /> + Hawala adovo,—<br /> +Sa i choramengeri<br /> + Lels o ryas luvoo,—</p> +<p>Sa o sasto levinor<br /> + Kairs amandy mātto,—<br /> +Sa o yag adré o tan<br /> + Kairs o geero tātto,—</p> +<p>Sa i pūri Romni chai<br /> + Pens o kushto dukkrin,—<br /> +Sa i Gorgi dinneli,<br /> + Patsers lākis pukkrin,—</p> +<p>Tute taders tiro rom,<br /> + Sims o gry, o wardi,<br /> +Tute chores o zī adrom<br /> + Rikkers sā i stardi.</p> +<p>Tute haws te chores m’ri all,<br /> + Tutes dukkered būti<br /> +Tu shan miro jivaben<br /> + Me t’vel paller tute.</p> +<p>Paller tute sarasa<br /> + Pardel pūv te pāni,<br /> +Trinali—o krallisa!<br /> + Miri chovihāni!</p> +<p><!-- page 269--><a name="page269"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +269</span>TO TRINALI.</p> +<p>Now thou art my darling girl,<br /> + And I love thee dearly;<br /> +Oh, beloved and my fair,<br /> + Lov’st thou me sincerely?</p> +<p>As my good old trusty horse<br /> + Draws his load or bears it;<br /> +As a gallant cavalier<br /> + Cocks his hat and wears it;</p> +<p>As a sheep devours the grass<br /> + When the day is sunny;<br /> +As a thief who has the chance<br /> + Takes away our money;</p> +<p>As strong ale when taken down<br /> + Makes the strongest tipsy;<br /> +As a fire within a tent<br /> + Warms a shivering gypsy;</p> +<p>As a gypsy grandmother<br /> + Tells a fortune neatly;<br /> +As the Gentile trusts in her,<br /> + And is done completely,—</p> +<p>So you draw me here and there,<br /> + Where you like you take me;<br /> +Or you sport me like a hat,—<br /> + What you will you make me.</p> +<p>So you steal and gnaw my heart<br /> + For to that I’m fated!<br /> +And by you, my gypsy Kate,<br /> + I’m intoxicated.</p> +<p>And I own you are a witch,<br /> + I am beaten hollow;<br /> +Where thou goest in this world<br /> + I am bound to follow,—</p> +<p>Follow thee, where’er it be,<br /> + Over land and water,<br /> +<!-- page 270--><a name="page270"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +270</span>Trinali, my gypsy queen!<br /> + Witch and witch’s daughter!</p> +</blockquote> +<p>“Well, that <i>is</i> deep Romanes,” said the woman, +admiringly. “It’s beautiful.”</p> +<p>“<i>I</i> should think it was,” remarked the +violinist. “Why, I didn’t understand more than one half +of it. But what I caught I understood.” Which, I +reflected, as he uttered it, is perhaps exactly the case with far more than +half the readers of all poetry. They run on in a semi-sensuous mental +condition, soothed by cadence and lulled by rhyme, reading as they run for +want of thought. Are there not poets of the present day who mean that +you shall read them thus, and who cast their gold ornaments hollow, as +jewelers do, lest they should be too heavy?</p> +<p>“My children,” said Meister Karl, “I could go on all +day with Romany songs; and I can count up to a hundred in the black +language. I know three words for a mouse, three for a monkey, and +three for the shadow which falleth at noonday. And I know how to +<i>pen dukkerin</i>, <i>lel dūdikabin te chiv o manzin apré +latti</i>.” <a name="citation270"></a><a href="#footnote270" +class="citation">[270]</a></p> +<p>“Well, the man who knows <i>that</i> is up to <i>drab</i> +[medicine], and hasn’t much more to learn,” said the young +man. “When a <i>rye’s</i> a Rom he’s anywhere at +home.”</p> +<p>“So <i>kushto bak</i>!” (Good luck!) I said, rising to +go. “We will come again!”</p> +<p>“Yes, we will come again,” said Meister Karl. +“Look for me with the roses at the races, and tell me the horse to +bet on. You’ll find my <i>patteran</i> [a <!-- page 271--><a +name="page271"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 271</span>mark or sign to show +which way a gypsy has traveled] at the next church-door, or may be on the +public-house step. Child of the old Egyptians, mother of all the +witches, sister of the stars, daughter of darkness, farewell!”</p> +<p>This bewildering speech was received with admiring awe, and we +departed. I should have liked to hear the comments on us which passed +that evening among the gypsy denizens of Mammy Sauerkraut’s Row.</p> +<h3><!-- page 272--><a name="page272"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +272</span>V. A GYPSY LETTER.</h3> +<p>All the gypsies in the country are not upon the roads. Many of +them live in houses, and that very respectably, nay, even +aristocratically. Yea, and it may be, O reader, that thou hast met +them and knowest them not, any more than thou knowest many other deep +secrets of the hearts and lives of those who live around thee. Dark +are the ways of the Romany, strange his paths, even when reclaimed from the +tent and the van. It is, however, intelligible enough that the Rom +converted to the true faith of broadcloth garments by Poole, or dresses by +Worth, as well as to the holy gospel of daily baths and <i>savon au +violet</i>, should say as little as possible of his origin. For the +majority of the world being snobs, they continually insist that all blood +unlike their own is base, and the child of the <i>kālorat</i>, knowing +this, sayeth naught, and ever carefully keeps the lid of silence on the pot +of his birth. And as no being that ever was, is, or will be ever +enjoyed holding a secret, playing a part, or otherwise entering into the +deepest mystery of life—which is to make a joke of it—so +thoroughly as a gypsy, it follows that the being respectable has to him a +raciness and drollery and pungency and point which passeth faith. It +has often occurred to me, and the older I grow the more I find it true, +that the <i>real</i> pleasure which bank presidents, moral politicians, +<!-- page 273--><a name="page273"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +273</span>not a few clergymen, and most other highly representative good +men take in having a high character is the exquisite secret consciousness +of its being utterly undeserved. They love acting. Let no man +say that the love of the drama is founded on the artificial or sham. +I have heard the Reverend Histriomastix war and batter this on the pulpit; +but the utterance <i>per se</i> was an actual, living lie. He was +acting while he preached. Love or hunger is not more an innate +passion than acting. The child in the nursery, the savage by the +Nyanza or in Alaska, the multitude of great cities, all love to bemask and +seem what they are not. Crush out carnivals and masked balls and +theatres, and lo, you! the disguising and acting and masking show +themselves in the whole community. Mawworm and Aminidab Sleek then +play a rôle in every household, and every child becomes a wretched +little Roscius. Verily I say unto you, the fewer actors the more +acting; the fewer theatres the more stages, and the worse. Lay it to +heart, study it deeply, you who believe that the stage is an open door to +hell, for the chances are ninety and nine to one that if this be true +<i>you</i> will end by consciously or unconsciously keeping a private +little gate thereunto. Beloved, put this in thy pipe and fumigate it, +that acting in some form is a human instinct which cannot be extinguished, +which never has been and never will be; and this being so, is it not +better, with Dr. Bellows, to try to put it into proper form than to crush +it? Truly it has been proved that with this, as with a certain other +unquenchable penchant of humanity, when you suppress a score of +professionals you create a thousand zealous amateurs. There was never +in this world a stage on which mere acting was <!-- page 274--><a +name="page274"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 274</span>more skillfully +carried out than in all England under Cromwell, or in Philadelphia under +the Quakers. Eccentric dresses, artificial forms of language, +separate and “peculiar” expressions of character unlike those +of “the world,” were all only giving a form to that craving for +being odd and queer which forms the soul of masking and acting. Of +course people who act all the time object to the stage. <i>Le diable +ne veut pas de miroir</i>.</p> +<p>The gypsy of society not always, but yet frequently, retains a keen +interest in his wild ancestry. He keeps up the language; it is a +delightful secret; he loves now and then to take a look at “the old +thing.” Closely allied to the converted sinners are the +<i>aficionados</i>, or the ladies and gentlemen born with unconquerable +Bohemian tastes, which may be accounted for by their having been themselves +gypsies in preëxistent lives. No one can explain how or why it +is that the <i>aficion</i> comes upon them. It is <i>in</i> +them. I know a very learned man in England, a gentleman of high +position, one whose name is familiar to my readers. He could never +explain or understand why from early childhood he had felt himself drawn +towards the wanderers. When he was only ten years old he saved up all +his little store of pence wherewith to pay a tinker to give him lessons in +Romany, in which tongue he is now a Past Grand. I know ladies in +England and in America, both of the blood and otherwise, who would give up +a ball of the highest flight in society, to sit an hour in a gypsy tent, +and on whom a whispered word of Romany acts like wild-fire. Great as +my experience has been I can really no more explain the intensity of this +yearning, this <i>rapport</i>, than I can fly. My own fancy for +gypsydom is faint and feeble compared <!-- page 275--><a +name="page275"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 275</span>to what I have found +in many others. It is in them like the love for opium, for music, for +love itself, or for acting. I confess that there is to me a nameless +charm in the strangely, softly flowing language, which gives a sweeter +sound to every foreign word which it adopts, just as the melody of a forest +stream is said to make more musical the songs of the birds who dwell beside +it. Thus Wentzel becomes Wenselo and Anselo; Arthur, Artaros; London, +Lundra; Sylvester, Westaros. Such a phrase as “<i>Dordi</i>! +<i>dovelo adoi</i>?” (See! what is that there?) could not be +surpassed for mere beauty of sound.</p> +<p>It is apropos of living double lives, and playing parts, and the charm +of stealing away unseen, like naughty children, to romp with the tabooed +offspring of outlawed neighbors, that I write this, to introduce a letter +from a lady, who has kindly permitted me to publish it. It tells its +own story of two existences, two souls in one. I give it as it was +written, first in Romany, and then in English:—</p> +<blockquote> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Febmunti</i> 1<i>st</i>.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Miro Kamlo Pal</span>,—Tu tevel mishto ta shun +te latcherdum me akovo kūrikus tacho Romany tan akai adré o +gav. Buti kāmaben lis sas ta dikk mori foki apopli; buti kushti +ta shun moro jib. Mi-duvel atch apā mande, sī ne shomas +pash naflo o Gorginess, vonk’ akovo vias. O waver divvus sa me +viom fon a swell saleskro hāben, dikdom me dui Romani chia beshin alay +apré a longo skamin adré --- Square. Kālor +yākkor, kālor balyor, lullo diklas apré i sherria, te +lender trushnia aglal lender piria. Mi-duvel, shomas pāsh divio +sār kamaben ta dikav lender! Avo! kairdum o wardomengro hatch i +graia te sheldom avrī, “<i>Come here</i>!” Yon +penden te me sos a rāni ta dūkker te vian sig adosta. Awer +me saldom te pendom adré Romanis: “Sarishān miri +dearis! Tute don’t jin mandy’s a <!-- page 276--><a +name="page276"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 276</span>Romany!” +Yon nastis patser lende kania nera yakkor. “Mi-duvel! +Sā se tiro nav? putchde yeck. “Miro nav se Britannia +Lee.” Kenna-sig yon diktas te me sos tachi, te penden amengi +lender navia shanas M. te D. Lis sos duro pā lende ta jin +sā a Romani rāni astis jiv amen Gorgios, te dikk sa Gorgious, +awer te vel kushti Romani ajā, te tevel buoino lakis +kāloratt. Buti rakkerdém apré mori foki, buti +nevvi, buti savo sos rumado, te beeno, te puredo, savo sos vino fon o puro +tem, te būtikumi aja kekkeno sos rakkerben sa gudli. M. pende +amengi, “Mandy don’t jin how tute can jiv among dem +Gorgies.” Pukerdom anpāli: “Mandy dont jiv, mandy +mérs kairin amen lender.” Yon mangades mande ta well ta +dikk a len, adré lendes kér apré o chūmba kai +atchena pa o wen. Pende M., “Av miri pen ta hā a bitti +sār mendi. Tute jins the chais are only kérri arātti +te Kūrrkus.”</p> +<p>Sunday sala miri pen te me ghion adoi te latchedon o ker. O tan +sos bitto, awer sā i Romanis pende, dikde boro adosta paller jivin +adré o wardo. M. sos adoi te lakis roms dye, a kūshti +pūri chai. A. sar shtor chavia. M. kerde hāben +sā mendui viom adoi. I pūri dye sos mishto ta dikk mande, +yoi kāmde ta jin sār trūstal mande. Rakkerdem buti +ajā, te yoi pende te yoi né kekker latchde a Romani rāni +denna mande. Pendom me ke laki shan adré society kūmi +Romani rānia, awer i galderli Gorgios ne jinena lis.</p> +<p>Yoi pende sā miri pen dikde simlo Lusha Cooper, te siggerde +lākis kāloratt būtider denna me. “Tute +don’t favor the Coopers, miri dearie! Tute pens tiri dye +rummerd a mush navvered Smith. Wās adovo the Smith as lelled +kellin te kurin booths pāsher Lundra Bridge? Sos tute beeno +adré Anglaterra?” Pūkkerdom me ke puri dye sār +jināv me trūstal miri kokeri te simensi. Tu jinsa shan kek +Gorgies sā longi-bavoli apré genealogies, sā i puri Romani +dyia. Vonka foki nāstis chin lende adré lilia, rikkerena +lende aduro adré lendros sherria. <i>Que la main droit perd +recueille la gauche</i>.</p> +<p>“Does tute jin any of the ---’s?” pende M. +“Tute <!-- page 277--><a name="page277"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +277</span>dikks sim ta ---’s juva.” “Ne kekker, +yois too pauno,’ pens A. “It’s chomani adré +the look of her,” pende M.</p> +<p>Dikkpāli miro pal. Tu jinsa te --- sos i chi savo dudikabinde +mānūsh, navdo --- būti wongur. Vānka yoi sos lino +apré, o Beshomengro pende ta kér laki chiv apré a +shuba sims Gorgios te adenne lelled lāki adré a tan sar desh te +dui gorgi chaia. --- astissa pen i chai savo chordé lestis +lovvo. Vānka yoi vias adré o tan, yoi ghias sig keti +laki, te pende: “Jināva me lāki talla lākis longi +vangusti, te rinkeni mui. Yoi sos stardi dui beshya, awer o Gorgio +kekker las leski vongur pāli.”</p> +<p>Savo-chirus mendi rākkerden o wuder pirido, te trin manushia vian +adré. . . . Pali lenders sarishans, M. shelde avrī: +“Av ta misali, rikker yer skammins longo tute! Mrs. Lee, why +didn’t tute bring yer rom?” “Adenna me shom kek +rumadi.” “Mi-duvel, Britannia!” pende --- +“M. pende amengy te tu sos rumado.” “M. +didn’t dukker tacho vonka yoi dukkerd adovo. Yois a +dinneli,” pendom me. Te adenne sar mendi saden atūt M. +Hāben sos kushto, loim a kani, ballovas te puvengros, te kushto curro +levina. Liom mendi kushto paiass dré moro pūro Romany +dromus. Rinkenodiro sos, kérde mande pāsh ta ruv, shomas +sā kushto-bākno ta atch yecker apopli men mori foki. Sos +“Britannia!” akai, te “Britannia!” doi, te sār +sā adré o púro cheirus, vonka chavi shomas. Ne +patserava me ta Dante chinde:—</p> +<p>“Nessun maggior dolore<br /> +Che ricordarsi dei tempi felici.”</p> +<p>Talla me shomas kūshto-bākno ta pen apré o puro +chirus. Sar lende piden miro kāmaben Romaneskaes, sar gudlo; +talla H. Yov pende nastis kér lis, pā yuv kennā lias +tabūti. Kushto dikin Romnichal yuv. Tu tevel jin lesti +sārakai pā Romani, yuv se sa kālo. Te <i>avec +l’air indefinnissable du vrai Bohemien</i>. Yuv patserde me ta +piav miro sastopen wavescro chirus. Kanā shomas pā misali, +geero vias keti ian; dukkeriben kamde yov. Hunali sos i pūri dye +te <!-- page 278--><a name="page278"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +278</span>pendes amergi, “Beng lel o pūro jūkel for wellin +vānka mendi shom hāin, te kennā tu shan akai, miri Britannia +Yov ne tevel lel kek kūshto bak. Mandy’ll pen leste a +wafedo dukkerin.” Adoi A. putcherde mengy, “Does tute +dūkker or sā does tute kér.” “Miri pen, +mandy’ll pen tute tacho. Mandy dukkers te dudikabins te +kérs būti covvas. Shom a tachi Romani +chovihani.” “Tacho! tacho!” saden butider. +Miri pen te me rikkerdem a boro matto-morricley pā i chavis. Yon +beshden alay apré o purj, hāis lis. Rinkeno +<i>picture</i> sas, pendom dikkav mande te miri penia te pralia kennā +shomas bitti. Latcherdom me a tāni kāli chavi of panj besh +chorin levina avrī miro curro. Dikde, sār lakis bori +kāli yakka te kāli balia simno tikno Bacchante, sa yoi prasterde +adrom.</p> +<p>Pendom parako pā moro kūshto-bākeno +chirus—“kushto bak” te “kūshto +divvus.” Mendi diom moro tachopen ta well apopli, te kān +viom kérri. Patserāva dikk tute akai tallá o +prasterin o ye graia. Kūshto bāk te kūshto +rātti.</p> +<p>Sarja tiro pen,</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Britannia Lee</span>.</p> +<p>TRANSLATION.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>February</i> 1<i>st</i>.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">My dear Friend</span>,—You will be glad to +learn that I, within the week, found a real Romany family (place) here in +this town. Charming it was to find our folk again; pleasant it was to +listen to our tongue. The Lord be on me! but I was half sick of +Gentiles and their ways till this occurred. The other day, as I was +returning from a highly aristocratic breakfast, where we had winter +strawberries with the <i>crême de la crême</i>, I saw two gypsy +women sitting on a bench in --- Square. Black eyes, black hair, red +kerchiefs on their heads, their baskets on the ground before their +feet. Dear Lord! but I was half wild with delight at seeing +them. Aye, I made the coachman stop the horses, and cried aloud, +“Come here!” They thought I was a lady to fortune-tell, +and came quickly. But I laughed, and said in Romany, “How are +you, my dears? You don’t <!-- page 279--><a +name="page279"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 279</span>know that I am a +gypsy.” They could not trust their very ears or eyes! At +length one said, “My God! what <i>is</i> your name?” +“My name’s Britannia Lee,” and, at a glance, they saw +that I was to be trusted, and a Romany. Their names, they said, were +M. and D. It was hard (far) for them to understand how a Romany lady +<i>could</i> live among Gentiles, and look so Gorgious, and yet be a true +gypsy withal, and proud of her dark blood. Much they talked about our +people; much news I heard,—much as to who was married and born and +buried, who was come from the old country, and much more. Oh, +<i>never</i> was such news so sweet to me! M. said, “I +don’t know how you <i>can</i> live among the Gentiles.” I +answered, “I don’t live; I <i>die</i>, living in their houses +with them.” They begged me then to come and see them in their +home, upon the hill, where they are wintering. M. said, “Come, +my sister, and eat a little with us. You know that the women are only +at home at night and on Sunday.”</p> +<p>Sunday morning, sister and I went there, and found the house. It +was a little place, but, as they said, after the life in wagons it seemed +large. M. was there, and her husband’s mother, a nice old +woman; also A., with four children. M. was cooking as we +entered. The old mother was glad to see us; she wished to know all +about us. All talked, indeed, and that quite rapidly, and she said +that I was the first Romany lady <a name="citation279"></a><a +href="#footnote279" class="citation">[279]</a> she had ever seen. I +said to her that in society are many gypsy ladies to be found, but that the +wretched Gentiles do not know it.</p> +<p>She said that my sister looked like Lusha Cooper, and showed her dark +blood more than I do. “You don’t favor the Coopers, my +dearie. You say your mother married a Smith. Was that the Smith +who kept a dancing and boxing <!-- page 280--><a name="page280"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 280</span>place near London Bridge? Were you born +in England?” I told the old mother all I knew about myself and +my relations. You know that no Gorgios are so long-winded on +genealogies as old mothers in Rom. When people don’t write them +down in their family Bibles, they carry them, extended, in their +heads. <i>Que la main droit perd recueille la gauche</i>.</p> +<p>“Do you know any of the ---’s?” said M. +“You look like ---’s wife.” “No; she’s +too pale,” said A. “It’s something in the look of +her,” said M.</p> +<p>Reflect, my brother. You know that --- was the woman who +“cleaned out” a man named --- of a very large sum <a +name="citation280"></a><a href="#footnote280" class="citation">[280]</a> by +“dukkeripen” and “dudikabin.” “When she +was arrested, the justice made her dress like any Gorgio, and placed her +among twelve Gentile women. The man who had been robbed was to point +out who among them had stolen his money. When she came into the room, +he went at once to her, and said, ‘I know her by her long skinny +fingers and handsome face.’ She was imprisoned for two years, +but the Gorgio never recovered his money.”</p> +<p>What time we reasoned thus, the door undid, and three men entered. +After their greetings, M. cried, “Come to table; bring your chairs +with you!” “Mrs. Lee, why didn’t you bring your +husband?” “Because I am not married.” +“Lord! Britannia! Why, M. told me that you +were.” “Ah, M. didn’t fortune right when she +fortuned that. She’s a fool,” quoth I. And then we +all laughed like children. The food was good: chickens and ham and +fried potatoes, with a glass of sound ale. We were gay as flies in +summer, in the real old Romany way. ’T was +“Britannia” here, “Britannia” there, as in the +merry days when we were young. Little do I believe in Dante’s +words,—</p> +<p><!-- page 281--><a name="page281"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +281</span>“Nessun maggior dolore,<br /> +Che ricordarsi dei tempi felici.”</p> +<p>“There is no greater grief<br /> +Than to remember by-gone happy days.”</p> +<p>For it is always happiness to me to think of good old times when I was +glad. All drank my health, <i>Romaneskaes</i>, together, with a +shout,—all save H., who said he had already had too much. +Good-looking gypsy, that! You’d know him anywhere for Romany, +he is so dark,—<i>avec l’air indéfinissable du vrai +Bohemien</i>. He promised to drink my health another time.</p> +<p>As we sat, a gentleman came in below, wishing to have his fortune +told. I remember to have read that the Pythoness of Delphian oracle +prepared herself for <i>dukkerin</i>, or presaging, by taking a few drops +of cherry-laurel water. (I have had it prescribed for my eyes as R +<i>aq. laur. cerasi. fiat lotio</i>,—possibly to enable me to see +into the future.) Perhaps it was the cherry-brandy beloved of British +matrons and Brighton school-girls, taken at Mutton’s. <i>Mais +revenons à nos moutons</i>. The old mother had taken, not +cherry-laurel water, nor even cherry-brandy, but joly good ale, and olde, +which, far from fitting her to reveal the darksome lore of futurity, had +rendered her loath to leave the festive board of the present. +Wrathful was the sybil, furious as the Vala when waked by Odin, angry as +Thor when he missed his hammer, to miss her merriment. “May the +devil take the old dog for coming when we are eating, and when thou art +here, my Britannia! Little good fortune will he hear this day. +Evil shall be the best I’ll promise him.” Thus spake the +sorceress, and out she went to keep her word. Truly it was a splendid +picture this of “The Enraged Witch,” as painted by Hexenmeister +von Teufel, of Höllenstadt,—her viper eyes flashing infernal +light and most unchristian fire, shaking <i>les noirs serpents de ses +cheveux</i>, as she went forth. I know how, in an instant, her face +was beautiful with welcome, smiling like a Neapolitan at a cent; <!-- page +282--><a name="page282"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 282</span>but the poor +believer caught it hot, all the same, and had a sleepless night over his +future fate. I wonder if the Pythoness of old, when summoned from a +<i>petit souper</i>, or a holy prophet called out of bed of a cold night, +to decide by royal command on the fate of Israel, ever “took it +out” on the untimely king by promising him a lively, unhappy time of +it. Truly it is fine to be behind the scenes and see how they work +the oracle. For the gentleman who came to consult my witch was a man +of might in the secrets of state, and one whom I have met in high +society. And, oh! <i>if</i> he had known who it was that was +up-stairs, laughing at him for a fool!</p> +<p>While she was forth, A. asked me, “Do you tell fortunes, or +<i>what</i>?” “My sister,” I replied, +“I’ll tell thee the truth. I do tell fortunes. I +keep a house for the purchase of stolen goods. I am largely engaged +in making counterfeit money and all kinds of forgery. I am interested +in burglary. I lie, swear, cheat, and steal, and get drunk on +Sunday. And I do many other things. I am a real Romany +witch.” This little confession of faith brought down the +house. “Bravo! bravo!” they cried, laughing.</p> +<p>Sister and I had brought a great tipsy-cake for the children, and they +were all sitting under a table, eating it. It was a pretty +picture. I thought I saw in it myself and all my sisters and brothers +as we were once. Just such little gypsies and duckling Romanys! +And now! And then! What a comedy some lives are,—yea, +such lives as mine! And now it is <i>you</i> who are behind the +scenes; anon, I shall change with you. <i>Va Pierre</i>, <i>vient +Pierette</i>. Then I surprised a little brown maiden imp of five +summers stealing my beer, and as she was caught in the act, and tore away +shrieking with laughter, she looked, with her great black eyes and flowing +jetty curling locks, like a perfect little Bacchante.</p> +<p>Then we said, “Thank you for the happy time!” +“Good <!-- page 283--><a name="page283"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +283</span>luck!” and “Good day!” giving our promises to +come again. So we went home all well. I hope to see you at the +races here. Good luck and good-night also to you.</p> +<p>Always your friend,</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Britannia Lee</span></p> +</blockquote> +<p>I have somewhat abbreviated the Romany text of this letter, and Miss Lee +herself has somewhat polished and enlarged the translation, which is +strictly fit and proper, she being a very different person in English from +what she is in gypsy, as are most of her kind. This letter may be, to +many, a strange lesson, a quaint essay, a social problem, a fable, an +epigram, or a frolic,—just as they choose to take it. To me it +is a poem. Thou, my friend, canst easily understand why all that is +wild and strange, out-of-doors, far away by night, is worthy of being +Tennysoned or Whitmanned. If there be given unto thee stupendous +blasted trees, looking in the moonlight like the pillars of a vast and +ghostly temple; the fall of cataracts down awful rocks; the wind wailing in +wondrous language or whistling Indian melody all night on heath, rocks, and +hills, over ancient graves and through lonely caves, bearing with it the +hoot of the night-owl; while over all the stars look down in eternal +mystery, like eyes reading the great riddle of the night which thou knowest +not,—this is to thee like Ariel’s song. To me and to us +there are men and women who are in life as the wild river and the +night-owl, as the blasted tree and the wind over ancient graves. No +man is educated until he has arrived at that state of thought when a +picture is quite the same as a book, an old gray-beard jug as a manuscript, +men, women, and children as libraries. It was but yester morn that I +read a cuneiform inscription <!-- page 284--><a name="page284"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 284</span>printed by doves’ feet in the snow, +finding a meaning where in by-gone years I should have seen only a quaint +resemblance. For in this by the <i>ornithomanteia</i> known of old to +the Chaldean sages I saw that it was neither from arrow-heads or wedges +which gave the letters to the old Assyrians. When thou art at this +point, then Nature is equal in all her types, and the city, as the forest, +full of endless beauty and piquancy,—<i>in sæcula +sæculorum</i>.</p> +<p>I had written the foregoing, and had enveloped and directed it to be +mailed, when I met in a lady-book entitled “Magyarland” with +the following passages:—</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“The gypsy girl in this family was a pretty young woman, with +masses of raven hair and a clear skin, but, notwithstanding her neat dress +and civilized surroundings, we recognized her immediately. It is, in +truth, not until one sees the Romany translated to an entirely new form of +existence, and under circumstances inconsistent with their ordinary lives, +that one realizes how completely different they are from the rest of +mankind in form and feature. Instead of disguising, the garb of +civilization only enhances the type, and renders it the more +apparent. No matter what dress they may assume, no matter what may be +their calling, no matter whether they are dwellers in tents or houses, it +is impossible for gypsies to disguise their origin. Taken from their +customary surroundings, they become at once an anomaly and an anachronism, +and present such an instance of the absurdity of attempting to invert the +order of nature that we feel more than ever how utterly different they are +from the human race; that there is a key to their strange life which we do +not possess,—a secret free <!-- page 285--><a +name="page285"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 285</span>masonry that renders +them more isolated than the veriest savages dwelling in the African +wilds,—and a hidden mystery hanging over them and their origin that +we shall never comprehend. They are indeed a people so entirely +separate and distinct that, in whatever clime or quarter of the globe they +may be met with, they are instantly recognized; for with them forty +centuries of association with civilized races have not succeeded in +obliterating one single sign.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“Alas!” cried the princess; “I can never, never find +the door of the enchanted cavern, nor enter the golden cavern, nor solve +its wonderful mystery. It has been closed for thousands of years, and +it will remain closed forever.”</p> +<p>“What flowers are those which thou holdest?” asked the +hermit.</p> +<p>“Only primroses or Mary’s-keys, <a name="citation285"></a><a +href="#footnote285" class="citation">[285]</a> and tulips,” replied +the princess.</p> +<p>“Touch the rock with them,” said the hermit, “and the +door will open.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p>The lady writer of “Magyarland” held in her hand all the +while, and knew it not, a beautiful primrose, which might have opened for +her the mysterious Romany cavern. On a Danube steamboat she saw a +little blind boy sitting all day all alone: only a little Slavonian peasant +boy, “an odd, quaint little specimen of humanity, with loose brown +garments, cut precisely like those of a grown-up man, and his bits of feet +in little raw-hide moccasins.” However, with a <!-- page +286--><a name="page286"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 286</span>tender, +gentle heart she began to pet the little waif. And the captain told +her what the boy was. “He is a <i>guslar</i>, or minstrel, as +they call them in Croatia. The Yougo-Slavs dedicate all male children +who are born blind, from infancy, to the Muses. As soon as they are +old enough to handle anything, a small mandolin is given them, which they +are taught to play; after which they are taken every day into the woods, +where they are left till evening to commune in their little hearts with +nature. In due time they become poets, or at any rate rhapsodists, +singing of the things they never saw, and when grown up are sent forth to +earn their livelihood, like the troubadours of old, by singing from place +to place, and asking alms by the wayside.</p> +<p>“It is not difficult for a Slav to become a poet; he takes in +poetic sentiment as a river does water from its source. The first +sounds he is conscious of are the words of his mother singing to him as she +rocks his cradle. Then, as she watches the dawning of intelligence in +his infant face, her mother language is that of poetry, which she +improvises at the moment, and though he never saw the flowers nor the +snow-capped mountains, nor the flowing streams and rivers, he describes +them out of his inner consciousness, and the influence which the varied +sounds of nature have upon his mind.”</p> +<p>Rock and river and greenwood tree, sweet-spiced spring flower, rustling +grass, and bird-singing nature and freedom,—this is the secret of the +poets’ song and of the Romany, and there is no other mystery in +either. He who sleeps on graves rises mad or a poet; all who lie on +the earth, which is the grave and cradle of nature, and who live <i>al +fresco</i>, understand gypsies <!-- page 287--><a name="page287"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 287</span>as well as my lady Britannia Lee. Nay, +when some natures take to the Romany they become like the Norman knights of +the Pale, who were more Paddyfied than the Paddies themselves. These +become leaders among the gypsies, who recognize the fact that one renegade +is more zealous than ten Turks. As for the “mystery” of +the history of the gypsies, it is time, sweet friends, that ’t were +ended. When we know that there is to-day, in India, a sect and set of +Vauriens, who are there considered Gipsissimæ, and who call +themselves, with their wives and language and being, Rom, Romni, and +Romnipana, even as they do in England; and when we know, moreover, that +their faces proclaim them to be Indian, and that they have been a wandering +caste since the dawn of Hindu history, we have, I trow, little more to +seek. As for the rest, you may read it in the great book of Out-of +Doors, <i>capitulo nullo folio nigro</i>, or wherever you choose to open +it, written as distinctly, plainly, and sweetly as the imprint of a +school-boy’s knife and fork on a mince-pie, or in the uprolled +rapture of the eyes of Britannia when she inhaleth the perfume of a fresh +bunch of Florentine violets. <i>Ite missa est</i>.</p> +<h2><!-- page 288--><a name="page288"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +288</span>GYPSIES IN THE EAST.</h2> +<p>Noon in Cairo.</p> +<p>A silent old court-yard, half sun and half shadow in which quaintly +graceful, strangely curving columns seem to have taken from long +companionship with trees something of their inner life, while the palms, +their neighbors, from long in-door existence, look as if they had in turn +acquired household or animal instincts, if not human sympathies. And +as the younger the race the more it seeks for poets and orators to express +in thought what it only feels, so these dumb pillars and plants found their +poet and orator in the fountain which sang or spoke for them strangely and +sweetly all night and day, uttering for them not only their waking +thoughts, but their dreams. It gave a voice, too, to the ancient +Persian tiles and the Cufic inscriptions which had seen the caliphs, and it +told endless stories of Zobeide and Mesrour and Haroun al Raschid.</p> +<p>Beyond the door which, when opened, gave this sight was a dark ancient +archway twenty yards long, which opened on the glaring, dusty street, where +camels with their drivers and screaming <i>sais</i>, or carriage-runners +and donkey-boys and crying venders, kept up the wonted Oriental din. +But just within the archway, in its duskiest corner, there sat all day a +living picture, a dark and handsome woman, apparently <!-- page 289--><a +name="page289"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 289</span>thirty years old, who +was unveiled. She had before her a cloth and a few shells; sometimes +an Egyptian of the lower class stopped, and there would be a grave +consultation, and the shells would be thrown, and then further solemn +conference and a payment of money and a departure. And it was +world-old Egyptian, or Chaldean, as to custom, for the woman was a +Rhagarin, or gypsy, and she was one of the diviners who sit by the wayside, +casting shells for auspices, even as shells and arrows were cast of old, to +be cursed by Israel.</p> +<p>It is not remarkable that among the myriad <i>manteias</i> of olden days +there should have been one by shells. The sound of the sea as heard +in the nautilus or conch, when</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“It remembers its august abode<br /> +And murmurs as the ocean murmurs there,”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>is very strange to children, and I can remember how in childhood I +listened with perfect faith to the distant roaring, and marveled at the +mystery of the ocean song being thus forever kept alive, inland. +Shells seem so much like work of human hands, and are often so marked as +with letters, that it is not strange that faith soon found the supernatural +in them. The magic shell of all others is the cowrie. Why the +Roman ladies called it <i>porcella</i>, or little pig, because it has a +pig’s back, is the objective explanation of its name, and how from +its gloss that name, or porcellana, was transferred to porcelain, is in +books. But there is another side to the shell, and another or +esoteric meaning to “piggy,” which was also known to the +<i>dames du temps jadis</i>, to Archipiada and Thais, <i>qui fut la belle +Romaine</i>,—and this inner meaning makes of it a type of birth or +creation. <!-- page 290--><a name="page290"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 290</span>Now all that symbolizes fertility, birth, +pleasure, warmth, light, and love is opposed to barrenness, cold, death, +and evil; whence it follows that the very sight of a shell, and especially +of a cowrie, frightens away the devils as well as a horse-shoe, which by +the way has also its cryptic meaning. Hence it was selected to cast +for luck, a world-old custom, which still lingers in the game of props; and +for the same reason it is hung on donkeys, the devil being still scared +away by the sight of a cowrie, even as he was scared away of old by its +prototype, as told by Rabelais.</p> +<p>As the sibyls sat in caves, so the sorceress sat in the dark archway, +immovable when not sought, mysterious as are all her kind, and something to +wonder at. It was after passing her, and feeling by quick intuition +what she was, that the court-yard became a fairy-land, and the fountain its +poet, and the palm-trees Tamar maids. There are people who believe +there is no mystery, that an analysis of the gypsy sorceress would have +shown an ignorant outcast; but while nature gives chiaro-oscuro and beauty, +and while God is the Unknown, I believe that the more light there is cast +by science the more stupendous will be the new abysses of darkness +revealed. These natures must be taken with the <i>life</i> in them, +not dead,—and their life is mystery. The Hungarian gypsy lives +in an intense mystery, yes, in true magic in his singing. You may say +that he cannot, like Orpheus, move rocks or tame beasts with his +music. If he could he could do no more than astonish and move us, and +he does that now, and the <i>why</i> is as deep a mystery as that would +be.</p> +<p>So far is it from being only a degrading superstition in those who +believe that mortals like themselves <!-- page 291--><a +name="page291"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 291</span>can predict the +future, that it seems, on the contrary ennobling. It is precisely +because man feels a mystery within himself that he admits it may be higher +in others; if spirits whisper to him in dreams and airy passages of +trembling light, or in the music never heard but ever felt below, what may +not be revealed to others? You may tell me if you will that +prophecies are all rubbish and magic a lie, and it may be so,—nay, +<i>is</i> so, but the awful mystery of the Unknown without a name and the +yearning to penetrate it <i>is</i>, and is all the more, because I have +found all prophecies and jugglings and thaumaturgy fail to bridge over the +abyss. It is since I have read with love and faith the evolutionists +and physiologists of the most advanced type that the Unknown has become to +me most wonderful, and that I have seen the light which never shone on sea +or land as I never saw it before. And therefore to me the gypsy and +all the races who live in freedom and near to nature are more poetic than +ever. For which reason, after the laws of acoustics have fully +explained to me why the nautilus sounds like a far off-ocean dirge, the +unutterable longing <i>to know more</i> seizes upon me,</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“Till my heart is full of longing<br /> + For the secret of the sea,<br /> +And the heart of the great ocean<br /> + Sends a thrilling pulse through me.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>That gypsy fortune-teller, sitting in the shadow, is, moreover, +interesting as a living manifestation of a dead past. As in one of +her own shells when petrified we should have the ancient form without its +color, all the old elements being displaced by new ones, so we have the old +magic shape, though every atom in it is different; the same, yet not the +same <!-- page 292--><a name="page292"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +292</span>Life in the future, and the divination thereof, was a stupendous, +ever-present reality to the ancient Egyptian, and the sole inspiration of +humanity when it produced few but tremendous results. It is when we +see it in such living forms that it is most interesting. As in +Western wilds we can tell exactly by the outline of the forests where the +borders of ancient inland seas once ran, so in the great greenwood of +history we can trace by the richness or absence of foliage and flower the +vanished landmarks of poetry, or perceive where the enchantment whose charm +has now flown like the snow of the foregone year once reigned in +beauty. So a line of lilies has shown me where the sea-foam once +fell, and pine-trees sang of masts preceding them.</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“I sometimes think that never blows so red<br /> +The rose as where some buried Cæsar bled;<br /> +That every hyacinth the garden wears<br /> +Dropt in her lap from some once lovely head.” <a +name="citation292"></a><a href="#footnote292" +class="citation">[292]</a></p> +</blockquote> +<p>The memory of that court-yard reminds me that I possess two Persian +tiles, each with a story. There is a house in Cairo which is said to +be more or less contemporary with the prophet, and it is inhabited by an +old white-bearded emir, more or less a descendant of the prophet. +This old gentleman once gave as a precious souvenir to an American lady two +of the beautiful old tiles from his house, whereof I had one. In the +eyes of a Muslim there is a degree of sanctity attached to this tile, as +one on which the eyes of the prophet may have rested,—or at least the +eyes of those who were nearer to him than we are. Long after I +returned from Cairo I wrote and <!-- page 293--><a name="page293"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 293</span>published a fairy-book called Johnnykin, in +which occurred the following lines:—</p> +<blockquote> +<p>Trust not the Ghoul, love,<br /> + Heed not his smile;<br /> +<i>Out of the Mosque</i>, <i>love</i>,<br /> + <i>He stole the tile</i>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>One day my friend the Palmer from over the sea came to me with a +present. It was a beautiful Persian tile.</p> +<p>“Where did you get it?” I asked.</p> +<p>“I stole it out of a mosque in Syria.”</p> +<p>“Did you ever read my Johnnykin?”</p> +<p>“Of course not.”</p> +<p>“I know you never did.” Here I repeated the +verse. “But you remember what the Persian poet says:—</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“‘And never since the vine-clad earth was young<br /> +Was some great crime committed on the earth,<br /> +But that some poet prophesied the deed.’”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>“True, and also what the great Tsigane poet sang:—</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“‘O manush te lela sossi choredó,<br /> +Wafodiro se te choramengró.’</p> +<p>“He who takes the stolen ring,<br /> +Is worse than he who stole the thing.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>“And it would have been better for you, while you were +<i>dukkerin</i> or prophesying, to have prophesied about something more +valuable than a tile.”</p> +<p>And so it came to pass that the two Persian tiles, one given by a +descendant of the Prophet, and the other the subject of a prophecy, rest in +my cabinet side by side.</p> +<p>In Egypt, as in Austria, or Syria, or Persia, or India, the gypsies are +the popular musicians. I had long <!-- page 294--><a +name="page294"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 294</span>sought for the +derivation of the word <i>banjo</i>, and one day I found that the Oriental +gypsies called a gourd by that name. Walking one day with the Palmer +in Cambridge, we saw in a window a very fine Hindu lute, or in fact a real +banjo made of a gourd. We inquired, and found that it belonged to a +mutual friend, Mr. Charles Brookfield, one of the best fellows living, and +who, on being forthwith “requisitioned” by the unanimous voice +of all who sympathized with me in my need, sent me the instrument. +“He did not think it right,” he said, “to keep it, when +Philology wanted it. If it had been any other party,—but he +always had a particular respect and awe of her.” I do not +assert that this discovery settles the origin of the word <i>banjo</i>, but +the coincidence is, to say the least, remarkable.</p> +<p>I saw many gypsies in Egypt, but learned little from them. What I +found I stated in a work called the “Egyptian Sketch +Book.” It was to this effect: My first information was derived +from the late Khedivé Ismael, who during an interview with me said, +“There are in Egypt many people known as Rhagarin, or Ghagarin, who +are probably the same as the gypsies of Europe. They are wanderers, +who live in tents, and are regarded with contempt even by the +peasantry. Their women tell fortunes, tattoo, and sell small wares; +the men work in iron. They are all adroit thieves, and noted as +such. The men may sometimes be seen going round the country with +monkeys. In fact, they appear to be in all respects the same people +as the gypsies of Europe.”</p> +<p>I habitually employed, while in Cairo, the same donkey-driver, an +intelligent and well-behaved man named Mahomet, who spoke English +fairly. On asking <!-- page 295--><a name="page295"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 295</span>him if he could show me any Rhagarin, he +replied that there was a fair or market held every Saturday at Boulac, +where I would be sure to meet with women of the tribe. The men, he +said, seldom ventured into the city, because they were subject to much +insult and ill-treatment from the common people.</p> +<p>On the day appointed I rode to Boulac. The market was very +interesting. I saw no European or Frangi there, except my companion, +Baron de Cosson, who afterwards traveled far into the White Nile country, +and who had with his brother Edward many remarkable adventures in +Abyssinia, which were well recorded by the latter in a book. All +around were thousands of blue-skirted and red-tarbouched or white-turbaned +Egyptians, buying or selling, or else amusing themselves, but with an +excess of outcry and hallo which indicates their grown child +character. There were dealers in donkeys and horses roaring aloud, +“He is for ten napoleons! Had I asked twenty you would have +gladly given me fifteen!” “O true believers, here is a +Syrian steed which will give renown to the purchaser!” +Strolling loosely about were dealers in sugar-cane and pea-nuts, which are +called gooba in Africa as in America, pipe peddlers and venders of +rosaries, jugglers and minstrels. At last we came to a middle-aged +woman seated on the ground behind a basket containing beads, glass armlets, +and such trinkets. She was dressed like any Arab-woman of the lower +class, but was not veiled, and on her chin blue lines were tattooed. +Her features and expression were, however, gypsy, and not Egyptian. +And as she sat there quietly I wondered how a woman could feel in her heart +who was looked down upon with infinite scorn by an Egyptian, who <!-- page +296--><a name="page296"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 296</span>might justly +be looked down on in his turn with sublime contempt by an average American +Methodist colored whitewasher who “took de +‘Ledger.’” Yet there was in the woman the quiet +expression which associates itself with respectability, and it is worth +remarking that whenever a race is greatly looked down on by another from +the stand-point of mere color, as in America, or mere religion, as in +Mahometan lands, it always contains proportionally a larger number of +<i>decent</i> people than are to be found among those who immediately +oppress it. An average Chinese is as a human being far superior to a +hoodlum, and a man of color to the white man who cannot speak of him or to +him except as a “naygur” or a “nigger.” It is +when a man realizes that he is superior in <i>nothing</i> else save race, +color, religion, family, inherited fortune, and their contingent advantages +that he develops most readily into the prig and snob.</p> +<p>I spoke to the woman in Romany, using such words as would have been +intelligible to any of her race in any other country; but she did not +understand me, and declared that she could speak nothing but Arabic. +At my request Mahomet explained to her that I had come from a distant +country in Orobba, or Europe, where there were many Rhagarin, who said that +their fathers came from Egypt, and that I wished to know if any in the old +country could speak the old language. She replied that the Rhagarin +of Montesinos could still speak it; but that her people in Egypt had lost +the tongue. Mahomet, in translating, here remarked that Montesinos +meant Mount Sinai or Syria. I then asked her if the Rhagarin had no +peculiar name for themselves, and she answered, “Yes; we call +ourselves Tatâren.”</p> +<p><!-- page 297--><a name="page297"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +297</span>This at least was satisfactory. All over Southern Germany +and in Norway the gypsies are called Tartaren, and though the word means +Tartars, and is misapplied, it indicates the race. The woman seemed +to be much gratified at the interest I manifested in her people. I +gave her a double piaster, and asked for its value in blue glass +armlets. She gave me four, and as I turned to depart called me back, +and with a good-natured smile handed me four more as a present. This +generosity was very gypsy-like, and very unlike the habitual meanness of +the ordinary Egyptian.</p> +<p>After this Mahomet took me to a number of Rhagarin. They all +resembled the one whom I had seen, and all were sellers of small articles +and fortune-tellers. They all differed slightly from common Egyptians +in appearance, and were more unlike them in not being importunate for +money, nor disagreeable in their manners. But though they were as +certainly gypsies as old Charlotte Cooper herself, none of them could speak +Romany. I used to amuse myself by imagining what some of my English +gypsy friends would have done if turned loose in Cairo among their +cousins. How naturally old Charlotte would have waylaid and +“dukkered” and amazed the English ladies in the Muskee, and how +easily that reprobate old amiable cosmopolite, the Windsor Frog, would have +mingled with the motley mob of donkey-boys and tourists before +Shepherd’s Hotel, and appointed himself an <i>attaché</i> to +their excursions to the Pyramids, and drunk their pale ale or anything else +to their healths, and then at the end of the day have claimed a wage for +his politeness! And how well the climate would have agreed with them, +and how they would have agreed that it was of all lands the best for +<i>tannin</i>, or tenting out, in the world!</p> +<p><!-- page 298--><a name="page298"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +298</span>The gypsiest-looking gypsy in Cairo, with whom I became somewhat +familiar, was a boy of sixteen, a snake-charmer; a dark and even handsome +youth, but with eyes of such wild wickedness that no one who had ever seen +him excited could hope that he would ever become as other human +beings. I believe that he had come, as do all of his calling, from a +snake-catching line of ancestors, and that he had taken in from them, as +did Elsie Venner, the serpent nature. They had gone snaking, +generation after generation, from the days of the serpent worship of old, +it may be back to the old Serpent himself; and this tawny, sinuous, active +thing of evil, this boy, without the least sense of sympathy for any pain, +who devoured a cobra alive with as much indifference as he had just shown +in petting it, was the result. He was a human snake. I had long +before reading the wonderfully original work of Doctor Holmes reflected +deeply on the moral and immoral influences which serpent worship of old, in +Syria and other lands, must have had upon its followers. But Elsie +Venner sets forth the serpent nature as benumbed or suspended by cold New +England winters and New England religions, moral and social influences; the +Ophites of old and the Cairene gypsy showed the boy as warmed to life in +lands whose winters are as burning summers. Elsie Venner is not +sensual, and sensuality is the leading trait of the human-serpent +nature. Herein lies an error, just as a sculptor would err who should +present Lady Godiva as fully draped, or Sappho merely as a sweet singer of +Lesbos, or Antinous only as a fine young man. He who would harrow +hell and rake out the devil, and then exhibit to us an ordinary sinner, or +an <i>opera bouffe</i> “Mefistofele,” as the result, <!-- page +299--><a name="page299"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 299</span>reminds one +of the seven Suabians who went to hunt a monster,—“<i>ä +Ungeheuer</i>,”—and returned with a hare. Elsie Venner is +not a hare; she is a wonderful creation; but she is a winter-snake. I +confess that I have no patience, however, with those who pretend to show us +summer-snakes, and would fain dabble with vice; who are amateurs in the +diabolical, and drawing-room dilettanti in damnation. Such, as I have +said before, are the æsthetic adorers of Villon, whom the old +<i>roué</i> himself would have most despised, and the admirers of +“Faustine,” whom Faustina would have picked up between her +thumb and finger, and eyed with serene contempt before throwing them out of +the window. A future age will have for these would-be wickeds, who +are only monks half turned inside out, more laughter than we now indulge in +at Chloe and Strephon.</p> +<p>I always regarded my young friend Abdullah as a natural child of the +devil and a serpent-souled young sinner, and he never disappointed me in my +opinion of him. I never in my life felt any antipathy to serpents, +and he evidently regarded me as a <i>sapengro</i>, or snake-master. +The first day I met him he put into my hands a cobra which had the fangs +extracted, and then handled an asp which still had its poison teeth. +On his asking me if I was afraid of it, and my telling him +“No,” he gave it to me, and after I had petted it, he always +manifested an understanding,—I cannot say sympathy. I should +have liked to see that boy’s sister, if he ever had one, and was not +hatched out from some egg found in the desert by an Egyptian incubus or +incubator. She must have been a charming young lady, and his mother +must have been a beauty, especially when in court-dress,—with <!-- +page 300--><a name="page300"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 300</span>her +broom <i>et præterea nihil</i>. But neither, alas, could be +ever seen by me, for it is written in the “Gittin” that there +are three hundred species of male demons, but what the female herself is +like is known to no one.</p> +<p>Abdullah first made his appearance before me at Shepherd’s Hotel, +and despite his amazing natural impudence, which appeared to such splendid +advantage in the street that I always thought he must be a lineal +descendant of the brazen serpent himself, he evinced a certain timidity +which was to me inexplicable, until I recalled that the big snake of Irish +legends had shown the same modesty when Saint Patrick wanted him to enter +the chest which he had prepared for his prison. “Sure, +it’s a nate little house I’ve made for yees,” said the +saint, “wid an iligant parlor.” “I don’t like +the look av it at all, at all,” says the sarpent, as he squinted at +it suspiciously, “and I’m loath to <i>inter</i> it.”</p> +<p>Abdullah looked at the parlor as if he too were loath to +“inter” it; but he was in charge of one in whom his race +instinctively trust, so I led him in. His apparel was simple: it +consisted of a coarse shirt, very short, with a belt around the waist, and +an old tarbouch on his head. Between the shirt and his bare skin, as +in a bag, was about a half peck of cobras, asps, vipers, and similar +squirming property; while between his cap and his hair were generally +stowed one or two enormous living scorpions, and any small serpents that he +could not trust to dwell with the larger ones. When I asked Abdullah +where he contrived to get such vast scorpions and such lively serpents, he +replied, “Out in the desert.” I arranged, in fact, to go +out with him some day a-snaking and <!-- page 301--><a +name="page301"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 301</span>scorp’ing, and +have ever since regretted that I did not avail myself of the +opportunity. He showed off his snakes to the ladies, and concluded by +offering to eat the largest one alive before our eyes for a dollar, which +price he speedily reduced to a half. There was a young New England +lady present who was very anxious to witness this performance; but as I +informed Abdullah that if he attempted anything of the kind I would kick +him out-of-doors, snakes and all, he ceased to offer to show himself a +cannibal. Perhaps he had learned what Rabbi Simon ben Yochai taught, +that it is a good deed to smash the heads of the best of serpents, even as +it is a duty to kill the best of Goyim. And if by Goyim he meant +Philistines, I agree with him.</p> +<p>I often met Abdullah after that, and helped him to several very good +exhibitions. Two or three things I learned from him. One was +that the cobra, when wide awake, yet not too violently excited, lifts its +head and maintains a curious swaying motion, which, when accompanied by +music, may readily be mistaken for dancing acquired from a teacher. +The Hindu <i>sappa-wallahs</i> make people believe that this +“dancing” is really the result of tuition, and that it is +influenced by music. Later, I found that the common people in Egypt +continue to believe that the snakes which Abdullah and his tribe exhibit +are as dangerous and deadly as can be, and that they are managed by +magic. Whether they believe, as it was held of old by the Rabbis, +that serpents are to be tamed by sorcery only on the Sabbath, I never +learned.</p> +<p>Abdullah was crafty enough for a whole generation of snakes, but in the +wisdom attributed to serpents he was woefully wanting. He would run +by my side <!-- page 302--><a name="page302"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +302</span>in the street as I rode, expecting that I would pause to accept a +large wiggling scorpion as a gift, or purchase a viper, I suppose for a +riding-whip or a necktie. One day when I was in a jam of about a +hundred donkey-boys, trying to outride the roaring mob, and all of a fever +with heat and dust, Abdullah spied me, and, joining the mob, kept running +by my side, crying in maddening monotony, “Snake, sah! +Scorpion, sah! Very fine snake to-day, sah!”—just as if +his serpents were edible delicacies, which were for that day particularly +fresh and nice.</p> +<p>There are three kinds of gypsies in Egypt,—the Rhagarin, the +Helebis, and the Nauar. They have secret jargons among themselves; +but as I ascertained subsequently from specimens given by Captain Newboldt +<a name="citation302a"></a><a href="#footnote302a" +class="citation">[302a]</a> and Seetzen, as quoted by Pott, <a +name="citation302b"></a><a href="#footnote302b" class="citation">[302b]</a> +their language is made up of Arabic “back-slang,” Turkish and +Greek, with a very little Romany,—so little that it is not wonderful +that I could not converse with them in it. The Syrian gypsies, or +Nuri, who are seen with bears and monkeys in Cairo, are strangers in the +land. With them a conversation is not difficult. It is +remarkable that while English, German, and Turkish or Syrian gypsy look so +different and difficult as printed in books, it is on the whole an easy +matter to get on with them in conversation. The roots being the same, +a little management soon supplies the rest.</p> +<p>Abdullah was a Helebi. The last time I saw him I was sitting on +the balcony of Shepherd’s Hotel, in the early evening, with an +American, who had never seen a snake-charmer. I called the boy, and +inadvertently <!-- page 303--><a name="page303"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 303</span>gave him his pay in advance, telling him to +show all his stock in trade. But the temptation to swindle was too +great, and seizing the coin he rushed back into the darkness. From +that hour I beheld him no more. I think I can see that last gleam of +his demon eyes as he turned and fled. I met in after-days with other +snake-boys, but for an eye which indicated an unadulterated child of the +devil, and for general blackguardly behavior to match, I never found +anybody like my young friend Abdullah.</p> +<p>The last snake-masters whom I came across were two sailors at the +Oriental Seamen’s Home in London. And strangely enough, on the +day of my visit they had obtained in London, of all places, a very large +and profitable job; for they had been employed to draw the teeth of all the +poisonous serpents in the Zoological Garden. Whether these +practitioners ever applied for or received positions as members of the +Dental College I do not know, any more than if they were entitled to +practice as surgeons without licenses. Like all the Hindu +<i>sappa-wallahs</i>, or snake-men, they are what in Europe would be called +gypsies.</p> +<h2><!-- page 304--><a name="page304"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +304</span>GYPSY NAMES AND FAMILY CHARACTERISTICS.</h2> +<p>The following list gives the names of the principal gypsy families in +England, with their characteristics. It was prepared for me by an +old, well-known Romany, of full blood. Those which have (<span +class="smcap">a</span>) appended to them are known to have representatives +in America. For myself, I believe that gypsies bearing all these +names are to be found in both countries. I would also state that the +personal characteristics attributed to certain families are by no means +very strictly applicable, neither do any of them confine themselves rigidly +to any particular part of England. I have met, for instance, with +Bosvilles, Lees, Coopers, Smiths, Bucklands, etc., in every part of England +as well as Wales. I am aware that the list is imperfect in all +respects.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ayres</span>.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Bailey (a)</span>. Half-bloods. Also +called rich. Roam in Sussex.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Barton</span>. Lower Wiltshire.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Black</span>. Hampshire.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Bosville (a)</span>. Generally spread, but are +specially to be found in Devonshire. I have found several fine +specimens of real Romanys among the American Bosvilles. In Romany, +<i>Chumomishto</i>, that is, Buss (or Kiss) well.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Broadway (a)</span>. Somerset.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Buckland</span>. In Gloucestershire, but +abounding over England. Sometimes called <i>Chokamengro</i>, that is +Tailor.</p> +<p><!-- page 305--><a name="page305"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +305</span><span class="smcap">Burton (a)</span>. Wiltshire.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Chapman (a)</span>. Half-blood, and are +commonly spoken of as a rich clan. Travel all over England.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Chilcott</span> (vul. <span +class="smcap">Chilcock</span>).</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Clarke</span>. Half-blood. +Portsmouth.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Cooper (a)</span>. Chiefly found in Berkshire +and Windsor. In Romany, <i>Vardo mescro</i>.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Davies</span>.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Dickens</span>. Half-blood.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Dighton</span>. Blackheath.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Draper</span>. Hertfordshire.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Finch</span>.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Fuller</span>. Hardly half-blood, but talk +Romany.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gray</span>. Essex. In Romany, +<i>Gry</i>, or horse.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Hare (a)</span>. Chiefly in Hampshire.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Hazard</span>. Half-blood. Windsor.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Herne</span>. Oxfordshire and London. +“Of this name there are,” says Borrow (Romano Lavo-Lil), +“two gypsy renderings: (1.) Rosar-mescro or Ratzie-mescro, that +is, <i>duck</i>-fellow; the duck being substituted for the <i>heron</i>, +for which there is no word in Romany, this being done because there is a +resemblance in the sound of Heron and Herne. (2.) Balor-engre, +or Hairy People, the translator having confounded Herne with Haaren, Old +English for hairs.”</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Hicks</span>. Half-blood. Berkshire.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Hughes</span>. Wiltshire.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ingraham (a)</span>. Wales and Birmingham, or +in the Kálo tem or Black Country.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">James</span>. Half-blood.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Jenkins</span>. Wiltshire.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Jones</span>. Half-blood. Headquarters +at Battersea, near London.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Lee (a)</span>. The same in most respects as +the Smiths, but are even more widely extended. I have met with +several of the most decided type of pure-blooded, old-fashioned gypsies +among Lees in America. They are sometimes <!-- page 306--><a +name="page306"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 306</span>among themselves +called <i>purum</i>, a <i>lee-k</i>, from the fancied resemblance of the +words.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Lewis</span>. Hampshire.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Locke</span>. Somerset and +Gloucestershire.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Lovel</span>. Known in Romany as Kamlo, or +Kamescro, that is, lover. London, but are found everywhere.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Loveridge</span>. Travel in Oxfordshire; are +in London at Shepherd’s Bush.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Marshall</span>. As much Scotch as English, +especially in Dumfriesshire and Galloway, in which latter region, in Saint +Cuthbert’s church-yard, lies buried the “old man” of the +race, who died at the age of one hundred and seven. In Romany +Makkado-tan-engree, that is, Fellows of the Marshes. Also known as +Bungoror, cork-fellows and Chikkenemengree, china or earthenware (lit. dirt +or clay) men, from their cutting corks, and peddling pottery, or mending +china.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Matthews</span>. Half-blood. Surrey.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">North</span>.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Petulengro</span>, or <span +class="smcap">Smith</span>. The Romany name Petulengro means Master +of the Horseshoe; that is, Smith. The gypsy who made this list +declared that he had been acquainted with Jasper Petulengro, of +Borrow’s Lavengro, and that he died near Norwich about sixty years +ago. The Smiths are general as travelers, but are chiefly to be found +in the East of England.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Pike</span>. Berkshire.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Pinfold</span>, or <span +class="smcap">Penfold</span>. Half and quarter blood. Widely +extended, but most at home in London.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Róllin</span> (<span +class="smcap">Roland</span>?). Half-blood. Chiefly about +London.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Scamp</span>. Chiefly in Kent. A small +clan. Mr. Borrow derives this name from the Sanskrit Ksump, to +go. I trust that it has not a more recent and purely English +derivation.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Shaw</span>.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Small (a)</span>. Found in West England, +chiefly in Somerset and Devonshire.</p> +<p><!-- page 307--><a name="page307"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +307</span><span class="smcap">Stanley (a)</span>. One of the most +extended clans, but said to be chiefly found in Devonshire. They +sometimes call themselves in joke Beshalay, that is, Sit-Down, from the +word <i>stan</i>, suggesting standing up in connection with lay. Also +Bangor, or Baromescre, that is, Stone (stan) people. Thus +“Stony-lea” was probably their first name. Also called +Kashtengrees, Woodmen, from the New Forest.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Taylor</span>. A clan described as +<i>diddikai</i>, or half-bloods. Chiefly in London. This clan +should be the only one known as <i>Chokamengro</i>.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Turner</span>.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Walker</span>. Half-blood. Travel about +Surrey.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Wells (a)</span>. Half-blood. +Somerset.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Wharton</span>. <span +class="smcap">Worton</span>. I have only met the Whartons in +America.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Wheeler</span>. Pure and half-blood. +Battersea.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">White</span>.</p> +<p>“Adré o Lavines tem o Romanies see <span +class="smcap">Woods</span>, <span class="smcap">Roberts</span>, <span +class="smcap">Williams</span>, and <span class="smcap">Jones</span>. +In Wales the gypsies are Woods, Roberts, Williams, and Jones.” <a +name="citation307a"></a><a href="#footnote307a" +class="citation">[307a]</a></p> +<h3>CHARACTERISTICS. <a name="citation307b"></a><a href="#footnote307b" +class="citation">[307b]</a></h3> +<p>Of these gypsies the <span class="smcap">Bailies</span> are fair.</p> +<p>The <span class="smcap">Birds</span> are in Norfolk and Suffolk.</p> +<p>The <span class="smcap">Blacks</span> are dark, stout, and strong.</p> +<p>The <span class="smcap">Bosvilles</span> are rather short, fair, stout, +and heavy.</p> +<p>The <span class="smcap">Broadways</span> are fair, of medium height and +good figures.</p> +<p>The <span class="smcap">Bucklands</span> are thin, dark, and +tallish.</p> +<p>The <span class="smcap">Bunces</span> travel in the South of +England.</p> +<p>The <span class="smcap">Burtons</span> are short, dark, and very +active.</p> +<p>The <span class="smcap">Chapmans</span> are fair.</p> +<p><!-- page 308--><a name="page308"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +308</span>The <span class="smcap">Clarkes</span> are fair and well-sized +men.</p> +<p>The <span class="smcap">Coopers</span> are short, dark, and very +active.</p> +<p>The <span class="smcap">Dightons</span> are very dark and stout.</p> +<p>The <span class="smcap">Drapers</span> are very tall and large and +dark.</p> +<p>The <span class="smcap">Faas</span> are at Kirk Yetholm, in +Scotland.</p> +<p>The <span class="smcap">Grays</span> are very large and fair.</p> +<p>The <span class="smcap">Greenes</span> are small and dark.</p> +<p>The <span class="smcap">Gregories</span> range from Surrey to +Suffolk.</p> +<p>The <span class="smcap">Hares</span> are large, stout, and dark.</p> +<p>The <span class="smcap">Hazards</span> are tall and fair.</p> +<p>The <span class="smcap">Hernes</span> (Herons) are very large and +dark.</p> +<p>The <span class="smcap">Hicks</span> are very large, strong, and +fair.</p> +<p>The <span class="smcap">Hughes</span> are short, stubby, and dark.</p> +<p>The <span class="smcap">Ingrahams</span> are fair and all of medium +height.</p> +<p>The <span class="smcap">Jenkins</span> are dark, not large, and +active.</p> +<p>The <span class="smcap">Jones</span> are fair and of middling +height.</p> +<p>The <span class="smcap">Lanes</span> are fair and of medium height.</p> +<p>The <span class="smcap">Lees</span> are dark, tall, and stout.</p> +<p>The <span class="smcap">Lewis</span> are dark and of medium height.</p> +<p>The <span class="smcap">Lights</span> are half-bloods, and travel in +Middlesex.</p> +<p>The <span class="smcap">Lockes</span> are shortish, dark, and large.</p> +<p>The <span class="smcap">Lovells</span> are dark and large.</p> +<p>The <span class="smcap">Maces</span> are about Norwich.</p> +<p>The <span class="smcap">Matthews</span> are thick, short, and stout, +fair, and good fighters.</p> +<p>The <span class="smcap">Millers</span> are at Battersea.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">North</span>. Are to be found at +Shepherd’s Bush.</p> +<p>The <span class="smcap">Olivers</span> are in Kent.</p> +<p>The <span class="smcap">Pikes</span> are light and very tall.</p> +<p>The <span class="smcap">Pinfolds</span> are light, rather tall, not +heavy. (Are really a Norfolk family. F. Groome.)</p> +<p>The <span class="smcap">Rolands</span> are rather large and dark.</p> +<p>The <span class="smcap">Scamps</span> are very dark and stout.</p> +<p>The <span class="smcap">Shaws</span> travel in Middlesex.</p> +<p>The <span class="smcap">Smalls</span> are tall, stout, and fair.</p> +<p>The <span class="smcap">Smiths</span> are dark, rather tall, slender, +and active.</p> +<p>The <span class="smcap">Stanleys</span> are tall, dark, and +handsome.</p> +<p><!-- page 309--><a name="page309"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +309</span>The <span class="smcap">Taylors</span> are short, stout, and +dark.</p> +<p>The <span class="smcap">Turners</span> are also in Norfolk and +Suffolk.</p> +<p>The <span class="smcap">Walkers</span> are stout and fair.</p> +<p>The <span class="smcap">Wells</span> are very light and tall.</p> +<p>The <span class="smcap">Wheelers</span> are thin and fair.</p> +<p>The <span class="smcap">Whites</span> are short and light.</p> +<p>The <span class="smcap">Youngs</span> are very dark. They travel +in the northern counties, and belong both to Scotland and England.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p>The following is a collection of the more remarkable “fore” +or Christian names of Romanys:—</p> +<h3>MASCULINE NAMES.</h3> +<p>Opi Boswell.</p> +<p>Wanselo, or Anselo. I was once of the opinion that this name was +originally Lancelot, but as Mr. Borrow has found Wentzlow, <i>i.e.</i>, +Wenceslas, in England, the latter is probably the original. I have +found it changed to Onslow, as the name painted on a Romany van in +Aberystwith, but it was pronounced Anselo.</p> +<p>Pastor-rumis.</p> +<p>Spico.</p> +<p>Jineral, <i>i.e.</i>, General Cooper.</p> +<p>Horferus and Horfer. Either Arthur or Orpheus. His name was +then changed to Wacker-doll, and finally settled into Wacker.</p> +<p>Plato or Platos Buckland.</p> +<p>Wine-Vinegar Cooper. The original name of the child bearing this +extraordinary name was Owen. He died soon after birth, and was in +consequence always spoken of as Wine-Vinegar,—Wine for the joy which +his parents had at his birth, and Vinegar to signify their grief at his +loss.</p> +<p>Gilderoy Buckland. Silvanus Boswell.</p> +<p>Lancelot Cooper. Sylvester, Vester, Wester, Westarus and +’Starus.</p> +<p>Oscar Buckland. </p> +<p>Dimiti Buckland. Liberty.</p> +<p>Piramus Boswell. Goliath.</p> +<p><!-- page 310--><a name="page310"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +310</span>Reconcile. Octavius.</p> +<p>Justerinus. Render Smith.</p> +<p>Faunio.</p> +<p>Shek-ésu. I am assured on good authority that a gypsy had a +child baptized by this name.</p> +<p>Artaros. Sacki.</p> +<p>Culvato (Claude). Spysell.</p> +<p>Divervus. Spico.</p> +<p>Lasho, <i>i.e.</i>, Louis.</p> +<p>Vesuvius. I do not know whether any child was actually called by +this burning cognomen, but I remember that a gypsy, hearing two gentlemen +talking about Mount Vesuvius, was greatly impressed by the name, and +consulted with them as to the propriety of giving it to his little boy.</p> +<p>Wisdom. Loverin.</p> +<p>Inverto. Mantis.</p> +<p>Studaveres Lovel. Happy Boswell.</p> +<h3>FEMININE NAMES.</h3> +<p>Selinda, Slinda, Linda, Slindi. Delilah.</p> +<p>Mia. Prudence.</p> +<p>Mizelia, Mizelli, Mizela. Providence.</p> +<p>Lina. Eve.</p> +<p>Pendivella. Athaliah.</p> +<p>Jewránum, <i>i.e.</i>, Geranium. Gentilla, Gentie.</p> +<p>Virginia. Synfie. Probably Cynthia.</p> +<p>Suby, Azuba. Sybie. Probably from Sibyl.</p> +<p>Isaia.</p> +<p>Richenda. Canairis.</p> +<p>Kiomi. Fenella.</p> +<p>Liberina. Floure, Flower, Flora.</p> +<p>Malindi. Kisaiya.</p> +<p>Otchamé. Orlenda.</p> +<p>Renée. Reyora, Regina.</p> +<p>Sinaminta. Syeira. Probably Cyra.</p> +<p>Y-yra or Yeira. Truffeni.</p> +<p>Delīra, Deleera. Ocean Solis.</p> +<p><!-- page 311--><a name="page311"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +311</span>Marili Stanley. Penelli. Possibly from Fenella.</p> +<p>Britannia.</p> +<p>Glani. Ségel Buckland.</p> +<p>Zuba. Morella Knightly.</p> +<p>Sybarini Cooper. Eza.</p> +<p>Esmeralda Locke. Lenda.</p> +<p>Penti. Collia.</p> +<p>Reservi. This extraordinary name was derived from a reservoir, by +which some gypsies were camped, and where a child was born.</p> +<p>Lementina. Casello (Celia).</p> +<p>Rodi. Catseye.</p> +<p>Alabïna. Trainette.</p> +<p>Dosia. Perpinia.</p> +<p>Lavi. Dora.</p> +<p>Silvina. Starlina.</p> +<p>Richenda. Bazena.</p> +<p>Marbelenni. Bena.</p> +<p>Ashena. Ewri.</p> +<p>Vashti. Koket.</p> +<p>Youregh. Lusho.</p> +<h2><!-- page 312--><a name="page312"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +312</span>GYPSY STORIES IN ROMANY, WITH TRANSLATION.</h2> +<h3>MERLINOS TE TRINALI.</h3> +<p>“Miro koko, pen mandy a rinkeno gudlo?”</p> +<p>Avali miri chavi. Me ’tvel pen tute dui te shyan trin, vonka +tute ’atches sār pūkeno. Shūn amengi. +Yeckorus adré o Làvines tem sos a boro chovihan, navdo +Merlinos. Gusvero mush sos Merlinos, būti seeri covva yuv asti +kair. Jindás yuv ta pūr yeck jivnipen adré o +waver, saster adré o rūpp, te o rūpp adré +sonakai. Finō covva sos adovo te sos miro. Te longoduro +fon leste jivdes a bori chovihani, Trinali sos lākis nav. +Boridiri chovihani sos Trinali, būti manushe seerdas yoi, būti +ryor pūrdas yoi adré mylia te bālor, te né +kesserdas yeck haura pā sār lender dush.</p> +<p>Yeck divvus Merlinos liás lester chovihaneskro ran te jas +adūro ta latcher i chovihanī te pessur lāki drován +pā sār lākis wafropen. Te pā adovo tacho +dívvus i rāni Trinali shundas sa Merlinos boro ruslo sorelo +chovihan se, te pendas, “Sossi ajafra mush? Me dukkerāva +leste or yuv tevel mer mande, s’up mi o beng! me shom te seer +leste. Mukkamen dikk savo lela kūmi shūnaben, te savo +sē o jinescrodiro?” Te adoi o Merlinos jās +apré o dromus, sārodívvus akonyo, sarja adré o +kamescro dūd, te Trinali jās <!-- page 313--><a +name="page313"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 313</span>adré o wesh +sarjā adré o rātinus, o tam, o kālopen, o shure, +denne yoi sos chovihāni. Kennāsig, yān latcherde +yeckawaver, awer Merlinos né jindas yoi sos Trinali, te Trinali +né jindas adovo manush se Merlinos. Te yuv sos būti +kamelo ke laki, te yoi apopli; kennāsig yāndūi ankairde ta +kām yeckawaver butidiro. Vonka yeck jinella adovo te o waver +jinella lis, kek boro chirus tvel i duī sosti jinavit. Merlinos +te Trinali pende “me kamava tute,” sig ketenes, te +chūmerde yeckawaver, te beshde alay rikkerend adré o simno +pelashta te rakkerde kūshto bāk.</p> +<p>Te adenna Merlinos pūkkerdas lāki, yuv jas ta dusher a +būti wafodi chovihani, te Trinali pendas lesko o simno covva, sā +yoi sos ruzno ta kair o sīmno keti a boro chovihano. Te i +dūi ankairede ta mānger yeckawāver ta mūkk o covva +jā, te yoi te yuv shomas atrash o nasherin lende pireno te +pirenī. Awer Merlinos pendas, “Mandy sovahalldom pā o +kam ta pur lāki pā sār lākis jivaben adré o +wāves trūppo.” Te yoi ruvvedas te pendas, +“Sovahalldas me pā o chone ta pūr adovo chovihano +adré a wavero, sim’s tute.” Denna Merlinos +putcherdas, “Sāsi lesters nav?” Yoi pendas, +“Merlinos.” Yuv rakkeredas palall, “Me shom leste, +sāsī tiro nav?” Yoi shelledas avrī, +“Trinali!”</p> +<p>Kennā vānka chovihanis sovahallan chumeny apré o kam te +i choni, yān sosti keravit or mér. Te denna Merlinos +pendas, “Jinesa tu sā ta kair akovo pennis sār kūshto +te tacho?” “Kekker mīro kāmlo pireno,” +pendas i chori chovihanī sā yoi ruvdas.” “Denna +me shom kūmi jinescro, ne tute,” pendas Merlinos. +“Shukar te kūshto covva se akovo, miri romni. Me bevel +pūr tute adré mande, te mande adré tute. Te vonka +mendui shom romadi mendui tevel yeck.”</p> +<p><!-- page 314--><a name="page314"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +314</span>Sā yeck mush ta dívvus kennā penella yoi +siggerdas leste, te awavero pens yuv siggerdas lāki. Ne +jināva me miri kāmeli. Ne dikkdas tu kekker a dui sherescro +haura? Avail! Wūsser lis uppar, te vānka lis pellalay +pūkk amengy savo rikk se alay. Welsher pendas man adovo. +Welsheri pennena sarja tachopen.</p> +<h3>MERLIN AND TRINALI.</h3> +<p>“My uncle, tell me a pretty story!”</p> +<p>Yes, my child. I will tell you two, and perhaps three, if you keep +very quiet. Listen to me. Once in Wales there was a great +wizard named Merlin. Many magic things he could do. He knew how +to change one living being into another, iron into silver, and silver into +gold. A fine thing that would be if it were mine. And afar from +him lived a great witch. Trinali was her name. A great witch +was Trinali. Many men did she enchant, many gentlemen did she change +into asses and pigs, and never cared a copper for all their sufferings.</p> +<p>One day Merlin took his magic rod, and went afar to find the witch, and +pay her severely for all her wickedness. And on that very [true] day +the lady Trinali heard how Merlin was [is] a great, powerful wizard, and +said, “What sort of a man is this? I will punish him or he +shall kill me, deuce help me! I will bewitch him. Let us see +who has the most cleverness and who is the most knowing.” And +then Merlin went on the road all day alone, always in sunshine; and Trinali +went in the forest, always in the shade, the darkness, the gloom, for she +was a black witch. Soon they found one another, but Merlin did not +know [that] she was Trinali, and Trinal, <!-- page 315--><a +name="page315"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 315</span>did not know that man +was [is to be] Merlin. And he was very pleasant to her, and she to +him again. Very soon the two began to love one another very +much. When one knows that and the other knows it, both will soon know +it. Merlin and Trinali said “I love thee” both together, +and kissed one another, and sat down wrapped in the same cloak, and +conversed happily.</p> +<p>Then Merlin told her he was going to punish a very wicked witch; and +Trinali told him the same thing, how she was bold [daring] to do the same +thing to a great wizard. And the two began to beg one another to let +the thing go, and she and he were afraid of losing lover and +sweetheart. But Merlin said, “I swore by the sun to change her +for her whole life into another form” [body]; and she wept and said, +“I swore by the moon to change that wizard into another [person] even +as you did.” Then Merlin inquired, “What is his +name?” She said, “Merlin.” He replied, +“I am he; what is your name?” She cried aloud, +“Trinali.”</p> +<p>Now when witches swear anything on the sun or the moon, they must do it +or die. Then Merlin said, “Do you know how to make this +business all nice and right?” “Not at all, my dear +love,” said the poor witch, as she wept. “Then I am +cleverer than you,” said Merlin. “An easy and nice thing +it is, my bride. For I will change you into me, and myself into +you. And when we are married we two will be one.”</p> +<p>So one man says nowadays that she conquered him, and another that he +conquered her. I do not know [which it was], my dear. Did you +ever see a two-headed halfpenny? <i>Yes</i>? Throw it up, and +<!-- page 316--><a name="page316"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +316</span>when it falls down ask me which side is under. A Welsher +told me that story. Welshers always tell the truth.</p> +<h3>O PŪV-SŪVER.</h3> +<p>Yeckorus sims būti kedivvus, sos rakli, te yoi sos kushti +partanengrī, te yoi astis kair a rinkeno plāchta, yeck sār +dívvus. Te covakai chi kamdas rye butidiro, awer yeck +dívvus lākis pīreno sos stardo adré staruben. +Te vonka yoi shundas lis, yoi hushtiedas apré te jas keti krallis te +mangerdas leste choruknes ta mūkk lākis pīreno jā +pīro. Te krallis patserdas lāki tevel yoi kairdas leste a +rinkeno plāchta, yeck sār divvus pā kūrikus, hafta +plāchta pā hafta dívvus, yuv tvel ferdel leste, te +dé leste tachaben ta jā ’vrī. I tāni +rāni siggerdas ta keravit, te pā shov divvus yoi táderedas +adrom, kūshti zī, pā lis te sārkon chirus adré o +shab yoi bítcherdas plāchta keta krallis. Awer avella +yeck dívvus yoi sos kinlo, te pendes yoi néi kamdas kair +būtsi ’dovo dívvus sī sos brishnū te yoi nestis +shīri a sappa dré o kamlo dūd. Adenn’ o +krallis pendas te yoi nestis kair būtsi hafta dívvus lava lakis +pīreno, o rye sosti hatch staramescro te yoi ne mūkkdas +kāmaben adosta pā leste. Te i rakli sos sā +húnnalo te tukno dré lakis zī yoi merdas o rúvvin +te lias pūraben adré o pūv-sūver. Te keti +dívvus kennā yoi pandella apré lakris tavia, vonka kam +peshella, te i cuttor pāni tu dikess’ apré lende shan o +panni fon lākis yākka yoi ruvdas pā lākris +pīreno.</p> +<p>Te tu vel hatch kaulo yeck lilieskro dívvus tu astis nasher +sār o kairoben fon o chollo kūrikus, miri chavi. Tu +peness’ tu kāmess’ to shūn waveri gudli. +Sār tacho. Me tevel pūker tute rinkno gudlo apré +kāli foki. Repper tute sārkon me penāva sā me +repper das lis fon miro bābus.</p> +<h3><!-- page 317--><a name="page317"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +317</span>THE SPIDER. </h3> +<p>Once there was a girl, as there are many to-day, and she was a good +needle-worker, and could make a beautiful cloak in one day. And that +[there] girl loved a gentleman very much; but one day her sweetheart was +shut up in prison, and when she heard it she hastened and went to the king, +and begged him humbly to let her love go free. And the king promised +her if she would make him a fine cloak,—one every day for a week, +seven cloaks for seven days,—he would forgive him, and give him leave +to go free. The young lady hastened to do it, and for six days she +worked hard [lit. pulled away] cheerfully at it, and always in the evening +she sent a cloak to the king. But it came [happened] one day that she +was tired, and said [that] she did not wish to work because it was rainy, +and she could not dry or bleach the cloth [?] in the sunlight. Then +the king said that if she could not work seven days to get her lover the +gentleman must remain imprisoned, for she did not love him as she should +[did not let love enough on him]. And the maid was so angry and vexed +in her heart [or soul] that she died of grief, and was changed into a +spider. And to this day she spreads out her threads when the sun +shines, and the dew-drops which you see on them are the tears which she has +wept for her lover.</p> +<p>If you remain idle one summer day you may lose a whole week’s +work, my dear. You say that you would like to hear more +stories! All right. I will tell you a nice story about lazy +people. <a name="citation317b"></a><a href="#footnote317b" +class="citation">[317b]</a> Remember <!-- page 318--><a +name="page318"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 318</span>all I tell you, as I +remembered it from my grandfather.</p> +<h3>GORGIO, KALO-MANUSH, TE ROM.</h3> +<p>Yeckorus pā ankairoben, kon i manūshia nanei lavia, o boro +Dúvel jas pirián. Sā sī asar? Shūn +miri chavi, me givellis tute:—</p> +<blockquote> +<p>Būti beshia kedivrus kennā<br /> + Adré o tem ankairoben,<br /> +O boro Dúvel jās ’vrī ajā,<br /> + Ta dikk i mushia miraben.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Sa yuv pirridas, dikkdas trin mūshia pāsh o dromescro rikk, +hatchin keti chomano mūsh te vel dé lendis navia, te len +putcherde o boro Dúvel ta navver lende. Dordi, o yeckto mush +sos pāno, te o boro Dúvel pūkkerdas kavodoi, +“Gorgio.” Te yuv sikkerdas leste kokero keti dovo, te +sūderdas leste būti kāmeli sā jewries, te rinkeni +rūdaben, te jās <i>gorgeous</i>. Te o wavescro geero sos +kālo sā skunya, te o boro Dúvel pendas, +“Nigger!” te yuv <i>nikkeredas</i> adrom, sā sūjery +te mūzhili, te yuv se <i>nikkerin</i> sarjā keti kenna, +adré o kamescro dūd, te yuv’s kālo-kālo ta kair +būtsi, naneí tu serbers leste keti lis, te tazzers lis. +Te o trinto mush sos brauuo, te yuv beshdas pūkeno, tūvin +leste’s swägler, keti o boro Dúvel rākkerdas, +“Rom!” te adenna o mūsh hatchedas apré, te pendas +būti kāmelo, “Parraco Rya tiro kūshtaben; me te vel +mishto piav tiro sastopen!” Te jās romeli a <i>roamin</i> +langs i lescro romni, te kekker dukkerdas lester kokerus, né +kesserdas pa chichi fon adennadoi keti kennā, te jās adral o +sweti, te kekker hatchedas pūkenus, te nanei hudder ta kéravit +ket’ o boro Dúvel penell’ o lav. Tacho adovo se +sā tiri yakka, miri kāmli.</p> +<h3><!-- page 319--><a name="page319"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +319</span>GORGIO, <a name="citation319a"></a><a href="#footnote319a" +class="citation">[319a]</a> BLACK MAN, AND GYPSY.</h3> +<p>Once in the creation, when men had no names, the Lord went +walking. How was that? Listen, my child, I will sing it to +you:—</p> +<blockquote> +<p>Many a year has passed away<br /> + Since the world was first begun,<br /> +That the great Lord went out one day<br /> + To see how men’s lives went on.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>As he walked along he saw three men by the roadside, waiting till some +man would give them names; and they asked the Lord to name them. See! +the first man was white, and the Lord called him Gorgio. Then he +adapted himself to that name, and adorned himself with jewelry and fine +clothes, and went <i>gorgeous</i>. And the other man was black and +the Lord called him Nigger, and he lounged away [<i>nikker</i>, to lounge, +loiter; an attempted pun], so idle and foul; and he is always lounging till +now in the sunshine, and he is too lazy [<i>kalo-kalo</i>, black-black, or +lazy-lazy, that is, too black or too lazy] to work unless you compel and +punish him. And the third man was brown, and he sat quiet, smoking +his pipe, till the Lord said, Rom! [gypsy, or “roam”]; and then +that man arose and said, very politely, “Thank you, Lord, for your +kindness. I’d be glad to drink your health.” And he +went, Romany fashion, a-roaming <a name="citation319b"></a><a +href="#footnote319b" class="citation">[319b]</a> with his romni [wife], and +never troubled himself about anything from that time till to-day, and went +through the world, and never rested and never wished <!-- page 320--><a +name="page320"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 320</span>to until the Lord +speaks the word. That is all as true as your eyes, my dear!</p> +<h3>YAG-BAR TE SASTER.<br /> +SĀ O KAM SOS ANKERDO.</h3> +<p>“Pen mandy a waver gudlo trustal o ankairoben!”</p> +<p>Né shomas adoi, awer shūndom būti apā lis fon miro +bābus. Foki pende mengy sā o chollo-tem <a +name="citation320"></a><a href="#footnote320" class="citation">[320]</a> +sos kérdo fon o kam, awer i Romany chalia savo keren sār +chingernes, pen o kam sos kérdo fon o boro tem. Wafedo gry se +adovo te nestis ja sigan te anpāli o kūshto drom. Yeckorus +’dré o pūro chirus, te kennā, sos a bori pūreni +chovihāni te kérdas sīrīni covvas, te jivdas sār +akonyo adré o heb adré o rātti. Yeck dívvus +yoi latchedas yag-bar adré o puv, te tilldas es apré te +pūkkeredas lestes nav pāle, “Yāg-bar.” Te +pāsh a bittus yoi latchedas a bitto kūshto-saster, te haderdas +lis apré te putchedas lestis nav, te lis rakkerdas apopli, +“Saster.” Chivdási dui ’dré +lākis pūtsī, te pendas Yāg-bar, “Tu sosti rummer +o rye, Saster!” Te yan kérdavit, awer yeck dívvus +i dui ankairede ta chinger, te Saster dés lestis jūva Yag-bar a +tatto-yek adré o yakk, te kairedas i chingari ta mūkker avri, +te hotcher i pūri jūva’s pūtsī. Sā yoi +wūsserdas hotcherni putsī adré o hev, te pendas lis ta +kessur adrom keti avenna o mūsh sāri jūva kun kekker +chingerd chichi. I chingari shan staria, te dovo yāg sē o +kam, te lis nanei jillo avrī keti kennā, te lis tevel hotcher +andūro būti beshia pā sār jinova mé keti +chingerben. Tacho sī? Né shomas adoi.</p> +<h3><!-- page 321--><a name="page321"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +321</span>FLINT AND STEEL.<br /> +OR HOW THE SUN WAS CREATED.</h3> +<p>“Tell me another story about the creation!”</p> +<p>I was not there at the time, but I heard a great deal about it from my +grandfather. All he did there was to turn the wheel. People +tell me that the world was made from the sun, but gypsies, who do +everything all contrary, say that the sun was made from the earth. A +bad horse is that which will not travel either way on a road. Once in +the old time, as [there may be] now, was a great old witch, who made +enchantments, and lived all alone in the sky in the night. One day +she found a flint in a field, and picked her up, and the stone told her +that her name was Flint. And after a bit she found a small piece of +steel, and picked him up, and asked his name, and he replied, +“Steel” [iron]. She put the two in her pocket, and said +to Flint, “You must marry Master Steel.” So they did, but +one day the two began to quarrel, and Steel gave his wife Flint a hot one +[a severe blow] in the eye, and made sparks fly, and set fire to the old +woman’s pocket. So she threw the burning pocket up into the +sky, and told it to stay there until a man and his wife who had never +quarreled should come there. The sparks [from Flint’s eye] are +the stars, and the fire is the sun, and it has not gone out as yet, and it +will burn on many a year, for all I know to the contrary. Is it +true? I was not there.</p> +<h3><!-- page 322--><a name="page322"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +322</span>O MANŪSH KON JIVDAS ADRÉ O CHONE (SHONE).</h3> +<p>“Pen mandy a wāver gudlo apā o chone?”</p> +<p>Avail miri deari. Adré o pūro chirus būtidosta +manushia jivvede kūshti-bākeno ’dré o chone, +sār chichi ta kair awer ta rikker āp o yāg so kérela +o dūd. Awer, amen i foki jivdas būti wafodo mūleno +manush, kon dusherdas te lias witchaben atūt sār i waveri deari +manushia, te yuv kairedas lis sā’s ta shikker lende sār +adrom, te chivdas len avrī o chone. Te kennā o sig o i foki +shan jillo, yuv pendas: “Kennā akovi dinneli juckalis shan +jillo, me te vel jiv mashni te kūshto, sār akonyus.” +Awer pāsh o bitto, o yāg ankairdas ta hátch alay, te akovo +geero latchdas se yuv né kāmdas ta hatch adré o +rātti te merav shillino, yuv sosti jā sarja pā kosht. +Te kanna i waveri foki shanas adoi, yān né kerden o rikkaben te +wadderin i kāshta adré o dívvusko chirus, awer +kennā asti lel lis sār apré sustis pikkia, sār i +rātti, te sār o divvus. Sā i foki akai apré o +chollo-tem dikena adovo manush keti dívvus kennā, sar pordo o +koshter te bittered, te mūserd te gūmeri, te gūberin keti +leskro noko kokero, te kūnerin akonyus pāsh lestis +yāg. Te i chori mushia te yuv badderedas adrom, yul [yān] +jassed sār atūt te trūstal o hev akai, te adoi, te hatchede +up būti pā lender kokeros; te adovi shan i starya, te chirkia, te +bitti dūdapen tu díkessa sārakai.</p> +<p>“Se adovo sār tacho?” Akovi se kūmi te me +jinova. Awer kanna sā tu penessa mé astis dikk o manush +dré o chone savo rikkela kāsht apré lestes dūmo, +yuv sosti keravit ta chiv adré o yāg, te yuv ne tevel dukker +lestes kokero ta kair adovo te yuv sus rumado or lias palyor, sā lis +se kāmmaben adosta o mūsh chingerd lestis palya te nassered lende +sār andūro. Tacho.</p> +<h3><!-- page 323--><a name="page323"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +323</span>THE MAN WHO LIVED IN THE MOON.</h3> +<p>“Tell me another story about the moon.”</p> +<p>Yes, my dear. In the old time many men lived happily in the moon, +with nothing to do but keep up the fire which makes the light. But +among the folk lived a very wicked, obstinate man, who troubled and hated +all the other nice [dear] people, and he managed it so as to drive them all +away, and put them out of the moon. And when the mass of the folk +were gone, he said, “Now those stupid dogs have gone, I will live +comfortably and well, all alone.” But after a bit the fire +began to burn down, and that man found that if he did not want to be in the +darkness [night] and die of cold he must go all the time for wood. +And when the other people were there, they never did any carrying or +splitting wood in the day-time, but now he had to take it all on his +shoulders, all night and all day. So the people here on our earth see +that man to this day all burdened [full] of wood, and bitter and grumbling +to himself, and lurking alone by his fire. And the poor people whom +he had driven away went all across and around heaven, here and there, and +set up in business for themselves, and they are the stars and planets and +lesser lights which you see all about.</p> +<h3>ROMANY TACHIPEN.</h3> +<p>Taken down accurately from an old gypsy. Common dialect, or +“half-and-half” language.</p> +<p>“Rya, tute kāms mandy to pukker tute the +tachopen—āwo? Se’s a boro or a kūsi covva, +mandy’ll rakker tacho, s’up mi-duvel, apré mi meriben, +<!-- page 324--><a name="page324"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +324</span>bengis adré man’nys see if mandy pens a bitto +huckaben! An’ sā se adduvvel? Did mandy ever chore a +kāni adré mi jiv? and what do the Romany chals kair o’ +the poris, ’cause kekker ever dikked chīchī pāsh of a +Romany tan? Kek rya,—mandy <i>never</i> chored a kāni +an’ adré sixty beshes kenna ’at mandy’s been +apré the drumyors, an’ sār dovo chirus mandy never dikked +or shūned or jinned of a Romany chal’s chorin yeck. +What’s adduvel tute pens?—that Petulengro kāliko +dívvus penned tute yuv rikkered a yāgengeree to muller +kānis! Avail rya—tacho se ajā—the mush penned +adré his kokero see <i>weshni</i> kanis. But kek +<i>kairescro</i> kanis. Romanis kekker chores lendy.”</p> +<h3>GYPSY TRUTH.</h3> +<p>“Master, you want me to tell you all the truth,—yes? +If it’s a big or a little thing, I’ll tell the truth, so help +me God, upon my life! The devil be in my soul if I tell the least +lie! And what is it? Did I ever in all my life steal a chicken? +and what do the gypsies do with the feathers, because nobody ever saw any +near a gypsy tent? Never, sir,—I <i>never</i> stole a chicken; +and in all the sixty years that I’ve been on the roads, in all that +time I never saw or heard or knew of a gypsy’s stealing one. +What’s that you say?—that Petulengro told you yesterday that he +carried a gun to kill <i>chickens</i>! Ah yes, sir,—that is +true, too. The man meant in his heart wood chickens [that is, +pheasants]. But not <i>domestic</i> chickens. Gypsies never +steal <i>them</i>.” <a name="citation324"></a><a href="#footnote324" +class="citation">[324]</a></p> +<h3><!-- page 325--><a name="page325"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +325</span>CHOVIHANIPEN.</h3> +<p>“Miri diri bībī, me kamāva butidiro tevel +chovihani. Kāmāva ta dukker geeris te ta jin kūnjerni +cola. Tu sosti sikker mengi sārakovi.”</p> +<p>“Oh miri kamli! vonka tu vissa te vel chovihani, te i Gorgie +jinena lis, tu lesa buti tugnus. Sār i chavi tevel +shellavrī, te kair a gudli te wūsser baria kánna dikena +tute, te shyan i bori foki mérena tute. Awer kūshti se ta +jin garini covva, kushti se vonka chori churkni jūva te sār i +sweti chungen’ apré, jinela sā ta kair lende wafodopen ta +pessur sār lenghis dūsh. Te man tevel sikker tute chomany +chovihaneskes. Shun! Vonka tu kamesa pen o dukkerin, lesa tu +sār tiro man <a name="citation325"></a><a href="#footnote325" +class="citation">[325]</a> ta latcher ajafera a manush te manushī lis +se. Dé lende o yack, chiv lis drován opā lakis +yakka tevel se rakli. Vonka se pash trasherdo yoi tevel pen būti +talla jinaben. Kánna tu sos kédo lis sórkon +chérus tu astis risser buti dinneli chaia sa tav trūstal tiro +āngushtri. Kennā-sig tiri yakka dikena pensa sappa, te +vonka tu shan hoïni tu tevel dikk pens’ o puro beng. O +pāshno covva mīri deari se ta jin sā ta plasser, te +kāmer, te masher foki. Vanka rakli lela chumeni kek-siglo +adré lakis mūi, tu sastis pen laki adovo sikerela buti +bāk. Kánna lela lulli te safráni balia, pen +lāki adovo se tatcho sigaben yoi sasti lel buti sonakei. +Kánna lakis koria wena ketenes, dovo sikerela yoi tevel ketni buti +barveli rya. Pen sarjā vonka tu dikesa o latch apré +lākis cham, talla lakis kor, te vaniso, adovos sigaben yoi tevel a +bori rāni. Mā kessur tu ki lo se, ’pré o +truppo te pré o bull, pen lāki sarjā o latch adoi se +sigaben o <!-- page 326--><a name="page326"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +326</span>boridirines. Hammer laki apré. Te dikessa tu +yoi lela bitti wastia te bitti piria, pen lāki trūstal a rye ko +se divius pā rinkeni pīria, te sā o rinkeno wast anela +kūmi bacht te rinkno mūi. Hammerin te kāmerin te +masherin te shorin shan o pāsh o dukkerin. Se kek rakli te kekno +mush adré mi duvel’s chollo-tem savo ne se boïno te +hunkari pā chomani, te sī tu astis latcher sā se tu susti +lel lender wongur. Stastis, latcher sār o rakkerben apré +foki.</p> +<p>“Awer miri bibi, adovos sar hokkanipen. Me kamāva buti +ta sikker tachni chovihanipen. Pen mandy sī nanei tachi +chovahanis, te sā yol dikena.”</p> +<p>“O tachi chovihani miri chavi, lela yakka pensa chiriclo, o kunsus +se rikkeredo apré pensa bongo chiv. Buti Yahūdi, te +nebollongeri lena jafri yakka. Te cho’hani balia shan rikkerdi +pa lākis ankairoben te surri, te adenna risserdi. Vonka +Gorgikani cho’hani lena shelni yākka, adulli shan i +trasheni.</p> +<p>“Me penava tuki chomani sirines. Vonka tu latchesa o pori te +o sasterni krafni, te anpāli tu latchesa cuttor fon papiros, tu sastis +chin apré lis sār o pori savo tu kamesa, te hā lis te tu +lesa lis. Awer tu sasti chin sār tīro noko rātt. +Sī tu latchessa pāsh o lon-doeyav o boro matcheskro-bar, te o +puro curro, chiv lis keti kan, shunesa godli. Tevel tastis kana pordo +chone peshela, besh sar nangi adré lakis dūd hefta ratti, te +shundes adré lis, sarrāti o gudli te vel tachodiro, te +anpāle tu shunesa i feris rakerena sig adosta. Vonka tu keresa +hev sār o bar adré o mulleskri-tan, jasa tu adoi yeck ratti +pāsh a waver te kennā-sig tu shunesa sā i mūlia +rakerena. Sorkon-chirus penena ki lovo se garrido. Sastis lel o +bar te risser lis apré o mulleskri-tan, talla hev si +kédo.</p> +<p>“Me penāva tūki apopli chomani cho’haunes. +Le <!-- page 327--><a name="page327"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +327</span>vini o sar covva te suverena apré o pani, pā lenia, +pā doeyav. Te asar i paneskri mullos kon jivena adré o +pani rakkerena keti pūveskri chovihanīs. Si manūsh +dikela pāno panna, te partan te diklo apré o pani te lela lis, +adovo sikela astis lel a pireni, o yuzhior te o kushtidir o partan se, o +kushtidir i rakli. Sī latchesa ran apré o pani, dovo +sikela sastis kūr tiro wafedo geero. Chokka or curro apré +o pāni penela tu tevel sig atch kāmelo sar tiri pīreni, te +pireno. Te safrāni rūzhia pā pāni dukerena +sonaki, te pauni, rupp, te loli, kammaben.”</p> +<p>“Kána latchesa klisin, dovo se būti bacht. Vonka +haderesa lis apré, pen o manusheskro te rakleskri nav, te yān +wena kamlo o tute. Butidir bacht sī lullo dori te tav. +Rikker lis, sikela kushti kāmaben. Man nasher lis avrī tiro +zī miri chavi.”</p> +<p>“Nanei, bibi, kekker.”</p> +<h3>WITCHCRAFT. <a name="citation327"></a><a href="#footnote327" +class="citation">[327]</a></h3> +<p>“My dear aunt, I wish very much to be a witch. I would like +to enchant people and to know secret things. You can teach me all +that.”</p> +<p>“Oh, my darling! if you come to be a witch, and the Gentiles know +it, you will have much trouble. All the children will cry aloud, and +make a noise and throw stones at you when they see you, and perhaps the +grown-up people will kill you. But it is nice to know secret things; +pleasant for a poor old humble woman whom all the world spits upon to know +how to do them evil and pay them for their cruelty. And I <i>will</i> +teach you something of witchcraft. Listen! <!-- page 328--><a +name="page328"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 328</span>When thou wilt tell a +fortune, put all thy heart into finding out what kind of a man or woman +thou hast to deal with. Look [keenly], fix thy glance sharply, +especially if it be a girl. When she is half-frightened, she will +tell you much without knowing it. When thou shalt have often done +this thou wilt be able to twist many a silly girl like twine around thy +fingers. Soon thy eyes will look like a snake’s, and when thou +art angry thou wilt look like the old devil. Half the business, my +dear, is to know how to please and flatter and allure people. When a +girl has anything unusual in her face, you must tell her that it signifies +extraordinary luck. If she have red or yellow hair, tell her that is +a true sign that she will have much gold. When her eyebrows meet, +that shows she will be united to many rich gentlemen. Tell her +always, when you see a mole on her cheek or her forehead or anything, that +is a sign she will become a great lady. Never mind where it is, on +her body,—tell her always that a mole or fleck is a sign of +greatness. <i>Praise her up</i>. And if you see that she has +small hands or feet, tell her about a gentleman who is wild about pretty +feet, and how a pretty hand brings more luck than a pretty face. +Praising and petting and alluring and crying-up are half of +fortune-telling. There is no girl and no man in all the Lord’s +earth who is not proud and vain about something, and if you can find it out +you can get their money. If you can, pick up all the gossip about +people.”</p> +<p>“But, my aunt, that is all humbug. I wish much to learn real +witchcraft. Tell me if there are no real witches, and how they +look.”</p> +<p>“A real witch, my child, has eyes like a bird, the corner turned +up like the point of a curved pointed <!-- page 329--><a +name="page329"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 329</span>knife. Many +Jews and un-Christians have such eyes. And witches’ hairs are +drawn out from the beginning [roots] and straight, and then curled [at the +ends]. When Gentile witches have green eyes they are the most [to be] +dreaded.</p> +<p>“I will tell you something magical. When you find a pen or +an iron nail, and then a piece of paper, you should write on it with the +pen all thou wishest, and eat it, and thou wilt get thy wish. But +thou must write all in thy own blood. If thou findest by the sea a +great shell or an old pitcher [cup, etc.], put it to your ear: you will +hear a noise. If you can, when the full moon shines sit quite naked +in her light and listen to it; every night the noise will become more +distinct, and then thou wilt hear the fairies talking plainly enough. +When you make a hole with a stone in a tomb go there night after night, and +erelong thou wilt hear what the dead are saying. Often they tell +where money is buried. You must take a stone and turn it around in +the tomb till a hole is there.</p> +<p>“I will tell you something more witchly. Observe [take care] +of everything that swims on water, on rivers or the sea. For so the +water-spirits who live in the water speak to the earth’s +witches. If a man sees cloth on the water and gets it, that shows he +will get a sweetheart; the cleaner and nicer the cloth, the better the +maid. If you find a staff [stick or rod] on the water, that shows you +will beat your enemy. A shoe or cup floating on the water means that +you will soon be loved by your sweetheart. And yellow flowers +[floating] on the water foretell gold, and white, silver, and red, +love.</p> +<p>“When you find a key, that is much luck. When you pick [lift +it] up, utter a male or female name, <!-- page 330--><a +name="page330"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 330</span>and the person will +become your own. Very lucky is a red string or ribbon. Keep +it. It foretells happy love. Do not let this run away from thy +soul, my child.”</p> +<p>“No, aunt, never.”</p> +<h2><!-- page 331--><a name="page331"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +331</span>THE ORIGIN OF THE GYPSIES.</h2> +<p>This chapter contains in abridged form the substance of papers on the +origin of the gypsies and their language, read before the London +Philological Society; also of another paper read before the Oriental +Congress at Florence in 1878; and a <i>resumé</i> of these published +in the London <i>Saturday Review</i>.</p> +<p>It has been repeated until the remark has become accepted as a sort of +truism, that the gypsies are a mysterious race, and that nothing is known +of their origin. And a few years ago this was true; but within those +years so much has been discovered that at present there is really no more +mystery attached to the beginning of these nomads than is peculiar to many +other peoples. What these discoveries or grounds of belief are I +shall proceed to give briefly, my limits not permitting the detailed +citation of authorities. First, then, there appears to be every +reason for believing with Captain Richard Burton that the Jāts of +Northwestern India furnished so large a proportion of the emigrants or +exiles who, from the tenth century, went out of India westward, that there +is very little risk in assuming it as an hypothesis, at least, that they +formed the <i>Hauptstamm</i> of the gypsies of Europe. What other +elements entered into these, with whom we are all familiar, will be +considered presently. These gypsies came from India, where caste is +established and callings are hereditary even <!-- page 332--><a +name="page332"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 332</span>among +out-castes. It is not assuming too much to suppose that, as they +evinced a marked aptitude for certain pursuits and an inveterate attachment +to certain habits, their ancestors had in these respects resembled them for +ages. These pursuits and habits were that</p> +<p>They were tinkers, smiths, and farriers.</p> +<p>They dealt in horses, and were naturally familiar with them.</p> +<p>They were without religion.</p> +<p>They were unscrupulous thieves.</p> +<p>Their women were fortune-tellers, especially by chiromancy.</p> +<p>They ate without scruple animals which had died a natural death, being +especially fond of the pig, which, when it has thus been “butchered +by God,” is still regarded even by prosperous gypsies in England as a +delicacy.</p> +<p>They flayed animals, carried corpses, and showed such aptness for these +and similar detested callings that in several European countries they long +monopolized them.</p> +<p>They made and sold mats, baskets, and small articles of wood.</p> +<p>They have shown great skill as dancers, musicians, singers, acrobats; +and it is a rule almost without exception that there is hardly a traveling +company of such performers or a theatre, in Europe or America, in which +there is not at least one person with some Romany blood.</p> +<p>Their hair remains black to advanced age, and they retain it longer than +do Europeans or ordinary Orientals.</p> +<p>They speak an Aryan tongue, which agrees in the <!-- page 333--><a +name="page333"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 333</span>main with that of the +Jāts, but which contains words gathered from other Indian +sources. This is a consideration of the utmost importance, as by it +alone can we determine what was the agglomeration of tribes in India which +formed the Western gypsy.</p> +<p>Admitting these as the peculiar pursuits of the race, the next step +should be to consider what are the principal nomadic tribes of gypsies in +India and Persia, and how far their occupations agree with those of the +Romany of Europe. That the Jāts probably supplied the main stock +has been admitted. This was a bold race of Northwestern India, which +at one time had such power as to obtain important victories over the +caliphs. They were broken and dispersed in the eleventh century by +Mahmoud, many thousands of them wandering to the West. They were +without religion, “of the horse, horsey,” and notorious +thieves. In this they agree with the European gypsy. But they +are not habitual eaters of <i>mullo bālor</i>, or “dead +pork;” they do not devour everything like dogs. We cannot +ascertain that the Jāt is specially a musician, a dancer, a mat and +basket maker, a rope-dancer, a bear-leader, or a peddler. We do not +know whether they are peculiar in India among the Indians for keeping their +hair unchanged to old age, as do pure-blood English gypsies. All of +these things are, however, markedly characteristic of certain different +kinds of wanderers, or gypsies, in India. From this we conclude, +hypothetically, that the Jāt warriors were supplemented by other +tribes,—chief among these may have been the Dom,—and that the +Jāt element has at present disappeared, and been supplanted by the +lower type.</p> +<p>The Doms are a race of gypsies found from Central <!-- page 334--><a +name="page334"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 334</span>India to the far +northern frontier, where a portion of their early ancestry appears as the +Domarr, and are supposed to be pre-Aryan. In “The People of +India,” edited by J. Forbes Watson and J. W. Kaye (India Museum, +1868), we are told that the appearance and modes of life of the Doms +indicate a marked difference from those of the people who surround them (in +Behar). The Hindus admit their claim to antiquity. Their +designation in the Shastras is Sopuckh, meaning dog-eater. They are +wanderers; they make baskets and mats, and are inveterate drinkers of +spirits, spending all their earnings on it. They have almost a +monopoly as to burning corpses and handling all dead bodies. They eat +all animals which have died a natural death, and are particularly fond of +pork of this description. “Notwithstanding profligate habits, +many of them attain the age of eighty or ninety; and it is not till sixty +or sixty-five that their hair begins to get white.” The Domarr +are a mountain race, nomads, shepherds, and robbers. Travelers speak +of them as “gypsies.” A specimen which we have of their +language would, with the exception of one word, which is probably an error +of the transcriber, be intelligible to any English gypsy, and be called +pure Romany. Finally, the ordinary Dom calls himself a Dom, his wife +a Domni, and the being a Dom, or the collective gypsydom, Domnipana. +<i>D</i> in Hindustani is found as <i>r</i> in English gypsy +speech,—<i>e.g.</i>, <i>doi</i>, a wooden spoon, is known in Europe +as <i>roi</i>. Now in common Romany we have, even in +London,—</p> +<p>Rom . . . A gypsy.</p> +<p>Romni . . . A gypsy wife.</p> +<p>Romnipen . . . Gypsydom.</p> +<p><!-- page 335--><a name="page335"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +335</span>Of this word <i>rom</i> I shall have more to say. It may be +observed that there are in the Indian <i>Dom</i> certain distinctly-marked +and degrading features, characteristic of the European gypsy, which are out +of keeping with the habits of warriors, and of a daring Aryan race which +withstood the caliphs. Grubbing in filth as if by instinct, handling +corpses, making baskets, eating carrion, being given to drunkenness, does +not agree with anything we can learn of the Jāts. Yet the +European gypsies are all this, and at the same time “horsey” +like the Jāts. Is it not extremely probable that during the +“out-wandering” the Dom communicated his name and habits to his +fellow-emigrants?</p> +<p>The marked musical talent characteristic of the Slavonian and other +European gypsies appears to link them with the Luri of Persia. These +are distinctly gypsies; that is to say, they are wanderers, thieves, +fortune-tellers, and minstrels. The Shah-Nameh of Firdusi tells us +that about the year 420 <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> Shankal, the +Maharajah of India, sent to Behram Gour, a ruler of the Sassanian dynasty +in Persia, ten thousand minstrels, male and female, called +<i>Luri</i>. Though lands were allotted to them, with corn and +cattle, they became from the beginning irreclaimable vagabonds. Of +their descendants, as they now exist, Sir Henry Pottinger says:—</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“They bear a marked affinity to the gypsies of Europe. <a +name="citation335"></a><a href="#footnote335" +class="citation">[335]</a> They speak a dialect peculiar to +themselves, have a king to each troupe, and are notorious for kidnapping +and pilfering. Their principal pastimes are drinking, dancing, and +music. . . . They are invariably attended by half a dozen of bears +and <!-- page 336--><a name="page336"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +336</span>monkeys that are broke in to perform all manner of grotesque +tricks. In each company there are always two or three members who +profess . . . modes of divining, which procure them a ready admission into +every society.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>This account, especially with the mention of trained bears and monkeys, +identifies them with the Ričinari, or bear-leading gypsies of Syria +(also called Nuri), Turkey, and Roumania. A party of these lately +came to England. We have seen these Syrian Ričinari in +Egypt. They are unquestionably gypsies, and it is probable that many +of them accompanied the early migration of Jāts and Doms.</p> +<p>The Nāts or Nuts are Indian wanderers, who, as Dr. J. Forbes Watson +declares, in “The People of India,” “correspond to the +European gypsy tribes,” and were in their origin probably identical +with the Luri. They are musicians, dancers, conjurers, acrobats, +fortune-tellers, blacksmiths, robbers, and dwellers in tents. They +eat everything, except garlic. There are also in India the Banjari, +who are spoken of by travelers as “gypsies.” They are +traveling merchants or peddlers. Among all these wanderers there is a +current slang of the roads, as in England. This slang extends even +into Persia. Each tribe has its own, but the name for the generally +spoken <i>lingua franca</i> is <i>Rom</i>.</p> +<p>It has never been pointed out, however, by any writer, that there is in +Northern and Central India a distinct tribe, which is regarded, even by the +Nāts and Doms and Jāts themselves, as peculiarly and distinctly +gypsy. There are, however, such wanderers, and the manner in which I +became aware of their existence was, to say the least, remarkable. I +was going one day along the Marylebone Road when I <!-- page 337--><a +name="page337"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 337</span>met a very dark man, +poorly clad, whom I took for a gypsy; and no wonder, as his eyes had the +very expression of the purest blood of the oldest families. To him I +said,—</p> +<p>“<i>Rakessa tu Romanes</i>?” (Can you talk gypsy?)</p> +<p>“I know what you mean,” he answered in English. +“You ask me if I can talk gypsy. I know what those people +are. But I’m a Mahometan Hindu from Calcutta. I get my +living by making curry powder. Here is my card.” Saying +this he handed me a piece of paper, with his name written on it: <i>John +Nano</i>.</p> +<p>“When I say to you, ‘<i>Rakessa tu Romanes</i>?’ what +does it mean?”</p> +<p>“It means, ‘Can you talk Rom?’ But +<i>rakessa</i> is not a Hindu word. It’s +Panjabī.”</p> +<p>I met John Nano several times afterwards and visited him in his +lodgings, and had him carefully examined and cross-questioned and pumped by +Professor Palmer of Cambridge, who is proficient in Eastern tongues. +He conversed with John in Hindustani, and the result of our examination was +that John declared he had in his youth lived a very loose life, and +belonged to a tribe of wanderers who were to all the other wanderers on the +roads in India what regular gypsies are to the English Gorgio hawkers and +tramps. These people were, he declared, “the <i>real</i> +gypsies of India, and just like the gypsies here. People in India +called them Trablūs, which means Syrians, but they were full-blood +Hindus, and not Syrians.” And here I may observe that this word +Trablūs which is thus applied to Syria, is derived from Tripoli. +John was very sure that his gypsies were Indian. They had a peculiar +language, consisting <!-- page 338--><a name="page338"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 338</span>of words which were not generally +intelligible. “Could he remember any of these +words?” Yes. One of them was <i>manro</i>, which meant +bread. Now <i>manro</i> is all over Europe the gypsy word for +bread. John Nano, who spoke several tongues, said that he did not +know it in any Indian dialect except in that of his gypsies. These +gypsies called themselves and their language <i>Rom</i>. Rom meant in +India a real gypsy. And Rom was the general slang of the road, and it +came from the Roms or Trablūs. Once he had written all his +autobiography in a book. This is generally done by intelligent +Mahometans. This manuscript had unfortunately been burned by his +English wife, who told us that she had done so “because she was tired +of seeing a book lying about which she could not read.”</p> +<p>Reader, think of losing such a life! The autobiography of an +Indian gypsy,—an abyss of adventure and darksome mysteries, +illuminated, it may be, with vivid flashes of Dacoitee, while in the +distance rumbled the thunder of Thuggism! Lost, lost, irreparably +lost forever! And in this book John had embodied a vocabulary of the +real Indian Romany dialect. Nothing was wanting to complete our +woe. John thought at first that he had lent it to a friend who had +never returned it. But his wife remembered burning it. Of one +thing John was positive: Rom was as distinctively gypsy talk in India as in +England, and the Trablūs are the true Romanys of India.</p> +<p>What here suggests itself is, how these Indian gypsies came to be called +<i>Syrian</i>. The gypsies which roam over Syria are evidently of +Indian origin; their language and physiognomy both declare it +plainly. I offer as an hypothesis that bands of gypsies who <!-- page +339--><a name="page339"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 339</span>have roamed +from India to Syria have, after returning, been called Trablūs, or +Syrians, just as I have known Germans, after returning from the father-land +to America, to be called Americans. One thing, however, is at least +certain. The Rom are the very gypsies of gypsies in India. They +are thieves, fortune-tellers, and vagrants. But whether they have or +had any connection with the migration to the West we cannot +establish. Their language and their name would seem to indicate it; +but then it must be borne in mind that the word <i>rom</i>, like +<i>dom</i>, is one of wide dissemination, <i>dūm</i> being a Syrian +gypsy word for the race. And the very great majority of even English +gypsy words are Hindi, with an admixture of Persian, and do not belong to a +slang of any kind. As in India, <i>churi</i> is a knife, +<i>nāk</i> the nose, <i>balia</i> hairs, and so on, with others which +would be among the first to be furnished with slang equivalents. And +yet these very gypsies are <i>Rom</i>, and the wife is a <i>Romni</i>, and +they use words which are not Hindu in common with European gypsies. +It is therefore not improbable that in these Trablūs, so called +through popular ignorance, as they are called Tartars in Egypt and Germany, +we have a portion at least of the real stock. It is to be desired +that some resident in India would investigate the Trablūs. It +will probably be found that they are Hindus who have roamed from India to +Syria and back again, here and there, until they are regarded as foreigners +in both countries.</p> +<p>Next to the word <i>rom</i> itself, the most interesting in Romany is +<i>zingan</i>, or <i>tchenkan</i>, which is used in twenty or thirty +different forms by the people of every country, except England, to indicate +the gypsy. An incredible amount of far-fetched erudition has <!-- +page 340--><a name="page340"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 340</span>been +wasted in pursuing this philological <i>ignis fatuus</i>. That there +are leather-working and saddle-working gypsies in Persia who call +themselves Zingan is a fair basis for an origin of the word; but then there +are Tchangar gypsies of Jāt affinity in the Punjab. Wonderful it +is that in this war of words no philologist has paid any attention to what +the gypsies themselves say about it. What they do say is sufficiently +interesting, as it is told in the form of a legend which is intrinsically +curious and probably ancient. It is given as follows in “The +People of Turkey,” by a Consul’s Daughter and Wife, edited by +Mr. Stanley Lane Poole, London, 1878: “Although the gypsies are not +persecuted in Turkey, the antipathy and disdain felt for them evinces +itself in many ways, and appears to be founded upon a strange legend +current in the country. This legend says that when the gypsy nation +were driven out of their country (India), and arrived at Mekran, they +constructed a wonderful machine to which a wheel was attached.” +From the context of this imperfectly told story, it would appear as if the +gypsies could not travel farther until this wheel should +revolve:—</p> +<p>“Nobody appeared to be able to turn it, till in the midst of their +vain efforts some evil spirit presented himself under the disguise of a +sage, and informed the chief, whose name was Chen, that the wheel would be +made to turn only when he had married his sister Guin. The chief +accepted the advice, the wheel turned round, and the name of the tribe +after this incident became that of the combined names of the brother and +sister, Chenguin, the appellation of all the gypsies of Turkey at the +present day.”</p> +<p>The legend goes on to state that in consequence of <!-- page 341--><a +name="page341"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 341</span>this unnatural +marriage the gypsies were cursed and condemned by a Mahometan saint to +wander forever on the face of the earth. The real meaning of the +myth—for myth it is—is very apparent. <i>Chen</i> is a +Romany word, generally pronounced <i>chone</i>, meaning the moon; <a +name="citation341a"></a><a href="#footnote341a" class="citation">[341a]</a> +while <i>guin</i> is almost universally given as <i>gan</i> or +<i>kan</i>. That is to say, Chen-gan or -kan, or Zin-kan, is much +commoner than Chen-guin. Now <i>kan</i> is a common gypsy word for +the sun. George Borrow gives it as such, and I myself have heard +Romanys call the sun <i>kan</i>, though <i>kam</i> is commoner, and is +usually assumed to be right. Chen-kan means, therefore, +moon-sun. And it may be remarked in this connection, that the +neighboring Roumanian gypsies, who are nearly allied to the Turkish, have a +wild legend stating that the sun was a youth who, having fallen in love +with his own sister, was condemned as the sun to wander forever in pursuit +of her, after she was turned into the moon. A similar legend exists +in Greenland <a name="citation341b"></a><a href="#footnote341b" +class="citation">[341b]</a> and in the island of Borneo, and it was known +to the old Irish. It is in fact a spontaneous myth, or one of the +kind which grow up from causes common to all races. It would be +natural, to any imaginative savage, to regard the sun and moon as brother +and sister. The next step would be to think of the one as regularly +pursuing the other over the heavens, and to this chase an erotic cause +would naturally be assigned. And as the pursuit is interminable, the +pursuer never attaining his aim, it would be in time regarded as a +penance. Hence it comes that in the most distant and different <!-- +page 342--><a name="page342"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 342</span>lands +we have the same old story of the brother and the sister, just as the Wild +Hunter pursues his bride.</p> +<p>It was very natural that the gypsies, observing that the sun and moon +were always apparently wandering, should have identified their own nomadic +life with that of these luminaries. That they have a tendency to +assimilate the idea of a wanderer and pilgrim to that of the Romany, or to +<i>Romanipen</i>, is shown by the assertion once made to me by an English +gypsy that his people regarded Christ as one of themselves, because he was +always poor, and went wandering about on a donkey, and was persecuted by +the Gorgios. It may be very rationally objected by those to whom the +term “solar myth” is as a red rag, that the story, to prove +anything, must first be proved itself. This will probably not be far +to seek. Everything about it indicates an Indian origin, and if it +can be found among any of the wanderers in India, it may well be accepted +as the possible origin of the greatly disputed word <i>zingan</i>. It +is quite as plausible as Dr. Miklosich’s very far-fetched derivation +from the +Acingani,—’Ατσίyανοι,—an +unclean, heretical Christian sect, who dwelt in Phrygia and Lycaonia from +the seventh till the eleventh century. The mention of Mekran +indicates clearly that the moon story came from India before the Romany +could have obtained any Greek name. And if gypsies call themselves or +are called Jen-gan, or Chenkan, or Zingan, in the East, especially if they +were so called by Persian poets, it is extremely unlikely that they ever +received such a name from the Gorgios of Europe. It is really +extraordinary that all the philologists who have toiled to derive the word +<i>zingan</i> from a Greek <!-- page 343--><a name="page343"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 343</span>or Western source have never reflected that if +it was applied to the race at an early time in India or Persia all their +speculations must fall to the ground.</p> +<p>One last word of John Nano, who was so called from two similar Indian +words, meaning “the pet of his grandfather.” I have in my +possession a strange Hindu knife, with an enormously broad blade, perhaps +five or six inches broad towards the end, with a long handle richly mounted +in the purest bronze with a little silver. I never could ascertain +till 1 knew him what it had been used for. Even the old ex-king of +Oude, when he examined it, went wrong on it. Not so John Nano.</p> +<p>“I know well enough what that knife is. I have seen it +before,—years ago. It is very old, and it was long in use; it +was the knife used by the public executioner in Bhotan. It is +Bhotanī.”</p> +<p>By the knife hangs the ivory-handled court-dagger which belonged to +Francis II. of France, the first husband of Mary Queen of Scots. I +wonder which could tell the strangest story of the past!</p> +<p>“It has cut off many a head,” said John Nano, “and I +have seen it before!”</p> +<p>I do not think that I have gone too far in attaching importance to the +gypsy legend of the origin of the word <i>chen-kan</i> or +<i>zingan</i>. It is their own, and therefore entitled to preference +over the theories of mere scholars; it is Indian and ancient, and there is +much to confirm it. When I read the substance of this chapter before +the Philological Society of London, Prince Lucien Bonaparte,—who is +beyond question a great philologist, and one distinguished for vast +research,—who was in the chair, seemed, in his comments on my paper, +to consider this sun and <!-- page 344--><a name="page344"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 344</span>moon legend as frivolous. And it is true +enough that German symbolizers have given us the sun myth to such an extent +that the mere mention of it in philology causes a recoil. Then, +again, there is the law of humanity that the pioneer, the gatherer of raw +material, who is seldom collector and critic together, is always +assailed. Columbus always gets the chains and Amerigo Vespucci the +glory. But the legend itself is undeniably of the gypsies and +Indian.</p> +<p>It is remarkable that there are certain catch-words, or test-words, +among old gypsies with which they try new acquaintances. One of these +is <i>kekkávi</i>, a kettle; another, <i>chinamangrī</i>, a +bill-hook, or chopper (also a letter), for which there is also another +word. But I have found several very deep mothers in sorcery who have +given me the word for sun, <i>kam</i>, as a precious secret, but little +known. Now the word really is very well known, but the mystery +attached to it, as to <i>chone</i> or <i>shule</i>, the moon, would seem to +indicate that at one time these words had a peculiar significance. +Once the darkest-colored English gypsy I ever met, wishing to sound the +depth of my Romany, asked me for the words for sun and moon, making more +account of my knowledge of them than of many more far less known.</p> +<p>As it will interest the reader, I will here give the ballad of the sun +and the moon, which exists both in Romany and Roumani, or Roumanian, in the +translation which I take from “A Winter in the City of +Pleasure” (that is Bucharest), by Florence K. Berger,—a most +agreeable book, and one containing two Chapters on the Tzigane, or +gypsies.</p> +<h3><!-- page 345--><a name="page345"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +345</span>THE SUN AND THE MOON.</h3> +<p>Brother, one day the Sun resolved to marry. During nine years, +drawn by nine fiery horses, he had rolled by heaven and earth as fast as +the wind or a flying arrow.</p> +<p>But it was in vain that he fatigued his horses. Nowhere could he +find a love worthy of him. Nowhere in the universe was one who +equaled in beauty his sister Helen, the beautiful Helen with silver +tresses.</p> +<p>The Sun went to meet her, and thus addressed her: “My dear little +sister Helen, Helen of the silver tresses, let us be betrothed, for we are +made for one another.</p> +<p>“We are alike not only in our hair and our features, but also in +our beauty. I have locks of gold, and thou hast locks of +silver. My face is shining and splendid, and thine is soft and +radiant.”</p> +<p>“O my brother, light of the world, thou who art pure of all stain, +one has never seen a brother and sister married together, because it would +be a shameful sin.”</p> +<p>At this rebuke the Sun hid himself, and mounted up higher to the throne +of God, bent before Him, and spoke:—</p> +<p>“Lord our Father, the time has arrived for me to wed. But, +alas! I cannot find a love in the world worthy of me except the +beautiful Helen, Helen of the silver hair!”</p> +<p>God heard him, and, taking him by the hand, led him into hell to +affright his heart, and then into paradise to enchant his soul.</p> +<p>Then He spake to him, and while He was speaking <!-- page 346--><a +name="page346"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 346</span>the Sun began to +shine brightly and the clouds passed over:—</p> +<p>“Radiant Sun! Thou who art free from all stain, thou hast +been through hell and hast entered paradise. Choose between the +two.”</p> +<p>The Sun replied, recklessly, “I choose hell, if I may have, for a +life, Helen, Helen of the shining silver hair.”</p> +<p>The Sun descended from the high heaven to his sister Helen, and ordered +preparation for his wedding. He put on her forehead the waving gold +chaplet of the bride, he put on her head a royal crown, he put on her body +a transparent robe all embroidered with fine pearls, and they all went into +the church together.</p> +<p>But woe to him, and woe to her! During the service the lights were +extinguished, the bells cracked while ringing, the seats turned themselves +upside down, the tower shook to its base, the priests lost their voices, +and the sacred robes were torn off their backs.</p> +<p>The bride was convulsed with fear. For suddenly, woe to her! an +invisible hand grasped her up, and, having borne her on high, threw her +into the sea, where she was at once changed into a beautiful silver +fish.</p> +<p>The Sun grew pale and rose into the heaven. Then descending to the +west, he plunged into the sea to search for his sister Helen, Helen of the +shining silver hair.</p> +<p>However, the Lord God (sanctified in heaven and upon the earth) took the +fish in his hand, cast it forth into the sky, and changed it anew into the +moon.</p> +<p><!-- page 347--><a name="page347"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +347</span>Then He spoke. And while God was speaking the entire +universe trembled, the peaks of the mountains bowed down, and men shivered +with fear.</p> +<p>“Thou, Helen of the long silver tresses, and thou resplendent Sun, +who are both free from all stain, I condemn you for eternity to follow each +other with your eyes through space, without being ever able to meet or to +reach each other upon the road of heaven. Pursue one another for all +time in traveling around the skies and lighting up the world.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p>Fallen from a high estate by sin, wicked, and therefore wandering: it +was with such a story of being penitent pilgrims, doomed for a certain +space to walk the earth, that the gypsies entered Europe from India, into +Islam and into Christendom, each time modifying the story to suit the +religion of the country which they invaded. Now I think that this sun +and moon legend is far from being frivolous, and that it conforms +wonderfully well with the famous story which they told to the Emperor +Sigismund and the Pope and all Europe, that they were destined to wander +because they had sinned. When they first entered Europe, the gypsies +were full of these legends; they told them to everybody; but they had +previously told them to themselves in the form of the Indian sun and moon +story. This was the root whence other stories grew. As the tale +of the Wandering Jew typifies the Hebrew, so does this of the sun and moon +the Romany.</p> +<h2><!-- page 348--><a name="page348"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +348</span>A GYPSY MAGIC SPELL.</h2> +<p>There is a meaningless rhyme, very common among children. It is +repeated while counting off those who are taking part in a game, and +allotting to each a place. It is as follows:—</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“Ekkeri akkery u-kery an<br /> +Fillisi’, follasy, Nicolas John<br /> +Queebee-quābee—Irishman.<br /> +Stingle ’em—stangle ’em—buck!”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>With a very little alteration in sounds, and not more than children make +of these verses in different places, this may be read as +follows:—</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“’Ekkeri, akai-ri, you kair—án.<br /> +Filissin follasy. Nakelas jā’n.<br /> +Kivi, kavi. Irishman.<br /> +Stini—stani—buck!”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>This is nonsense, of course, but it is Romany, or gypsy, and may be +translated:—</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“First—here—you begin.<br /> +Castle—gloves. You don’t play. Go on!<br /> +<i>Kivi</i>—kettle. How are you?<br /> +<i>Stini</i>—buck—buck.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The common version of the rhyme begins with:—</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“<i>One</i> ’eri—two-ery, +ékkeri—án.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>But one-ry is the <i>exact</i> translation of ékkeri; ek or yek +being one. And it is remarkable that in</p> +<blockquote> +<p><!-- page 349--><a name="page349"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +349</span>“<i>Hickory</i> dickory dock,<br /> +The rat ran up the clock;<br /> +The clock struck <i>one</i>,<br /> +And down he run,<br /> +<i>Hickory</i> dickory dock.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>We have hickory or ekkeri again, followed by a significant +<i>one</i>. It may be observed that while, the first verses abound in +Romany words, I can find no trace of any in other child-rhymes of the +kind. It is also clear that if we take from the fourth line the +<i>ingle ’em</i>, <i>angle ’em</i>, evidently added for mere +jingle, there remains <i>stan</i> or <i>stani</i>, “a buck,” +followed by the very same word in English.</p> +<p>With the mournful examples of Mr. Bellenden Kerr’s efforts to show +that all our old proverbs and tavern signs are Dutch, and Sir William +Betham’s Etruscan-Irish, I should be justly regarded as one of the +too frequent seekers for mystery in moonshine if I declared that I +positively believed this to be Romany. Yet it is possible that it +contains gypsy words, especially “fillissi,’ follasy,” +which mean exactly <i>château</i> and gloves, and I think it not +improbable that it was once a sham charm used by some Romany fortune-teller +to bewilder Gorgios. Let the reader imagine the burnt-sienna wild-cat +eyed old sorceress performing before a credulous farm-wife and her children +the great ceremony of <i>hākk’ni pānki</i>, which Mr. +Borrow calls <i>hokkani boro</i>, but for which there is a far deeper +name,—that of <i>the great secret</i>,—which even my best +friends among the Romany tried to conceal from me. This feat is +performed by inducing some woman of largely magnified faith to believe that +there is hidden in her house a magic treasure, which can only be made to +come to hand by depositing in the cellar another treasure, to which it will +come by <!-- page 350--><a name="page350"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +350</span>natural affinity and attraction. “For gold, as you +sees, my deari, draws gold, and so if you ties up all your money in a +pocket-handkercher and leaves it, you’ll find it doubled. +An’ wasn’t there the Squire’s lady, and didn’t she +draw two hundred old gold guineas out of the ground where they’d laid +in a old grave,—and only one guinea she gave me for all my trouble; +an’ I hope you’ll do better by the poor old gypsy, my deari --- +---.”</p> +<p>The gold and all the spoons are tied up,—for, as the enchantress +observes, there may be silver too,—and she solemnly repeats over it +magical rhymes, while the children, standing around in awe, listen to every +word. It is a good subject for a picture. Sometimes the windows +are closed, and candles give the only light. The next day the gypsy +comes and sees how the charm is working. Could any one look under her +cloak he might find another bundle precisely resembling the one containing +the treasure. She looks at the precious deposit, repeats her rhyme +again, and departs, after carefully charging the housewife that the bundle +must not be touched or spoken of for three weeks. “Every word +you tell about it, my-deari will be a guinea gone away.” +Sometimes she exacts an oath on the Bible that nothing shall be said.</p> +<p>Back to the farmer’s wife never again. After three weeks +another Extraordinary instance of gross credulity appears in the country +paper, and is perhaps repeated in a colossal London daily, with a reference +to the absence of the school-master. There is wailing and shame in +the house,—perhaps great suffering, for it may be that the savings of +years have beer swept away. The charm has worked.</p> +<p><!-- page 351--><a name="page351"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +351</span>But the little sharp-eared children remember it and sing it, and +the more meaningless it is in their ears the more mysterious does it +sound. And they never talk about the bundle, which when opened was +found to contain only sticks, stones, and rags, without repeating it. +So it goes from mouth to mouth, until, all mutilated, it passes current for +even worse nonsense than it was at first. It may be observed, +however,—and the remark will be fully substantiated by any one who +knows the language,—that there is a Romany <i>turn</i> to even the +roughest corners of these rhymes. <i>Kivi</i>, <i>stingli</i>, +<i>stangli</i>, are all gypsyish. But, as I have already intimated, +this does not appear in any other nonsense verses of the kind. There +is nothing of it in</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“Intery, mintery, cutery corn”—</p> +</blockquote> +<p>or in anything else in Mother Goose. It is alone in its sounds and +sense,—or nonsense. But there is not a wanderer of the roads +who on hearing it would not explain, “Rya, there’s a great deal +of Romanes in that ere.”</p> +<p>I should also say that the word <i>na-kelas</i> or +<i>né-kelas</i>, which I here translate differently, was once +explained to me at some length by a gypsy as signifying “not +speaking,” or “keeping quiet.”</p> +<p>Now the mystery of mysteries of which I have spoken in the Romany tongue +is this. The <i>hokkani boro</i>, or great trick, consists of three +parts. Firstly, the telling of a fortune, and this is to <i>pen +dukkerin</i> or <i>pen durkerin</i>. The second part is the conveying +away of the property, which is to <i>lel dūdikabin</i>, or to take +lightning, possibly connected with the very old English slang term of +<i>bien lightment</i>. There is evidently a great confusion of words +here. And the third is to <!-- page 352--><a name="page352"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 352</span>“<i>chiv o manzin apré +lati</i>,” or to put the oath upon her, which explains itself. +When all the deceived are under oath not to utter a word about the trick, +the gypsy mother has “a safe thing of it.”</p> +<p>The <i>hokkani boro</i>, or great trick, was brought by the gypsies from +the East. It has been practiced by them all over the world, it is +still played every day somewhere. This chapter was written long ago +in England. I am now in Philadelphia, and here I read in the +“Press” of this city that a Mrs. Brown, whom I sadly and +reluctantly believe is the wife of an acquaintance of mine, who walks +before the world in other names, was arrested for the same old game of +fortune-telling and persuading a simple dame that there was treasure in the +house, and all the rest of the grand deception. And Mrs. Brown, good +old Mrs. Brown, went to prison, where she will linger until a bribed +alderman, or a purchased pardon, or some one of the numerous devices by +which justice is evaded in Pennsylvania, delivers her.</p> +<p>Yet it is not a good country, on the whole, for <i>hokkani boro</i>, +since the people here, especially in the rural districts, have a +rough-and-ready way of inflicting justice which interferes sadly with the +profits of aldermen and other politicians. Some years ago, in +Tennessee, a gypsy woman robbed a farmer by the great trick of all he was +worth. Now it is no slander to say that the rural folk of Tennessee +greatly resemble Indians in certain respects, and when I saw thousands of +them, during the war, mustered out in Nashville, I often thought, as I +studied their dark brown faces, high cheek bones, and long straight black +hair, that the American is indeed reverting to the aboriginal type. +The Tennessee farmer and his neighbors, <!-- page 353--><a +name="page353"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 353</span>at any rate, reverted +very strongly indeed to the original type when robbed by the gypsies, for +they turned out all together, hunted them down, and, having secured the +sorceress, burned her alive at the stake. And thus in a single crime +and its punishment we have curiously combined a world-old Oriental offense, +an European Middle-Age penalty for witchcraft, and the fierce torture of +the red Indians.</p> +<h2><!-- page 354--><a name="page354"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +354</span>SHELTA, THE TINKERS’ TALK.</h2> +<blockquote> +<p>“So good a proficient in one quarter of an hour that I can drink +with any tinker in his own language during my life.”—<i>King +Henry the Fourth</i>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>One summer day, in the year 1876, I was returning from a long walk in +the beautiful country which lies around Bath, when, on the road near the +town, I met with a man who had evidently grown up from childhood into +middle age as a beggar and a tramp. I have learned by long experience +that there is not a so-called “traveler” of England or of the +world, be he beggar, tinker, gypsy, or hawker, from whom something cannot +be learned, if one only knows how to use the test-glasses and proper +reagents. Most inquirers are chiefly interested in the +morals—or immorals—of these nomads. My own researches as +regards them are chiefly philological. Therefore, after I had +invested twopence in his prospective beer, I addressed him in Romany. +Of course he knew a little of it; was there ever an old +“traveler” who did not?</p> +<p>“But we are givin’ Romanes up very fast,—all of us +is,” he remarked. “It is a gettin’ to be too +blown. Everybody knows some Romanes now. But there <i>is</i> a +jib that ain’t blown,” he remarked reflectively. +“Back slang an’ cantin’ an’ rhymin’ is grown +vulgar, <!-- page 355--><a name="page355"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +355</span>and Italian always <i>was</i> the lowest of the lot; thieves +<i>kennick</i> is genteel alongside of organ-grinder’s lingo, you +know. Do <i>you</i> know anythin’ of Italian, sir?”</p> +<p>“I can <i>rakker</i> it pretty <i>flick</i>” (talk it +tolerably), was my reply.</p> +<p>“Well I should never a <i>penned</i> [thought] sitch a swell gent +as you had been down so low in the slums. Now <i>Romanes</i> is +genteel. I heard there’s actilly a book about Romanes to learn +it out of. But as for this other jib, its wery hard to talk. It +is most all Old Irish, and they calls it Shelter.”</p> +<p>This was all that I could learn at that time. It did not impress +me much, as I supposed that the man merely meant Old Irish. A year +went by, and I found myself at Aberystwith, the beautiful sea-town in +Wales, with my friend Professor Palmer—a palmer who has truly been a +pilgrim <i>outre-mer</i>, even by Galilee’s wave, and dwelt as an +Arab in the desert. One afternoon we were walking together on that +end of the beach which is the antithesis of the old Norman castle; that is, +at the other extremity of the town, and by the rocks. And here there +was a little crowd, chiefly of young ladies, knitting and novel-reading in +the sun, or watching children playing on the sand. All at once there +was an alarm, and the whole party fled like partridges, skurrying along and +hiding under the lee of the rocks. For a great rock right over our +heads was about to be blasted. So the professor and I went on and +away, but as we went we observed an eccentric and most miserable figure +crouching in a hollow like a little cave to avoid the anticipated falling +stones.</p> +<p>“<i>Dikk ó dovo mush adoi a gavverin lester +kokero</i>!” (Look at that man there, hiding himself!) said the +<!-- page 356--><a name="page356"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +356</span>professor in Romanes. He wished to call attention to the +grotesque figure without hurting the poor fellow’s feelings.</p> +<p>“<i>Yuv’s atrash o’ ye baryia</i>” (He is afraid +of the stones), I replied.</p> +<p>The man looked up. “I know what you’re saying, +gentlemen. That’s Romany.”</p> +<p>“Jump up, then, and come along with us.”</p> +<p>He followed. We walked from rock to rock, and over the sand by the +sea, to a secluded nook under a cliff. Then, seated around a stone +table, we began our conversation, while the ocean, like an importunate +beggar, surfed and foamed away, filling up the intervals with its mighty +roaring language, which poets only understand or translate:—</p> +<blockquote> +<p> “Thus far, and then no more:”<br /> +Such language speaks the sounding sea<br /> + To the waves upon the shore.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Our new acquaintance was ragged and disreputable. Yet he held in +his hand a shilling copy of “Helen’s Babies,” in which +were pressed some fern leaves.</p> +<p>“What do you do for a living?” I asked.</p> +<p>“<i>Shelkin gallopas</i> just now,” he replied.</p> +<p>“And what is that?”</p> +<p>“Selling ferns. Don’t you understand? +That’s what we call it in <i>Minklers Thari</i>. That’s +tinkers’ language. I thought as you knew Romanes you might +understand it. The right name for it is <i>Shelter</i> or +<i>Shelta</i>.”</p> +<p>Out came our note-books and pencils. So this was the +<i>Shelter</i> of which I had heard. He was promptly asked to explain +what sort of a language it was.</p> +<p>“Well, gentlemen, you must know that I have no <!-- page 357--><a +name="page357"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 357</span>great gift for +languages. I never could learn even French properly. I can +conjugate the verb <i>être</i>,—that is all. I’m an +ignorant fellow, and very low. I’ve been kicked out of the +lowest slums in Whitechapel because I was too much of a blackguard for +’em. But I know rhyming slang. Do you know Lord John +Russell?”</p> +<p>“Well, I know a little of rhyming, but not that.”</p> +<p>“Why, it rhymes to <i>bustle</i>.”</p> +<p>“I see. <i>Bustle</i> is to pick pockets.”</p> +<p>“Yes, or anything like it, such as ringing the changes.”</p> +<p>Here the professor was “in his plate.” He knows +perfectly how to ring the changes. It is effected by going into a +shop, asking for change for a sovereign, purchasing some trifling article, +then, by ostensibly changing your mind as to having the change, so bewilder +the shopman as to cheat him out of ten shillings. It is easily done +by one who understands it. The professor does not practice this art +for the lucre of gain, but he understands it in detail. And of this +he gave such proofs to the tramp that the latter was astonished.</p> +<p>“A tinker would like to have a wife who knows as much of that as +you do,” he remarked. “No woman is fit to be a +tinker’s wife who can’t make ten shillings a day by +<i>glantherin</i>. <i>Glantherin</i> or <i>glad’herin</i> is +the correct word in Shelter for ringing the changes. As for the +language, I believe it’s mostly Gaelic, but it’s mixed up with +Romanes and canting or thieves’ slang. Once it was the common +language of all the old tinkers. But of late years the old +tinkers’ families are mostly broken up, and the language is +perishing.”</p> +<p><!-- page 358--><a name="page358"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +358</span>Then he proceeded to give us the words in Shelta, or Minklers +Thari. They were as follows:—</p> +<table> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Shelkin gallopas</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Selling ferns.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Soobli, Soobri</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Brother, friend—a man.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Bewr</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Woman.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Gothlin or goch’thlin</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Child.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Young bewr</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Girl.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Durra, or derra</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Bread.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Pani</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Water (Romany).</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Stiff</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>A warrant (common cant).</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Yack</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>A watch (cant, <i>i.e.</i> bull’s eye, <i>Yack</i>, an eye in +Romany).</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Mush-faker</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Umbrella mender.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Mithani (mithni)</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Policeman.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Ghesterman (ghesti)</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Magistrate.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Needi-mizzler</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>A tramp.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Dinnessy</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Cat.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Stall</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Go, travel.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Biyêghin</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Stealing.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Biyêg</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>To steal.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Biyêg th’eenik</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>To steal the thing.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Crack</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>A stick.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Monkery</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Country.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Prat</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Stop, stay, lodge.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Nêd askan</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Lodging.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Glantherin (glad’herin)</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Money, swindling.</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<p></p> +<p>This word has a very peculiar pronunciation.</p> +<table> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Sauni or sonni</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>See.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Strépuck (reepuck)</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>A harlot.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Strépuck lusk, Luthrum’s gothlin</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Son of a harlot.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Kurrb yer pee</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Punch your head or face.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Pee</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Face.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Borers and jumpers</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Tinkers’ tools.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Borers</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Gimlets.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p><!-- page 359--><a name="page359"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +359</span>Jumpers</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Cranks.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Ogles</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Eyes (common slang).</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Nyock</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Head.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Nyock</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>A penny.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Odd</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Two.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Midgic</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>A shilling.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Nyö(d)ghee</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>A pound.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Sai, sy</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Sixpence.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Charrshom, Cherrshom, Tusheroon</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>A crown.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Tré-nyock</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Threepence.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Tripo-rauniel</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>A pot of beer.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Thari, Bug</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Talk.</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<p>Can you thari Shelter? Can you bug Shelta? Can you talk +tinkers’ language?</p> +<table> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Shelter, shelta</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Tinker’s slang.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Lárkin</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Girl.</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<p>Curious as perhaps indicating an affinity between the Hindustani +<i>larki</i>, a girl, and the gypsy <i>rakli</i>.</p> +<table> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Snips</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Scissors (slang).</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Dingle fakir</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>A bell-hanger.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Dunnovans</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Potatoes.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Fay (<i>vulgarly</i> fee)</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Meat.</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<p>Our informant declared that there are vulgar forms of certain words.</p> +<table> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Gladdher</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Ring the changes (cheat in change).</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<p>“No minkler would have a bewr who couldn’t +gladdher.”</p> +<table> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Reesbin</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Prison.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Tré-moon</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Three months, a ‘drag.’</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p><!-- page 360--><a name="page360"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +360</span>Rauniel, Runniel</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Beer.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Max</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Spirits (slang).</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Chiv</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Knife. (Romany, a pointed knife, <i>i.e. tongue</i>.)</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Thari</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>To speak or tell.</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<p>“I tharied the soobri I sonnied him.” (I told the man +I saw him.)</p> +<p>Mushgraw.</p> +<p>Our informant did not know whether this word, of Romany origin, meant, +in Shelta, policeman or magistrate.</p> +<table> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Scri, scree</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>To write.</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<p>Our informant suggested <i>scribe</i> as the origin of this word.</p> +<table> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Reader</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>A writ.</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<p>“You’re readered soobri.” (You are put in the +“Police Gazette,” friend.)</p> +<p>Our informant could give only a single specimen of the Shelta +literature. It was as follows:—</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“My name is Barney Mucafee,<br /> +With my borers and jumpers down to my thee (thigh).<br /> +An’ it’s forty miles I’ve come to kerrb yer +pee.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>This vocabulary is, as he declared, an extremely imperfect specimen of +the language. He did not claim to speak it well. In its purity +it is not mingled with Romany or thieves’ slang. Perhaps some +student of English dialects may yet succeed in recovering it all. The +pronunciation of many of the words is singular, and very different from +English or Romany.</p> +<p>Just as the last word was written down, there came up a woman, a female +tramp of the most hardened <!-- page 361--><a name="page361"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 361</span>kind. It seldom happens that gentlemen +sit down in familiar friendly converse with vagabonds. When they do +they are almost always religious people, anxious to talk with the poor for +the good of their souls. The talk generally ends with a charitable +gift. Such was the view (as the vagabond afterwards told us) which +she took of our party. I also infer that she thought we must be very +verdant and an easy prey. Almost without preliminary greeting she +told us that she was in great straits,—suffering terribly,—and +appealed to the man for confirmation, adding that if we would kindly lend +her a sovereign it should be faithfully repaid in the morning.</p> +<p>The professor burst out laughing. But the fern-collector gazed at +her in wrath and amazement.</p> +<p>“I say, old woman,” he cried; “do you know who +you’re <i>rakkerin</i> [speaking] to? This here gentleman is +one of the deepest Romany ryes [gypsy gentlemen] a-going. And that +there one could <i>gladdher</i> you out of your eye-teeth.”</p> +<p>She gave one look of dismay,—I shall never forget that +look,—and ran away. The witch had chanced upon Arbaces. I +think that the tramp had been in his time a man in better position. +He was possibly a lawyer’s clerk who had fallen into evil ways. +He spoke English correctly when not addressing the beggar woman. +There was in Aberystwith at the same time another fern-seller, an elderly +man, as wretched and as ragged a creature as I ever met. Yet he also +spoke English purely, and could give in Latin the names of all the plants +which he sold. I have always supposed that the tinkers’ +language spoken of by Shakespeare was Romany; but I now incline to think it +may have been Shelta.</p> +<p>Time passed, and “the levis grene” had fallen <!-- page +362--><a name="page362"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 362</span>thrice from +the trees, and I had crossed the sea and was in my native city of +Philadelphia. It was a great change after eleven years of Europe, +during ten of which I had “homed,” as gypsies say, in +England. The houses and the roads were old-new to me; there was +something familiar-foreign in the voices and ways of those who had been my +earliest friends; the very air as it blew hummed tunes which had lost tones +in them that made me marvel. Yet even here I soon found traces of +something which is the same all the world over, which goes ever on +“as of ever,” and that was the wanderer of the road. Near +the city are three distinct gypsyries, where in summer-time the wagon and +the tent may be found; and ever and anon, in my walks about town, I found +interesting varieties of vagabonds from every part of Europe. +Italians of the most Bohemian type, who once had been like +angels,—and truly only in this, that their visits of old were few and +far between,—now swarmed as fruit dealers and boot-blacks in every +lane; Germans were of course at home; Czechs, or Slavs, supposed to be +Germans, gave unlimited facilities for Slavonian practice; while tinkers, +almost unknown in 1860, had in 1880 become marvelously common, and strange +to say were nearly all Austrians of different kinds. And yet not +quite all, and it was lucky for me they were not. For one morning, as +I went into the large garden which lies around the house wherein I wone, I +heard by the honeysuckle and grape-vine a familiar sound,—suggestive +of the road and Romanys and London, and all that is most +traveler-esque. It was the tap, tap, tap of a hammer and the clang of +tin, and I knew by the smoke that so gracefully curled at the end of the +garden a tinker was near. And I advanced to him, and as he glanced up +and <!-- page 363--><a name="page363"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +363</span>greeted, I read in his Irish face long rambles on the roads.</p> +<p>“Good-morning!”</p> +<p>“Good-mornin’, sorr!”</p> +<p>“You’re an old traveler?”</p> +<p>“I am, sorr.”</p> +<p>“Can you rakker Romanes?”</p> +<p>“I can, sorr!”</p> +<p>“<i>Pen yer nav</i>.” (Tell your name.)</p> +<p>“Owen ---, sorr.”</p> +<p>A brief conversation ensued, during which we ascertained that we had +many friends in common in the <i>puro tem</i> or Ould Country. All at +once a thought struck me, and I exclaimed,—</p> +<p>“Do you know any other languages?”</p> +<p>“Yes, sorr: Ould Irish an’ Welsh, an’ a little +Gaelic.”</p> +<p>“That’s all?”</p> +<p>“Yes, sorr, all av thim.”</p> +<p>“All but one?”</p> +<p>“An’ what’s that wan, sorr?”</p> +<p>“Can you <i>thari shelta</i>, <i>sublī</i>?”</p> +<p>No tinker was ever yet astonished at anything. If he could be he +would not be a tinker. If the coals in his stove were to turn to +lumps of gold in a twinkle, he would proceed with leisurely action to rake +them out and prepare them for sale, and never indicate by a word or a wink +that anything remarkable had occurred. But Owen the tinker looked +steadily at me for an instant, as if to see what manner of man I might be, +and then said,—</p> +<p>“<i>Shelta</i>, is it? An’ I can talk it. +An’ there’s not six min livin’ as can talk it as I +do.”</p> +<p>“Do you know, I think it’s very remarkable that you can talk +Shelta.”</p> +<p><!-- page 364--><a name="page364"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +364</span>“An’ begorra, I think it’s very remarkable, +sorr, that ye should know there is such a language.”</p> +<p>“Will you give me a lesson?”</p> +<p>“Troth I will.”</p> +<p>I went into the house and brought out a note-book. One of the +servants brought me a chair. Owen went on soldering a tin dish, and I +proceeded to take down from him the following list of words in +<i>Shelta</i>:</p> +<table> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Théddy</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Fire (<i>theinne</i>. Irish).</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Strawn</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Tin.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Blyhunka</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Horse.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Leicheen</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Girl.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Soobli</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Male, man.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Binny soobli</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Boy.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Binny</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Small.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Chimmel</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Stick.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Gh’ratha, grata</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Hat.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Griffin, or gruffin</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Coat.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Réspes</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Trousers.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Gullemnocks</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Shoes.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Grascot</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Waistcoat.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Skoich, or skoi</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Button.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Numpa</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Sovereign, one pound.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Gorhead, or godhed</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Money.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Merrih</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Nose (?).</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Nyock</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Head.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Graigh</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Hair.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Kainé, or kyni</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Ears (Romany, <i>kan</i>).</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Mélthog</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Inner shirt.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Médthel</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Black.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Cunnels</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Potatoes.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Faihé, or feyé</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Meat (<i>féoil</i>. Gaelic).</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Muogh</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Pig (<i>muck</i>. Irish).</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Miesli, misli</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>To go (origin of “mizzle”?)</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Mailyas, or moillhas</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Fingers (<i>meirleach</i>, stealers Gaelic).</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p><!-- page 365--><a name="page365"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +365</span>Shaidyog</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Policeman.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Réspun</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>To steal.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Shoich</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Water, blood, liquid.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Alemnoch</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Milk.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Räglan, or réglan</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Hammer.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Goppa</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Furnace, smith (<i>gobha</i>, a smith. Gaelic).</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Terry</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>A heating-iron.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Khoi</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Pincers.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Chimmes (compare <i>chimmel</i>)</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Wood or stick.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Mailyas</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Arms.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Koras</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Legs (<i>cos</i>, leg. Gaelic).</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Skoihōpa</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Whisky.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Bulla (<i>ull</i> as in <i>gull</i>)</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>A letter.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Thari</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Word, language.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Mush</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Umbrella (slang).</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Lyesken cherps</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Telling fortunes.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Loshools</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Flowers (<i>lus</i>, erb or flower? Gaelic).</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Dainoch</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>To lose.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Chaldroch</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Knife (<i>caldock</i>, sharply pointed. Gaelic).</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Bog</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>To get.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Masheen</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Cat.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Cāmbra</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Dog.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Laprogh</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Goose, duck.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Kaldthog</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Hen.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Rumogh</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Egg.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Kiéna</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>House (<i>ken</i>, old gypsy and modern cant).</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Rawg</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Wagon.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Gullemnoch</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Shoes.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Anālt</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>To sweep, to broom.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Anālken</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>To wash.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>D’erri</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Bread.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>R’ghoglin (gogh’leen)</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>To laugh.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p><!-- page 366--><a name="page366"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +366</span>Krädyin</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>To stop, stay, sit, lodge, remain.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Oura</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Town.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Lashool</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Nice (<i>lachool</i>. Irish).</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Moïnni, or moryeni</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Good (<i>min</i>, pleasant. Gaelic).</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Moryenni yook</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Good man.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Gyami</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Bad (<i>cam</i>. Gaelic). Probably the origin of the common +canting term <i>gammy</i>, bad.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Ishkimmisk</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Drunk (<i>misgeach</i>. Gaelic)</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Roglan</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>A four-wheeled vehicle.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Lorch</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>A two-wheeled vehicle.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Smuggle</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Anvil.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Granya</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Nail.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Riaglon</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Iron.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Gūshūk</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Vessel of any kind.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Tédhi, thédi</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Coal; fuel of any kind.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Grawder</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Solder.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Tanyok</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Halfpenny.</p> +<p>(Query <i>tāni</i>, little, Romany, and <i>nyok</i>, a head.)</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Chlorhin</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>To hear.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Sūnain</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>To see.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Salkaneoch</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>To taste, take.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Mailyen</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>To feel (<i>cumail</i>, to hold. Gaelic).</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Crowder</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>String.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Sobyé</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>(?)</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Mislain</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Raining (mizzle?).</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Goo-ope, gūop</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Cold.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Skoichen</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Rain.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Thomyok</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Magistrate.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Shadyog</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Police.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Bladhunk</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Prison.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Bogh</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>To get.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p><!-- page 367--><a name="page367"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +367</span>Salt</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Arrested, taken.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Straihmed</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>A year.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Gotherna, guttema</p> +<p>[A very rare old word.]</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Policeman.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Dyūkās, or Jukas</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Gorgio, Gentile; one not of the class.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Misli</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Coming, to come, to send.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>To my-deal</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>To me.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Lychyen</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>People.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Grannis</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Know.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Skolaia</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>To write.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Skolaiyami</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>A good scholar.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Nyok</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Head.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Lurk</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Eye.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Menoch</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Nose.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Glorhoch</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Ear.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Koris</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Feet.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Tashi shingomai</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>To read the newspaper.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Gorheid</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Money.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Tomgarheid (<i>i.e.</i> big money)</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Gold.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Skawfer, skawper</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Silver.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Tomnumpa</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Bank-note.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Terri</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Coal.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Ghoi</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Put.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Nyadas</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Table.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Kradyin</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Being, lying.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Tarryin</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Rope.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Kor’heh</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Box.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Miseli</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Quick.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Krad’hyī</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Slow.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Th-mddusk</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Door.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Khaihed</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Chair (<i>khahir</i>. Irish).</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Bord</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Table.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Grainyog</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Window.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Rūmog</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Egg.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Aidh</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Butter.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p><!-- page 368--><a name="page368"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +368</span>Okonneh</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>A priest. Thus explained in a very Irish manner: +“<i>Okonneh</i>, or <i>Koony</i>, <i>is</i> a <i>sacred</i> man, and +<i>kunī</i> in Romany means secret. An’ sacret and sacred, +sure, are all the same.”</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Shliéma</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Smoke, pipe.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Munches</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Tobacco.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Khadyogs</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Stones.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Yiesk</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Fish (<i>iasg</i>. Gaelic).</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Cāb</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Cabbage.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Cherpin</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Book. This appears to be vulgar. <i>Llyower</i> was on +second thought declared to be the right word. (<i>Leabhar</i>, +Gaelic.)</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Misli dainoch</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>To write a letter; to write; that is, send or go.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Misli to my bewr</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Write to my woman.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Gritche</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Dinner.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Gruppa</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Supper.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Goihed</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>To leave, lay down.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Lūrks</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Eyes.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Ainoch</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Thing.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Clisp</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>To fall, let fall.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Clishpen</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>To break by letting fall.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Guth, gūt</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Black.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Gothni, gachlin</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Child.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Styémon</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Rat.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Krépoch</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Cat.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Grannien</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>With child.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Loshūb</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Sweet.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Shum</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>To own.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>L’yogh</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>To lose.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Crīmūm</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Sheep.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Khadyog</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Stone.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Nglou</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Nail.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p><!-- page 369--><a name="page369"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +369</span>Gial</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Yellow, red.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Talosk</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Weather.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Laprogh</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Bird.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Madel</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Tail.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Carob</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>To cut.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Lūbran, luber</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>To hit.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Thom</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Violently.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Mish it thom</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Hit it hard.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Subli, or soobli</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Man (<i>siublach</i>, a vagrant. Gaelic).</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<p>There you are, readers! Make good cheer of it, as Panurge said of +what was beyond him. For what this language really is passeth me and +mine. Of Celtic origin it surely is, for Owen gave me every syllable +so garnished with gutturals that I, being even less of one of the Celtes +than a Chinaman, have not succeeded in writing a single word according to +his pronunciation of it. Thus even Minklers sounds more like +<i>minkias</i>, or <i>pikias</i>, as he gave it.</p> +<p>To the foregoing I add the numerals and a few phrases:—</p> +<table> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Hain, or heen</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>One.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Do</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Two.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Tri</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Three.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Ch’air, or k’hair</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Four.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Cood</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Five.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Shé, or shay</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Six.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Schaacht, or schach’</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Seven.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Ocht</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Eight.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Ayen, or nai</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Nine.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Dy’ai, djai, or dai</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Ten.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Hinniadh</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Eleven.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Do yed’h</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Twelve.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Trin yedh</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Thirteen.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>K’hair yedh, etc.</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Fourteen, etc.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p><!-- page 370--><a name="page370"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +370</span>Tat ’th chesin ogomsa</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>That belongs to me.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Grannis to my deal</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>It belongs to me.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Dioch maa krady in in this nadas</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>I am staying here.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Tash émilesh</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>He is staying there.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Boghin the brass</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Cooking the food.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>My deal is mislin</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>I am going.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>The nidias of the kiéna don’t granny what we’re a +tharyin</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>The people of the house don’t know what we’re saying.</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<p>This was said within hearing of and in reference to a bevy of servants, +of every hue save white, who were in full view in the kitchen, and who were +manifestly deeply interested and delighted in our interview, as well as in +the constant use of my note-book, and our conference in an unknown tongue, +since Owen and I spoke frequently in Romany.</p> +<table> +<tr> +<td> +<p>That bhoghd out yer mailya</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>You let that fall from your hand.</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<p>I also obtained a verse of a ballad, which I may not literally render +into pure English:—</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“Cosson kailyah corrum me morro sari,<br /> +Me gul ogalyach mir;<br /> +Rāhet mānent trasha moroch<br /> +Me tu sosti mo dīēle.”</p> +<p>“Coming from Galway, tired and weary,<br /> +I met a woman;<br /> +I’ll go bail by this time to-morrow,<br /> +You’ll have had enough of me.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p><i>Me tu sosti</i>, “Thou shalt be (of) me,” is Romany, +which is freely used in Shelta.</p> +<p>The question which I cannot solve is, On which of the Celtic languages +is this jargon based? My informant declares that it is quite +independent of Old <!-- page 371--><a name="page371"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 371</span>Irish, Welsh, or Gaelic. In +pronunciation it appears to be almost identical with the latter; but while +there are Gaelic words in it, it is certain that much examination and +inquiry have failed to show that it is contained in that language. +That it is “the talk of the ould Picts—thim that built the +stone houses like beehives”—is, I confess, too conjectural for +a philologist. I have no doubt that when the Picts were suppressed +thousands of them must have become wandering outlaws, like the Romany, and +that their language in time became a secret tongue of vagabonds on the +roads. This is the history of many such lingoes; but unfortunately +Owen’s opinion, even if it be legendary, will not prove that the +Painted People spoke the Shelta tongue. I must call attention, +however, to one or two curious points. I have spoken of Shelta as a +jargon; but it is, in fact, a language, for it can be spoken grammatically +and without using English or Romany. And again, there is a corrupt +method of pronouncing it, according to English, while correctly enunciated +it is purely Celtic in sound. More than this I have naught to +say.</p> +<p>Shelta is perhaps the last Old British dialect as yet existing which has +thus far remained undiscovered. There is no hint of it in John Camden +Hotten’s Slang Dictionary, nor has it been recognized by the Dialect +Society. Mr. Simson, had he known the “Tinklers” better, +would have found that not Romany, but Shelta, was the really secret +language which they employed, although Romany is also more or less familiar +to them all. To me there is in it something very weird and +strange. I cannot well say why; it seems as if it might be spoken by +witches and talking toads, and uttered by the Druid stones, which are <!-- +page 372--><a name="page372"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 372</span>fabled +to come down by moonlight to the water-side to drink, and who will, if +surprised during their walk, answer any questions. Anent which I +would fain ask my Spiritualist friends one which I have long yearned to +put. Since you, my dear ghost-raisers, can call spirits from the +vasty deep of the outside-most beyond, will you not—having many +millions from which to call—raise up one of the Pictish race, and, +having brought it in from the <i>Ewigkeit</i>, take down a vocabulary of +the language? Let it be a lady <i>par +préference</i>,—the fair being by far the more fluent in +words. Moreover, it is probable that as the Picts were a painted +race, woman among them must have been very much to the fore, and that +Madame Rachels occupied a high position with rouge, enamels, and other +appliances to make them young and beautiful forever. According to +Southey, the British blue-stocking is descended from these woad-stained +ancestresses, which assertion dimly hints at their having been +literary. In which case, <i>voilà notre affaire</i>! for then +the business would be promptly done. Wizards of the secret spells, I +adjure ye, raise me a Pictess for the sake of philology—and the +picturesque!</p> +<h2>Footnotes:</h2> +<p><a name="footnote19"></a><a href="#citation19" +class="footnote">[19]</a> From the observations of Frederic Drew +(<i>The Northern Barrier of India</i>, London, 1877) there can be little +doubt that the Dom, or Dûm, belong to the pre-Aryan race or races of +India. “They are described in the Shastras as Sopukh, or +Dog-Eaters” (<i>Types of India</i>). I have somewhere met with +the statement that the Dom was pre-Aryan, but allowed to rank as Hindoo on +account of services rendered to the early conquerors.</p> +<p><a name="footnote22"></a><a href="#citation22" +class="footnote">[22]</a> Up-stairs in this gentleman’s dialect +signified up or upon, like <i>top</i> Pidgin-English.</p> +<p><a name="footnote23"></a><a href="#citation23" +class="footnote">[23]</a> <i>Puccasa</i>, Sanskrit. Low, +inferior. Given by Pliny E. Chase in his <i>Sanskrit Analogues</i> as +the root-word for several inferior animals.</p> +<p><a name="footnote26"></a><a href="#citation26" +class="footnote">[26]</a> <i>A Trip up the Volga to the Fair of +Nijni-Novgovod</i>. By H. A. Munro Butler Johnstone. 1875.</p> +<p><a name="footnote42"></a><a href="#citation42" +class="footnote">[42]</a> <i>Seven Years in the Deserts of +America</i>.</p> +<p><a name="footnote61"></a><a href="#citation61" +class="footnote">[61]</a> In Old English Romany this is called +<i>dorrikin</i>; in common parade, <i>dukkerin</i>. Both forms are +really old.</p> +<p> Flower-flag-nation man; that is, +American.</p> +<p><a name="footnote69a"></a><a href="#citation69a" +class="footnote">[69a]</a> <i>Leadee</i>, reads.</p> +<p><a name="footnote69b"></a><a href="#citation69b" +class="footnote">[69b]</a> <i>Dly</i>, dry.</p> +<p><a name="footnote69c"></a><a href="#citation69c" +class="footnote">[69c]</a> <i>Lun</i>, run.</p> +<p><a name="footnote82"></a><a href="#citation82" +class="footnote">[82]</a> Diamonds true. <i>O latcho bar</i> +(in England, <i>tatcho bar</i>), “the true or real stone,” is +the gypsy for a diamond.</p> +<p><a name="footnote97"></a><a href="#citation97" +class="footnote">[97]</a> Within a mile, Maginn lies buried, without +a monument.</p> +<p><a name="footnote108"></a><a href="#citation108" +class="footnote">[108]</a> <i>Mashing</i>, a word of gypsy origin +(<i>mashdva</i>), meaning fascination by the eye, or taking in.</p> +<p><a name="footnote125"></a><a href="#citation125" +class="footnote">[125]</a> Goerres, <i>Christliche Mystik</i>, i. +296. 1. 23.</p> +<p><a name="footnote134"></a><a href="#citation134" +class="footnote">[134]</a> <i>The Saxons in England</i>, i. 3.</p> +<p><a name="footnote159"></a><a href="#citation159" +class="footnote">[159]</a> <i>Peru urphu</i>! “Increase +and multiply!” <i>Vide</i> Bodenschatz <i>Kirchliche Verfassung +der Juden</i>, part IV. ch. 4, sect. 2.</p> +<p><a name="footnote209"></a><a href="#citation209" +class="footnote">[209]</a> <i>The Past in the Present</i>, part 2, +lect. 3</p> +<p><a name="footnote222"></a><a href="#citation222" +class="footnote">[222]</a> <i>Yoma</i>, fol. 21, col. 2.</p> +<p><a name="footnote238"></a><a href="#citation238" +class="footnote">[238]</a> <i>Zimbel</i>. The cymbal of the +Austrian gypsies is a stringed instrument, like the zitter.</p> +<p><a name="footnote241"></a><a href="#citation241" +class="footnote">[241]</a> <i>Crocus</i>, in common slang an +itinerant quack, mountebank, or seller of medicine; <i>Pitcher</i>, a +street dealer.</p> +<p><a name="footnote270"></a><a href="#citation270" +class="footnote">[270]</a> A brief <i>resumé</i> of the most +characteristic gypsy mode of obtaining property.</p> +<p><a name="footnote279"></a><a href="#citation279" +class="footnote">[279]</a> Lady, in gypsy <i>rāni</i>. The +process of degradation is curiously marked in this language. +<i>Rāni</i> (<i>rawnee</i>), in Hindi, is a queen. <i>Rye</i>, +or <i>rae</i>, a gentleman, in its native land, is applicable to a +nobleman, while <i>rashai</i>, a clergyman, even of the smallest dissenting +type, rises in the original <i>rishi</i> to a saint of the highest +order.</p> +<p><a name="footnote280"></a><a href="#citation280" +class="footnote">[280]</a> This was the very same affair and the same +gypsies described and mentioned on page 383 of <i>In Gypsy Tents</i>, by +Francis Hindes Groome, Edinburgh, 1880. I am well acquainted with +them.</p> +<p><a name="footnote285"></a><a href="#citation285" +class="footnote">[285]</a> <i>Primulaveris</i>: in German +<i>Schlüssel blume</i>, that is, key flowers; also Mary’s-keys +and keys of heaven. Both the primrose and tulip are believed in South +Germany to be an Open Sesame to hidden treasure.</p> +<p><a name="footnote292"></a><a href="#citation292" +class="footnote">[292]</a> Omar Khayyám, <i>Rubaiyat</i>.</p> +<p> <i>Johnnykin and the Goblins</i>. +London: Macmillan.</p> +<p><a name="footnote302a"></a><a href="#citation302a" +class="footnote">[302a]</a> Vide <i>Journal of the Royal Asiatic +Society</i>, vol. xvi. part 2, 1856 p. 285.</p> +<p><a name="footnote302b"></a><a href="#citation302b" +class="footnote">[302b]</a> <i>Die Zigeuner</i>.</p> +<p><a name="footnote307a"></a><a href="#citation307a" +class="footnote">[307a]</a> <i>The Dialect of the English +Gypsies</i>.</p> +<p><a name="footnote307b"></a><a href="#citation307b" +class="footnote">[307b]</a> I beg the reader to bear it in mind that +all this is literally as it was given by an old gypsy, and that I am not +responsible for its accuracy or inaccuracy.</p> +<p> Literally, the earth-sewer.</p> +<p><a name="footnote317b"></a><a href="#citation317b" +class="footnote">[317b]</a> <i>Kāli foki</i>. +<i>Kālo</i> means, as in Hindustani, not only black, but also +lazy. Pronounced <i>kaw-lo</i>.</p> +<p><a name="footnote319a"></a><a href="#citation319a" +class="footnote">[319a]</a> <i>Gorgio</i>. Gentile; any man not +a gypsy. Possibly from <i>ghora aji</i> “Master white +man,” Hindu. Used as <i>goi</i> is applied by Hebrews to the +unbelievers.</p> +<p><a name="footnote319b"></a><a href="#citation319b" +class="footnote">[319b]</a> <i>Romeli</i>, <i>rom’ni</i>. +Wandering, gypsying. It is remarkable that <i>remna</i>, in Hindu, +means to roam.</p> +<p><a name="footnote320"></a><a href="#citation320" +class="footnote">[320]</a> <i>Chollo-tem</i>. Whole country, +world.</p> +<p><a name="footnote324"></a><a href="#citation324" +class="footnote">[324]</a> There is a great moral difference, not +only in the gypsy mind, but in that of the peasant, between stealing and +poaching. But in fact, as regards the appropriation of poultry of any +kind, a young English gypsy has neither more nor less scruple than other +poor people of his class.</p> +<p><a name="footnote325"></a><a href="#citation325" +class="footnote">[325]</a> <i>Man lana</i>, Hindostani: to set the +heart upon. <i>Manner</i>, Eng. Gyp.: to encourage; also, to +forbid.</p> +<p><a name="footnote327"></a><a href="#citation327" +class="footnote">[327]</a> <i>Chovihan</i>, m., +<i>chovihanī</i>, fem., often <i>cho’ian</i> or +<i>cho’ani</i>, a witch. Probably from the Hindu +<i>’toanee</i>, a witch, which has nearly the same pronunciation as +the English gypsy word.</p> +<p><a name="footnote335"></a><a href="#citation335" +class="footnote">[335]</a> <i>Travels in Beloochistan and Scinde</i>, +p. 153.</p> +<p><a name="footnote341a"></a><a href="#citation341a" +class="footnote">[341a]</a> English gypsies also call the moon +<i>shul</i> and <i>shone</i>.</p> +<p><a name="footnote341b"></a><a href="#citation341b" +class="footnote">[341b]</a> <i>Tales and Traditions of the +Eskimo</i>, by Dr. Henry Rink. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + +</pre></body> +</html> diff --git a/22939-h/images/116.jpg b/22939-h/images/116.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ac5694b --- /dev/null +++ b/22939-h/images/116.jpg diff --git a/22939.txt b/22939.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..20d6b31 --- /dev/null +++ b/22939.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11031 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Gypsies, by Charles G. Leland + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Gypsies + + +Author: Charles G. Leland + + + +Release Date: October 10, 2007 [eBook #22939] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GYPSIES*** + + + +Transcribed from the 1882 Houghton, Mifflin and Company edition by David +Price, ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + + +THE GYPSIES + + + BY + CHARLES G. LELAND + + AUTHOR OF "THE ENGLISH GYPSIES AND THEIR LANGUAGE," "ANGLO-ROMANY + BALLADS," "HANS BREITMANN'S BALLADS," ETC. + + BOSTON AND NEW YORK + HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY + The Riverside Press, Cambridge + + Copyright, 1882, + BY CHARLES G. LELAND. + + _All rights reserved_. + + + + +PREFACE. + + +The reader will find in this book sketches of experiences among gypsies +of different nations by one who speaks their language and is conversant +with their ways. These embrace descriptions of the justly famed musical +gypsies of St. Petersburg and Moscow, by whom the writer was received +literally as a brother; of the Austrian gypsies, especially those +composing the first Romany orchestra of that country, selected by Liszt, +and who played for their friend as they declared they had never played +before for any man; and also of the English, Welsh, Oriental, and +American brethren of the dark blood and the tents. I believe that the +account of interviews with American gypsies will possess at least the +charm of novelty, but little having as yet been written on this extensive +and very interesting branch of our nomadic population. To these I have +added a characteristic letter in the gypsy language, with translation by +a lady, legendary stories, poems, and finally the substance of two +papers, one of which I read before the British Philological Society, and +the other before the Oriental Congress at Florence, in 1878. Those who +study ethnology will be interested to learn from these papers, +subsequently combined in an article in the "Saturday Review," that I have +definitely determined the existence in India of a peculiar tribe of +gypsies, who are _par eminence_ the Romanys of the East, and whose +language is there what it is in England, the same in vocabulary, and the +chief slang of the roads. This I claim as a discovery, having learned it +from a Hindoo who had been himself a gypsy in his native land. Many +writers have suggested the Jats, Banjars, and others as probable +ancestors or type-givers of the race; but the existence of the _Rom +himself_ in India, bearing the distinctive name of Rom, has never before +been set forth in any book or by any other writer. I have also given +what may in reason be regarded as settling the immensely disputed origin +of the word "Zingan," by the gypsies' own account of its etymology, which +was beyond all question brought by them from India. + +In addition to this I have given in a chapter certain conversations with +men of note, such as Thomas Carlyle, Lord Lytton, Mr. Roebuck, and +others, on gypsies; an account of the first and family names and personal +characteristics of English and American Romanys, prepared for me by a +very famous old gypsy; and finally a chapter on the "Shelta Thari," or +Tinkers' Language, a very curious jargon or language, never mentioned +before by any writer except Shakespeare. What this tongue may be, beyond +the fact that it is purely Celtic, and that it does not seem to be +identical with any other Celtic dialect, is unknown to me. I class it +with the gypsy, because all who speak it are also acquainted with Romany. + +For an attempt to set forth the tone or feeling in which the sketches are +conceived, I refer the reader to the Introduction. + +When I published my "English Gypsies and their Language," a reviewer +declared that I "had added nothing to our" (that is, his) "knowledge on +the subject." As it is always pleasant to meet with a man of superior +information, I said nothing. And as I had carefully read everything ever +printed on the Romany, and had given a very respectable collection of +what was new to me as well as to all my Romany rye colleagues in Europe, +I could only grieve to think that such treasures of learning should thus +remain hidden in the brain of one who had never at any time or in any +other way manifested the possession of any remarkable knowledge. Nobody +can tell in this world what others may know, but I modestly suggest that +what I have set forth in this work, on the origin of the gypsies, though +it may be known to the reviewer in question, has at least never been set +before the public by anybody but myself, and that it deserves further +investigation. No account of the tribes of the East mentions the Rom or +Trablus, and yet I have personally met with and thoroughly examined one +of them. In like manner, the "Shelta Thari" has remained till the +present day entirely unknown to all writers on either the languages or +the nomadic people of Great Britain. If we are so ignorant of the +wanderers among us, and at our very doors, it is not remarkable that we +should be ignorant of those of India. + + + + +INTRODUCTION. + + +I have frequently been asked, "Why do you take an interest in gypsies?" + +And it is not so easy to answer. Why, indeed? In Spain one who has been +fascinated by them is called one of the _aficion_, or affection, or +"fancy;" he is an _aficionado_, or affected unto them, and people there +know perfectly what it means, for every Spaniard is at heart a Bohemian. +He feels what a charm there is in a wandering life, in camping in lonely +places, under old chestnut-trees, near towering cliffs, _al pasar del +arroyo_, by the rivulets among the rocks. He thinks of the wine skin and +wheaten cake when one was hungry on the road, of the mules and tinkling +bells, the fire by night, and the _cigarito_, smoked till he fell asleep. +Then he remembers the gypsies who came to the camp, and the black-eyed +girl who told him his fortune, and all that followed in the rosy dawn and +ever onward into starry night. + + "Y se alegre el alma llena + De la luz de esos luceros." + + And his heart is filled with rapture + At the light of those lights above. + +This man understands it. So, too, does many an Englishman. But I cannot +tell you why. Why do I love to wander on the roads to hear the birds; to +see old church towers afar, rising over fringes of forest, a river and a +bridge in the foreground, and an ancient castle beyond, with a modern +village springing up about it, just as at the foot of the burg there lies +the falling trunk of an old tree, around which weeds and flowers are +springing up, nourished by its decay? Why love these better than +pictures, and with a more than fine-art feeling? Because on the roads, +among such scenes, between the hedge-rows and by the river, I find the +wanderers who properly inhabit not the houses but the scene, not a part +but the whole. These are the gypsies, who live like the birds and hares, +not of the house-born or the town-bred, but free and at home only with +nature. + +I am at some pleasant watering-place, no matter where. Let it be +Torquay, or Ilfracombe, or Aberystwith, or Bath, or Bournemouth, or +Hastings. I find out what old churches, castles, towns, towers, manors, +lakes, forests, fairy-wells, or other charms of England lie within twenty +miles. Then I take my staff and sketch-book, and set out on my day's +pilgrimage. In the distance lie the lines of the shining sea, with ships +sailing to unknown lands. Those who live in them are the Bohemians of +the sea, homing while roaming, sleeping as they go, even as gypsies dwell +on wheels. And if you look wistfully at these ships far off and out at +sea with the sun upon their sails, and wonder what quaint mysteries of +life they hide, verily you are not far from being affected or elected +unto the Romany. And if, when you see the wild birds on the wing, +wending their way to the South, and wish that you could fly with +them,--anywhere, anywhere over the world and into adventure,--then you +are not far in spirit from the kingdom of Bohemia and its seven castles, +in the deep windows of which AEolian wind-harps sing forever. + +Now, as you wander along, it may be that in the wood and by some grassy +nook you will hear voices, and see the gleam of a red garment, and then +find a man of the roads, with dusky wife and child. You speak one word, +"Sarishan!" and you are introduced. These people are like birds and +bees, they belong to out-of-doors and nature. If you can chirp or buzz a +little in their language and know their ways, you will find out, as you +sit in the forest, why he who loves green bushes and mossy rocks is glad +to fly from cities, and likes to be free of the joyous citizenship of the +roads, and everywhere at home in such boon company. + +When I have been a stranger in a strange town, I have never gone out for +a long walk without knowing that the chances were that I should meet +within an hour some wanderer with whom I should have in common certain +acquaintances. These be indeed humble folk, but with nature and summer +walks they make me at home. In merrie England I could nowhere be a +stranger if I would, and that with people who cannot read; and the +English-born Romany rye, or gentleman speaking gypsy, would in like +manner be everywhere at home in America. There was a gypsy family always +roaming between Windsor and London, and the first words taught to their +youngest child were "Romany rye!" and these it was trained to address to +me. The little tot came up to me,--I had never heard her speak +before,--a little brown-faced, black-eyed thing, and said, "How-do, Omany +'eye?" and great was the triumph and rejoicing and laughter of the mother +and father and all the little tribe. To be familiar with these +wanderers, who live by dale and down, is like having the bees come to +you, as they did to the Dacian damsel, whose death they mourned; it is +like the attraction of the wild deer to the fair Genevieve; or if you +know them to be dangerous outlaws, as some are, it is like the affection +of serpents and other wild things for those whom nature has made their +friends, and who handle them without fear. They are human, but in their +lives they are between man as he lives in houses and the bee and bird and +fox, and I cannot help believing that those who have no sympathy with +them have none for the forest and road, and cannot be rightly familiar +with the witchery of wood and wold. There are many ladies and gentlemen +who can well-nigh die of a sunset, and be enraptured with "bits" of +color, and captured with scenes, and to whom all out-of-doors is as +perfect as though it were painted by Millais, yet to whom the bee and +bird and gypsy and red Indian ever remain in their true inner life +strangers. And just as strange to them, in one sense, are the scenes in +which these creatures dwell; for those who see in them only pictures, +though they be by Claude and Turner, can never behold in them the +fairy-land of childhood. Only in Ruysdael and Salvator Rosa and the +great unconscious artists lurks the spell of the Romany, and this spell +is unfelt by Mr. Cimabue Brown. The child and the gypsy have no words in +which to express their sense of nature and its charm, but they have this +sense, and there are very, very few who, acquiring culture, retain it. +And it is gradually disappearing from the world, just as the old +delicately sensuous, naive, picturesque type of woman's beauty--the +perfection of natural beauty--is rapidly vanishing in every country, and +being replaced by the mingled real and unreal attractiveness of +"cleverness," intellect, and fashion. No doubt the newer tend to higher +forms of culture, but it is not without pain that he who has been "in the +spirit" in the old Sabbath of the soul, and in its quiet, solemn sunset, +sees it all vanishing. It will all be gone in a few years. I doubt very +much whether it will be possible for the most unaffectedly natural writer +to preserve any of its hieroglyphics for future Champollions of sentiment +to interpret. In the coming days, when man shall have developed new +senses, and when the blessed sun himself shall perhaps have been +supplanted by some tremendous electrical light, and the moon be expunged +altogether as interfering with the new arrangements for gravity, there +will doubtless be a new poetry, and art become to the very last degree +self-conscious of its cleverness, artificial and impressional; yet even +then weary scholars will sigh from time to time, as they read in our +books of the ancient purple seas, and how the sun went down of old into +cloud-land, gorgeous land, and then how all dreamed away into night! + +Gypsies are the human types of this vanishing, direct love of nature, of +this mute sense of rural romance, and of _al fresco_ life, and he who +does not recognize it in them, despite their rags and dishonesty, need +not pretend to appreciate anything more in Callot's etchings than the +skillful management of the needle and the acids. Truly they are but rags +themselves; the last rags of the old romance which connected man with +nature. Once romance was a splendid mediaeval drama, colored and gemmed +with chivalry, minnesong, bandit-flashes, and waving plumes; now there +remain but a few tatters. Yes, we were young and foolish then, but there +are perishing with the wretched fragments of the red Indian tribes +mythologies as beautiful as those of the Greek or Norseman; and there is +also vanishing with the gypsy an unexpressed mythology, which those who +are to come after us would gladly recover. Would we not have been +pleased if one of the thousand Latin men of letters whose works have been +preserved had told us how the old Etruscans, then still living in +mountain villages, spoke and habited and customed? But oh that there had +ever lived of old one man who, noting how feelings and sentiments +changed, tried to so set forth the souls of his time that after-comers +might understand what it was which inspired their art! + +In the Sanskrit humorous romance of "Baital Pachisi," or King Vikram and +the Vampire, twenty-five different and disconnected trifling stories +serve collectively to illustrate in the most pointed manner the highest +lesson of wisdom. In this book the gypsies, and the scenes which +surround them, are intended to teach the lesson of freedom and nature. +Never were such lessons more needed than at present. I do not say that +culture is opposed to the perception of nature; I would show with all my +power that the higher our culture the more we are really qualified to +appreciate beauty and freedom. But gates must be opened for this, and +unfortunately the gates as yet are very few, while Philistinism in every +form makes it a business of closing every opening to the true fairy-land +of delight. + +The gypsy is one of many links which connect the simple feeling of nature +with romance. During the Middle Ages thousands of such links and symbols +united nature with religion. Thus Conrad von Wurtzburg tells in his +"Goldene Schmiede" that the parrot which shines in fairest grass-green +hue, and yet like common grass is never wet, sets forth the Virgin, who +bestowed on man an endless spring, and yet remained unchanged. So the +parrot and grass and green and shimmering light all blended in the ideal +of the immortal Maid-Mother, and so the bird appears in pictures by Van +Eyck and Durer. To me the gypsy-parrot and green grass in lonely lanes +and the rain and sunshine all mingle to set forth the inexpressible +purity and sweetness of the virgin parent, Nature. For the gypsy is +parrot-like, a quaint pilferer, a rogue in grain as in green; for green +was his favorite garb in olden time in England, as it is to-day in +Germany, where he who breaks the Romany law may never dare on heath to +wear that fatal fairy color. + +These words are the key to the following book, in which I shall set forth +a few sketches taken during my rambles among the Romany. The day is +coming when there will be no more wild parrots nor wild wanderers, no +wild nature, and certainly no gypsies. Within a very few years in the +city of Philadelphia, the English sparrow, the very cit and cad of birds, +has driven from the gardens all the wild, beautiful feathered creatures +whom, as a boy, I knew. The fire-flashing scarlet tanager and the +humming-bird, the yellow-bird, blue-bird, and golden oriole, are now +almost forgotten, or unknown to city children. So the people of +self-conscious culture and the mart and factory are banishing the wilder +sort, and it is all right, and so it must be, and therewith _basta_. But +as a London reviewer said when I asserted in a book that the child was +perhaps born who would see the last gypsy, "Somehow we feel sorry for +that child." + + + + +THE RUSSIAN GYPSIES. + + +It is, I believe, seldom observed that the world is so far from having +quitted the romantic or sentimental for the purely scientific that, even +in science itself, whatever is best set forth owes half its charm to +something delicately and distantly reflected from the forbidden land of +fancy. The greatest reasoners and writers on the driest topics are still +"genial," because no man ever yet had true genius who did not feel the +inspiration of poetry, or mystery, or at least of the unusual. We are +not rid of the marvelous or curious, and, if we have not yet a science of +curiosities, it is apparently because it lies for the present distributed +about among the other sciences, just as in small museums illuminated +manuscripts are to be found in happy family union with stuffed birds or +minerals, and with watches and snuff-boxes, once the property of their +late majesties the Georges. Until such a science is formed, the new one +of ethnology may appropriately serve for it, since it of all presents +most attraction to him who is politely called the general reader, but who +should in truth be called the man who reads the most for mere amusement. +For Ethnology deals with such delightful material as primeval +kumbo-cephalic skulls, and appears to her votaries arrayed, not in silk +attire, but in strange fragments of leather from ancient Irish graves, or +in cloth from Lacustrine villages. She glitters with the quaint jewelry +of the first Italian race, whose ghosts, if they wail over the "find," +"speak in a language man knows no more." She charms us with etchings or +scratchings of mammoths on mammoth-bone, and invites us to explore +mysterious caves, to picnic among megalithic monuments, and speculate on +pictured Scottish stones. In short, she engages man to investigate his +ancestry, a pursuit which presents charms even to the illiterate, and +asks us to find out facts concerning works of art which have interested +everybody in every age. + +_Ad interim_, before the science of curiosities is segregated from that +of ethnology, I may observe that one of the marvels in the latter is +that, among all the subdivisions of the human race, there are only two +which have been, apparently from their beginning, set apart, marked and +cosmopolite, ever living among others, and yet reserved unto themselves. +These are the Jew and the gypsy. From time whereof history hath naught +to the contrary, the Jew was, as he himself holds in simple faith, the +first man. Red Earth, Adam, was a Jew, and the old claim to be a +peculiar people has been curiously confirmed by the extraordinary genius +and influence of the race, and by their boundless wanderings. Go where +we may, we find the Jew--has any other wandered so far? + +Yes, one. For wherever Jew has gone, there, too, we find the gypsy. The +Jew may be more ancient, but even the authentic origin of the Romany is +lost in ancient Aryan record, and, strictly speaking, his is a +prehistoric caste. Among the hundred and fifty wandering tribes of India +and Persia, some of them Turanian, some Aryan, and others mixed, it is of +course difficult to identify the exact origin of the European gypsy. One +thing we know: that from the tenth to the twelfth century, and probably +much later on, India threw out from her northern half a vast multitude of +very troublesome indwellers. What with Buddhist, Brahman, and Mohammedan +wars,--invaders outlawing invaded,--the number of out-_castes_ became +alarmingly great. To these the Jats, who, according to Captain Burton, +constituted the main stock of our gypsies, contributed perhaps half their +entire nation. Excommunication among the Indian professors of +transcendental benevolence meant social death and inconceivable cruelty. +Now there are many historical indications that these outcasts, before +leaving India, became gypsies, which was the most natural thing in a +country where such classes had already existed in very great numbers from +early times. And from one of the lowest castes, which still exists in +India, and is known as the Dom, {19} the emigrants to the West probably +derived their name and several characteristics. The Dom burns the dead, +handles corpses, skins beasts, and performs other functions, all of which +were appropriated by, and became peculiar to, gypsies in several +countries in Europe, notably in Denmark and Holland, for several +centuries after their arrival there. The Dom of the present day also +sells baskets, and wanders with a tent; he is altogether gypsy. It is +remarkable that he, living in a hot climate, drinks ardent spirits to +excess, being by no means a "temperate Hindoo," and that even in extreme +old age his hair seldom turns white, which is a noted peculiarity among +our own gypsies of pure blood. I know and have often seen a gypsy woman, +nearly a hundred years old, whose curling hair is black, or hardly +perceptibly changed. It is extremely probable that the Dom, mentioned as +a caste even in the Shastras, gave the name to the Rom. The Dom calls +his wife a Domni, and being a Dom is "Domnipana." In English gypsy, the +same words are expressed by _Rom_, _romni_, and _romnipen_. D, be it +observed, very often changes to _r_ in its transfer from Hindoo to +Romany. Thus _doi_, "a wooden spoon," becomes in gypsy _roi_, a term +known to every tinker in London. But, while this was probably the origin +of the word Rom, there were subsequent reasons for its continuance. +Among the Cophts, who were more abundant in Egypt when the first gypsies +went there, the word for man is _romi_, and after leaving Greece and the +Levant, or _Rum_, it would be natural for the wanderers to be called +_Rumi_. But the Dom was in all probability the parent stock of the gypsy +race, though the latter received vast accessions from many other sources. +I call attention to this, since it has always been held, and sensibly +enough, that the mere fact of the gypsies speaking Hindi-Persian, or the +oldest type of Urdu, including many Sanskrit terms, does not prove an +Indian or Aryan origin, any more than the English spoken by American +negroes proves a Saxon descent. But if the Rom can be identified with +the Dom--and the circumstantial evidence, it must be admitted, is very +strong--but little remains to seek, since, according to the Shastras, the +Doms are Hindoo. + +Among the tribes whose union formed the European gypsy was, in all +probability, that of the _Nats_, consisting of singing and dancing girls +and male musicians and acrobats. Of these, we are told that not less +than ten thousand lute-players and minstrels, under the name of _Luri_, +were once sent to Persia as a present to a king, whose land was then +without music or song. This word _Luri_ is still preserved. The +saddle-makers and leather-workers of Persia are called Tsingani; they +are, in their way, low caste, and a kind of gypsy, and it is supposed +that from them are possibly derived the names Zingan, Zigeuner, Zingaro, +etc., by which gypsies are known in so many lands. From Mr. Arnold's +late work on "Persia," the reader may learn that the _Eeli_, who +constitute the majority of the inhabitants of the southern portion of +that country, are Aryan nomads, and apparently gypsies. There are also +in India the Banjari, or wandering merchants, and many other tribes, all +spoken of as gypsies by those who know them. + +As regards the great admixture of Persian with Hindi in good Romany, it +is quite unmistakable, though I can recall no writer who has attached +sufficient importance to a fact which identifies gypsies with what is +almost preeminently the land of gypsies. I once had the pleasure of +taking a Nile journey in company with Prince S---, a Persian, and in most +cases, when I asked my friend what this or that gypsy word meant, he gave +me its correct meaning, after a little thought, and then added, in his +imperfect English, "What for you want to know such word?--that _old_ +word--that no more used. Only common people--old peasant-woman--use that +word--_gentleman_ no want to know him." But I did want to know "him" +very much. I can remember that one night, when our _bon prince_ had thus +held forth, we had dancing girls, or Almeh, on board, and one was very +young and pretty. I was told that she was gypsy, but she spoke no +Romany. Yet her panther eyes and serpent smile and _beaute du diable_ +were not Egyptian, but of the Indian, _kalo-ratt_,--the dark blood, +which, once known, is known forever. I forgot her, however, for a long +time, until I went to Moscow, when she was recalled by dancing and +smiles, of which I will speak anon. + +I was sitting one day by the Thames, in a gypsy tent, when its master, +Joshua Cooper, now dead, pointing to a swan, asked me for its name in +gypsy. I replied, "_Boro pappin_." + +"No, _rya_. _Boro pappin_ is 'a big goose.' _Sakku_ is the real gypsy +word. It is very old, and very few Romany know it." + +A few days after, when my Persian friend was dining with me at the +Langham Hotel, I asked him if he knew what Sakku meant. By way of reply, +he, not being able to recall the English word, waved his arms in +wonderful pantomime, indicating some enormous winged creature; and then, +looking into the distance, and pointing as if to some far-vanishing +object, as boys do when they declaim Bryant's address "To a Water-Fowl," +said,-- + +"Sakku--one ver' big bird, like one _swen_--but he _not_ swen. He like +the man who carry too much water up-stairs {22} his head in +Constantinople. That bird all same that man. He _sakkia_ all same wheel +that you see get water up-stairs in Egypt." + +This was explanatory, but far from satisfactory. The prince, however, +was mindful of me, and the next day I received from the Persian embassy +the word elegantly written in Persian, with the translation, "_a +pelican_." Then it was all clear enough, for the pelican bears water in +the bag under its bill. When the gypsies came to Europe they named +animals after those which resembled them in Asia. A dog they called +_juckal_, from a jackal, and a swan _sakku_, or pelican, because it so +greatly resembles it. The Hindoo _bandarus_, or monkey, they have +changed to _bombaros_, but why Tom Cooper should declare that it is +_pugasah_, or _pukkus-asa_, I do not know. {23} As little can I +conjecture the meaning of the prefix _mod_, or _mode_, which I learned on +the road near Weymouth from a very ancient tinker, a man so battered, +tattered, seamed, riven, and wrinkled that he looked like a petrifaction. +He had so bad a barrow, or wheel, that I wondered what he could do with +it, and regarded him as the very poorest man I had ever seen in England, +until his mate came up, an _alter ego_, so excellent in antiquity, +wrinkles, knobbiness, and rags that he surpassed the vagabond pictures +not only of Callot, Dore, and Goya, but even the unknown Spanish maker of +a picture which I met with not long since for sale, and which for +infinite poverty defied anything I ever saw on canvas. These poor men, +who seemed at first amazed that I should speak to them at all, when I +spoke Romany at once called me "brother." When I asked the younger his +name, he sank his voice to a whisper, and, with a furtive air, said,-- + +"_Kamlo_,--Lovel, you know." + +"What do you call yourself in the way of business?" I asked. +"_Katsamengro_, I suppose." + +Now _Katsamengro_ means scissors-master. + +"That is a very good word. But _chivo_ is deeper." + +"_Chivo_ means a knife-man?" + +"Yes. But the deepest of all, master, is _Modangarengro_. For you see +that the right word for coals isn't _wongur_, as Romanys generally say, +but _Angara_." + +Now _angara_, as Pott and Benfey indicate, is pure Sanskrit for coals, +and _angarengro_ is a worker in coals, but what _mod_ means I know not, +and should be glad to be told. + +I think it will be found difficult to identify the European gypsy with +any one stock of the wandering races of India. Among those who left that +country were men of different castes and different color, varying from +the pure northern invader to the negro-like southern Indian. In the +Danubian principalities there are at the present day three kinds of +gypsies: one very dark and barbarous, another light brown and more +intelligent, and the third, or _elite_, of yellow-pine complexion, as +American boys characterize the hue of quadroons. Even in England there +are straight-haired and curly-haired Romanys, the two indicating not a +difference resulting from white admixture, but entirely different +original stocks. + +It will, I trust, be admitted, even from these remarks, that Romanology, +or that subdivision of ethnology which treats of gypsies, is both +practical and curious. It deals with the only race except the Jew, which +has penetrated into every village which European civilization has ever +touched. He who speaks Romany need be a stranger in few lands, for on +every road in Europe and America, in Western Asia, and even in Northern +Africa, he will meet those with whom a very few words may at once +establish a peculiar understanding. For, of all things believed in by +this widely spread brotherhood, the chief is this,--that he who knows the +_jib_, or language, knows the ways, and that no one ever attained these +without treading strange paths, and threading mysteries unknown to the +Gorgios, or Philistines. And if he who speaks wears a good coat, and +appears a gentleman, let him rest assured that he will receive the +greeting which all poor relations in all lands extend to those of their +kin who have risen in life. Some of them, it is true, manifest the +winsome affection which is based on great expectations, a sentiment +largely developed among British gypsies; but others are honestly proud +that a gentleman is not ashamed of them. Of this latter class were the +musical gypsies, whom I met in Russia during the winter of 1876 and 1877, +and some of them again in Paris during the Exposition of 1878. + + + +ST. PETERSBURG. + + +There are gypsies and gypsies in the world, for there are the wanderers +on the roads and the secret dwellers in towns; but even among the +_aficionados_, or Romany ryes, by whom I mean those scholars who are fond +of studying life and language from the people themselves, very few have +dreamed that there exist communities of gentlemanly and lady-like gypsies +of art, like the Bohemians of Murger and George Sand, but differing from +them in being real "Bohemians" by race. I confess that it had never +occurred to me that there was anywhere in Europe, at the present day, +least of all in the heart of great and wealthy cities, a class or caste +devoted entirely to art, well-to-do or even rich, refined in manners, +living in comfortable homes, the women dressing elegantly; and yet with +all this obliged to live by law, as did the Jews once, in Ghettos or in a +certain street, and regarded as outcasts and _cagots_. I had heard there +were gypsies in Russian cities, and expected to find them like the +_kerengri_ of England or Germany,--house-dwellers somewhat reformed from +vagabondage, but still reckless semi-outlaws, full of tricks and lies; in +a word, _gypsies_, as the world understands the term. And I certainly +anticipated in Russia something _queer_,--the gentleman who speaks Romany +seldom fails to achieve at least that, whenever he gets into an unbroken +haunt, an unhunted forest, where the Romany rye is unknown,--but nothing +like what I really found. A recent writer on Russia {26} speaks with +great contempt of these musical Romanys, their girls attired in dresses +by Worth, as compared with the free wild outlaws of the steppes, who, +with dark, ineffable glances, meaning nothing more than a wild-cat's, +steal poultry, and who, wrapped in dirty sheep-skins, proudly call +themselves _Mi dvorane Polaivii_, Lords of the Waste. The gypsies of +Moscow, who appeared to me the most interesting I have ever met, because +most remote from the Surrey ideal, seemed to Mr. Johnstone to be a kind +of second-rate Romanys or gypsies, gypsified for exhibition, like Mr. +Barnum's negro minstrel, who, though black as a coal by nature, was +requested to put on burnt cork and a wig, that the audience might realize +that they were getting a thoroughly good imitation. Mr. Johnstone's own +words are that a gypsy maiden in a long _queue_, "which perhaps came from +Worth," is "horrible," "_corruptio optimi pessima est_;" and he further +compares such a damsel to a negro with a cocked hat and spurs. As the +only negro thus arrayed who presents himself to my memory was one who lay +dead on the battle-field in Tennessee, after one of the bravest +resistances in history, and in which he and his men, not having moved, +were extended in "stark, serried lines" ("ten cart-loads of dead +niggers," said a man to me who helped to bury them), I may be excused for +not seeing the wit of the comparison. As for the gypsies of Moscow, I +can only say that, after meeting them in public, and penetrating to their +homes, where I was received as one of themselves, even as a Romany, I +found that this opinion of them was erroneous, and that they were +altogether original in spite of being clean, deeply interesting although +honest, and a quite attractive class in most respects, notwithstanding +their ability to read and write. Against Mr. Johnstone's impressions, I +may set the straightforward and simple result of the experiences of Mr. +W. R. Ralston. "The gypsies of Moscow," he says, "are justly celebrated +for their picturesqueness and for their wonderful capacity for music. +All who have heard their women sing are enthusiastic about the weird +witchery of the performance." + +When I arrived in St. Petersburg, one of my first inquiries was for +gypsies. To my astonishment, they were hard to find. They are not +allowed to live in the city; and I was told that the correct and proper +way to see them would be to go at night to certain _cafes_, half an +hour's sleigh-ride from the town, and listen to their concerts. What I +wanted, however, was not a concert, but a conversation; not gypsies on +exhibition, but gypsies at home,--and everybody seemed to be of the +opinion that those of "Samarcand" and "Dorot" were entirely got up for +effect. In fact, I heard the opinion hazarded that, even if they spoke +Romany, I might depend upon it they had acquired it simply to deceive. +One gentleman, who had, however, been much with them in other days, +assured me that they were of pure blood, and had an inherited language of +their own. "But," he added, "I am sure you will not understand it. You +may be able to talk with those in England, but not with ours, because +there is not a single word in their language which resembles anything in +English, German, French, Latin, Greek, or Italian. I can only recall," +he added, "one phrase. I don't know what it means, and I think it will +puzzle you. It is _me kamava tut_." + +If I experienced internal laughter at hearing this it was for a good +reason, which I can illustrate by an anecdote: "I have often observed, +when I lived in China," said Mr. Hoffman Atkinson, author of "A +Vocabulary of the Yokohama Dialect," "that most young men, particularly +the gay and handsome ones, generally asked me, about the third day after +their arrival in the country, the meaning of the Pidgin-English phrase, +'You makee too muchee lov-lov-pidgin.' Investigation always established +the fact that the inquirer had heard it from 'a pretty China girl.' Now +_lov-pidgin_ means love, and _me kamava tut_ is perfectly good gypsy +anywhere for 'I love you;' and a very soft expression it is, recalling +_kama-deva_, the Indian Cupid, whose bow is strung with bees, and whose +name has two strings to it, since it means, both in gypsy and Sanskrit, +Love-God, or the god of love. 'It's _kama-duvel_, you know, _rya_, if +you put it as it ought to be,' said Old Windsor Froggie to me once; 'but +I think that Kama-_devil_ would by rights come nearer to it, if Cupid is +what you mean.'" + +I referred the gypsy difficulty to a Russian gentleman of high position, +to whose kindness I had been greatly indebted while in St. Petersburg. +He laughed. + +"Come with me to-morrow night to the _cafes_, and see the gypsies; I know +them well, and can promise that you shall talk with them as much as you +like. Once, in Moscow, I got together all in the town--perhaps a hundred +and fifty--to entertain the American minister, Curtin. That was a very +hard thing to do,--there was so much professional jealousy among them, +and so many quarrels. Would you have believed it?" + +I thought of the feuds between sundry sturdy Romanys in England, and felt +that I could suppose such a thing, without dangerously stretching my +faith, and I began to believe in Russian gypsies. + +"Well, then, I shall call for you to-morrow night with a _troika_; I will +come early,--at ten. They never begin to sing before company arrive at +eleven, so that you will have half an hour to talk to them." + +It is on record that the day on which the general gave me this kind +invitation was the coldest known in St. Petersburg for thirty years, the +thermometer having stood, or rather having lain down and groveled that +morning at 40 degrees below zero, Fahr. At the appointed hour the +_troika_, or three-horse sleigh, was before the Hotel d'Europe. It was, +indeed, an arctic night, but, well wrapped in fur-lined _shubas_, with +immense capes which fall to the elbow or rise far above the head, as +required, and wearing fur caps and fur-lined gloves, we felt no cold. +The beard of our _istvostshik_, or driver, was a great mass of ice, +giving him the appearance of an exceedingly hoary youth, and his small +horses, being very shaggy and thoroughly frosted, looked in the darkness +like immense polar bears. If the general and myself could only have been +considered as gifts of the slightest value to anybody, I should have +regarded our turn-out, with the driver in his sheep-skin coat, as coming +within a miracle of resemblance to that of Santa Claus, the American +Father Christmas. + +On, at a tremendous pace, over the snow, which gave out under our runners +that crunching, iron sound only heard when the thermometer touches zero. +There is a peculiar fascination about the _troika_, and the sweetest, +saddest melody and most plaintive song of Russia belong to it. + + + +THE TROIKA. + + +_Vot y'dit troika udalaiya_. + + Hear ye the troika-bell a-ringing, + And see the peasant driver there? + Hear ye the mournful song he's singing, + Like distant tolling through the air? + + "O eyes, blue eyes, to me so lonely, + O eyes--alas!--ye give me pain; + O eyes, that once looked at me only, + I ne'er shall see your like again. + + "Farewell, my darling, now in heaven, + And still the heaven of my soul; + Farewell, thou father town, O Moscow, + Where I have left my life, my all!" + + And ever at the rein still straining, + One backward glance the driver gave; + Sees but once more a green low hillock, + Sees but once more his loved one's grave. + +"_Stoi_!"--Halt! We stopped at a stylish-looking building, entered a +hall, left our _skubas_, and I heard the general ask, "Are the gypsies +here?" An affirmative being given, we entered a large room, and there, +sure enough, stood six or eight girls and two men, all very well dressed, +and all unmistakably Romany, though smaller and of much slighter or more +delicate frame than the powerful gypsy "travelers" of England. In an +instant every pair of great, wild eyes was fixed on me. The general was +in every way a more striking figure, but I was manifestly a fresh +stranger, who knew nothing of the country, and certainly nothing of +gypsies or gypsydom. Such a verdant visitor is always most interesting. +It was not by any means my first reception of the kind, and, as I +reviewed at a glance the whole party, I said within myself:-- + +"Wait an instant, you black snakes, and I will give you something to make +you stare." + +This promise I kept, when a young man, who looked like a handsome light +Hindoo, stepped up and addressed me in Russian. I looked long and +steadily at him before I spoke, and then said:-- + +"_Latcho divvus prala_!" (Good day, brother.) + +"What is _that_?" he exclaimed, startled. + +"_Tu jines latcho adosta_." (You know very well.) And then, with the +expression in his face of a man who has been familiarly addressed by a +brazen statue, or asked by a new-born babe, "What o'clock is it?" but +with great joy, he cried:-- + +"_Romanichal_!" + +In an instant they were all around me, marveling greatly, and earnestly +expressing their marvel, at what new species of gypsy I might be; being +in this quite unlike those of England, who, even when they are astonished +"out of their senses" at being addressed in Romany by a gentleman, make +the most red-Indian efforts to conceal their amazement. But I speedily +found that these Russian gypsies were as unaffected and child-like as +they were gentle in manner, and that they compared with our own +prize-fighting, sturdy-begging, always-suspecting Romany roughs and +_rufianas_ as a delicate greyhound might compare with a very shrewd old +bull-dog, trained by an unusually "fly" tramp. + +That the girls were first to the fore in questioning me will be doubted +by no one. But we had great trouble in effecting a mutual understanding. +Their Romany was full of Russian; their pronunciation puzzled me; they +"bit off their words," and used many in a strange or false sense. Yet, +notwithstanding this, I contrived to converse pretty readily with the +men,--very readily with the captain, a man as dark as Ben Lee, to those +who know Benjamin, or as mahogany, to those who know him not. But with +the women it was very difficult to converse. There is a theory current +that women have a specialty of tact and readiness in understanding a +foreigner, or in making themselves understood; it may be so with +cultivated ladies, but it is my experience that, among the uneducated, +men have a monopoly of such quick intelligence. In order fully to +convince them that we really had a tongue in common, I repeated perhaps a +hundred nouns, giving, for instance, the names of various parts of the +body, of articles of apparel and objects in the room, and I believe that +we did not find a single word which, when pronounced distinctly by +itself, was not intelligible to us all. I had left in London a +Russo-Romany vocabulary, once published in "The Asiatic Magazine," and I +had met with Bohtlinghk's article on the dialect, as well as specimens of +it in the works of Pott and Miklosich, but had unfortunately learned +nothing of it from them. I soon found, however, that I knew a great many +more gypsy words than did my new friends, and that our English Romany far +excels the Russian in _copia verborum_. + +"But I must sit down." I observed on this and other occasions that +Russian gypsies are very naif. And as it is in human nature to prefer +sitting by a pretty girl, these Slavonian Romanys so arrange it according +to the principles of natural selection--or natural politeness--that, when +a stranger is in their gates, the two prettiest girls in their possession +sit at his right and left, the two less attractive next again, _et +seriatim_. So at once a damsel of comely mien, arrayed in black silk +attire, of faultless elegance, cried to me, pointing to a chair by her +side, "_Bersh tu alay_, _rya_!" (Sit down, sir),--a phrase which would +be perfectly intelligible to any Romany in England. I admit that there +was another damsel, who is generally regarded by most people as the true +gypsy belle of the party, who did not sit by me. But, as the one who had +"voted herself into the chair," by my side, was more to my liking, being +the most intelligent and most gypsy, I had good cause to rejoice. + +I was astonished at the sensible curiosity as to gypsy life in other +lands which was displayed, and at the questions asked. I really doubt if +I ever met with an English gypsy who cared a farthing to know anything +about his race as it exists in foreign countries, or whence it came. +Once, and once only, I thought I had interested White George, at East +Moulsey, in an account of Egypt, and the small number of Romanys there; +but his only question was to the effect that, if there were so few +gypsies in Egypt, wouldn't it be a good place for him to go to sell +baskets? These of Russia, however, asked all kinds of questions about +the manners and customs of their congeners, and were pleased when they +recognized familiar traits. And every gypsyism, whether of word or way, +was greeted with delighted laughter. In one thing I noted a radical +difference between these gypsies and those of the rest of Europe and of +America. There was none of that continually assumed mystery and Romany +freemasonry, of superior occult knowledge and "deep" information, which +is often carried to the depths of absurdity and to the height of humbug. +I say this advisedly, since, however much it may give charm to a novel or +play, it is a serious impediment to a philologist. Let me give an +illustration. + +Once, during the evening, these Russian gypsies were anxious to know if +there were any books in their language. Now I have no doubt that Dr. +Bath Smart, or Prof. E. H. Palmer, or any other of the initiated, will +perfectly understand when I say that by mere force of habit I shivered +and evaded the question. When a gentleman who manifests a knowledge of +Romany among gypsies in England is suspected of "dixonary" studies, it +amounts to _lasciate ogni speranza_,--give up all hope of learning any +more. + +"I'm glad to see you here, _rya_, in my tent," said the before-mentioned +Ben Lee to me one night, in camp near Weybridge, "because I've heard, and +I know, you didn't pick up _your_ Romany out of books." + +The silly dread, the hatred, the childish antipathy, real or affected, +but always ridiculous, which is felt in England, not only among gypsies, +but even by many gentlemen scholars, to having the Romany language +published is indescribable. Vambery was not more averse to show a lead +pencil among Tartars than I am to take notes of words among strange +English gypsies. I might have spared myself any annoyance from such a +source among the Russian Romanys. They had not heard of Mr. George +Borrow; nor were there ugly stories current among them to the effect that +Dr. Smart and Prof. E. H. Palmer had published works, the direct result +of which would be to facilitate their little paths to the jail, the +gallows, and the grave. + +"Would we hear some singing?" We were ready, and for the first time in +my life I listened to the long-anticipated, far-famed magical melody of +Russian gypsies. And what was it like? May I preface my reply to the +reader with the remark that there are, roughly speaking, two kinds of +music in the world,--the wild and the tame,--and the rarest of human +beings is he who can appreciate both. Only one such man ever wrote a +book, and his _nomen et omen_ is Engel, like that of the little English +slaves who were _non Angli_, _sed angeli_. I have in my time been deeply +moved by the choruses of Nubian boatmen; I have listened with great +pleasure to Chinese and Japanese music,--Ole Bull once told me he had +done the same; I have delighted by the hour in Arab songs; and I have +felt the charm of our red-Indian music. If this seems absurd to those +who characterize all such sound and song as "caterwauling," let me remind +the reader that in all Europe there is not one man fonder of music than +an average Arab, a Chinese, or a red Indian; for any of these people, as +I have seen and know, will sit twelve or fifteen hours, without the least +weariness, listening to what cultivated Europeans all consider as a mere +charivari. When London gladly endures fifteen-hour concerts, composed of +_morceaux_ by Wagner, Chopin, and Liszt, I will believe that art can +charm as much as nature. + +The medium point of intelligence in this puzzle may be found in the +extraordinary fascination which many find in the monotonous tum-tum of +the banjo, and which reappears, somewhat refined, or at least somewhat +Frenchified, in the _Bamboula_ and other Creole airs. Thence, in an +ascending series, but connected with it, we have old Spanish melodies, +then the Arabic, and here we finally cross the threshold into mystery, +midnight, and "caterwauling." I do not know that I can explain the fact +why the more "barbarous" music is, the more it is beloved of man; but I +think that the principle of the _refrain_, or repetition in music, which +as yet governs all decorative art and which Mr. Whistler and others are +endeavoring desperately to destroy, acts in music as a sort of animal +magnetism or abstraction, ending in an _extase_. As for the fascination +which such wild melodies exert, it is beyond description. The most +enraptured audience I ever saw in my life was at a Coptic wedding in +Cairo, where one hundred and fifty guests listened, from seven P.M. till +three A.M., and Heaven knows how much later, to what a European would +call absolute jangling, yelping, and howling. + +The real medium, however, between what I have, for want of better words, +called wild and tame music exists only in that of the Russian gypsies. +These artists, with wonderful tact and untaught skill, have succeeded, in +all their songs, in combining the mysterious and maddening charm of the +true, wild Eastern music with that of regular and simple melody, +intelligible to every Western ear. I have never listened to the singing +or playing of any distinguished artist--and certainly never of any +far-famed amateur--without realizing that neither words nor melody was of +the least importance, but that the man's manner of performance or display +was everything. Now, in enjoying gypsy singing, one feels at once as if +the vocalists had entirely forgotten self, and were carried away by the +bewildering beauty of the air and the charm of the words. There is no +self-consciousness, no vanity,--all is real. The listener feels as if he +were a performer; the performer is an enraptured listener. There is no +soulless "art for the sake of art," but art for direct pleasure. + +"We intend to sing only Romany for _you_, _rya_," said the young lady to +my left, "and you will hear our real gypsy airs. The _Gaji_ [Russians] +often ask for songs in our language, and don't get them. But you are a +Romanichal, and when you go home, far over the _baro kalo pani_ [the +broad black water, that is, the ocean], you shall tell the Romany how we +can sing. Listen!" + +And I listened to the strangest, wildest, and sweetest singing I ever had +heard,--the singing of Lurleis, of sirens, of witches. First, one +damsel, with an exquisitely clear, firm voice, began to sing a verse of a +love-ballad, and as it approached the end the chorus stole in, softly and +unperceived, but with exquisite skill, until, in a few seconds, the +summer breeze, murmuring melody over a rippling lake, seemed changed to a +midnight tempest, roaring over a stormy sea, in which the _basso_ of the +_kalo shureskro_ (the black captain) pealed like thunder. Just as it +died away a second girl took up the melody, very sweetly, but with a +little more excitement,--it was like a gleam of moonlight on the still +agitated waters, a strange contralto witch-gleam; and then again the +chorus and the storm; and then another solo yet sweeter, sadder, and +stranger,--the movement continually increasing, until all was fast, and +wild, and mad,--a locomotive quickstep, and then a sudden +silence--sunlight--the storm had blown away. + +Nothing on earth is so like magic and elfin-work as when women burst +forth into improvised melody. The bird only "sings as his bill grew," or +what he learned from the elders; yet when you hear birds singing in +woodland green, throwing out to God or the fairies irrepressible floods +of what seems like audible sunshine, so well does it match with summer's +light, you think it is wonderful. It is mostly when you forget the long +training of the prima donna, in her ease and apparent naturalness, that +her song is sweetest. But there is a charm, which was well known of old, +though we know it not to-day, which was practiced by the bards and +believed in by their historians. It was the feeling that the song was +born of the moment; that it came with the air, gushing and fresh from the +soul. In reading the strange stories of the professional bards and +scalds and minstrels of the early Middle Age, one is constantly +bewildered at the feats of off-hand composition which were exacted of the +poets among Celts or Norsemen. And it is evident enough that in some +mysterious way these singers knew how to put strange pressure on the +Muse, and squeeze strains out of her in a manner which would have been +impossible at present. + +Yet it lingers here and there on earth among wild, strange people,--this +art of making melody at will. I first heard it among Nubian boatmen on +the Nile. It was as manifest that it was composed during the making as +that the singers were unconscious of their power. One sung at first what +may have been a well-known verse. While singing, another voice stole in, +and yet another, softly as shadows steal into twilight; and ere I knew it +all were in a great chorus, which fell away as mysteriously, to become +duos, trios,--changing in melody in strange, sweet, fitful wise, as the +faces seen in the golden cloud in the visioned aureole of God blend, +separate, burn, and fade away ever into fresher glory and tints +incarnadined. + +Miss C. F. Gordon Cumming, after informing us that "it is utterly +impossible to give you the faintest shadow of an idea of the fascination +of Tahitian _himenes_," proceeds, as men in general and women in +particular invariably do, to give what the writer really believes is a +very good description indeed. 'T is ever thus, and thus 't will ever be, +and the description of these songs is so good that any person gifted with +imagination or poetry cannot fail to smile at the preceding disavowal of +her ability to give an idea. + +These _himenes_ are not--and here such of my too expectant young +lady-readers as are careless in spelling will be sadly disappointed--in +any way connected with weddings. They are simply the natural music of +Tahiti, or strange and beautiful part-songs. "Nothing you have ever +heard in any other country," says our writer, "bears the slightest +resemblance to these wild, exquisite glees, faultless in time and +harmony, though apparently each singer introduces any variations which +may occur to him or to her. Very often there is no leader, and +apparently all sing according to their own sweet will. One voice +commences; it may be that of an old native, with genuine native words +(the meaning of which we had better not inquire), or it may be with a +Scriptural story, versified and sung to an air originally from Europe, +but so completely Tahitianized that no mortal could recognize it, which +is all in its favor, for the wild melodies of this isle are beyond +measure fascinating. + +"After one clause of solo, another strikes in--here, there, +everywhere--in harmonious chorus. It seems as if one section devoted +themselves to pouring forth a rippling torrent of 'Ra, ra, ra--ra--ra!' +while others burst into a flood of 'La, la--la--la--la!' Some confine +their care to sound a deep, booming bass in a long-continued drone, +somewhat suggestive (to my appreciative Highland ear) of our own +bagpipes. Here and there high falsetto notes strike in, varied from +verse to verse, and then the choruses of La and Ra come bubbling in +liquid melody, while the voices of the principal singers now join in +unison, now diverge as widely as it is possible for them to do, but all +combine to produce the quaintest, most melodious, rippling glee that ever +was heard." + +This is the _himene_; such the singing which I heard in Egypt in a more +regular form; but it was exactly as the writer so admirably sets it forth +(and your description, my lady traveler, is, despite your disavowal, +quite perfect and a _himene_ of itself) that I heard the gypsy girls of +St. Petersburg and of Moscow sing. For, after a time, becoming jolly as +flies, first one voice began with "La, la, la--la--la!" to an unnamed, +unnamable, charming melody, into which went and came other voices, some +bringing one verse or no verse, in unison or alone, the least expected +doing what was most awaited, which was to surprise us and call forth gay +peals of happy laughter, while the "La, la, la--la--la!" was kept up +continuously, like an accompaniment. And still the voices, basso, +soprano, tenor, baritone, contralto, rose and fell, the moment's +inspiration telling how, till at last all blended in a locomotive-paced +La, and in a final roar of laughter it ended. + +I could not realize at the time how much this exquisite part-singing was +extemporized. The sound of it rung in my head--I assure you, reader, it +rings there yet when I think of it--like a magic bell. Another day, +however, when I begged for a repetition of it, the girls could recall +nothing of it. They could start it again on any air to the unending +strain of "La--la--la;" but _the_ "La--la--la" of the previous evening +was _avec les neiges d'antan_, with the smoke of yesterday's fire, with +the perfume and bird-songs. "La, la, la--la--la!" + +In Arab singing, such effects are applied simply to set forth erotomania; +in negro minstrelsy, they are degraded to the lowest humor; in higher +European music, when employed, they simply illustrate the skill of +composer and musician. The spirit of gypsy singing recalled by its +method and sweetness that of the Nubian boatmen, but in its _general_ +effect I could think only of those strange fits of excitement which +thrill the red Indian and make him burst into song. The Abbe Domenech +{42} has observed that the American savage pays attention to every sound +that strikes upon his ear when the leaves, softly shaken by the evening +breeze, seem to sigh through the air, or when the tempest, bursting forth +with fury, shakes the gigantic trees that crack like reeds. "The +chirping of the birds, the cry of the wild beasts, in a word, all those +sweet, grave, or imposing voices that animate the wilderness, are so many +musical lessons, which he easily remembers." In illustration of this, +the missionary describes the singing of a Chippewa chief, and its wild +inspiration, in a manner which vividly illustrates all music of the class +of which I write. + +"It was," he says, "during one of those long winter nights, so monotonous +and so wearisome in the woods. We were in a wigwam, which afforded us +but miserable shelter from the inclemency of the season. The storm raged +without; the tempest roared in the open country; the wind blew with +violence, and whistled through the fissures of the cabin; the rain fell +in torrents, and prevented us from continuing our route. Our host was an +Indian, with sparkling and intelligent eyes, clad with a certain +elegance, and wrapped majestically in a large fur cloak. Seated close to +the fire, which cast a reddish gleam through the interior of his wigwam, +he felt himself all at once seized with an irresistible desire to imitate +the convulsions of nature, and to sing his impressions. So, taking hold +of a drum which hung near his bed, he beat a slight rolling, resembling +the distant sounds of an approaching storm; then, raising his voice to a +shrill treble, which he knew how to soften when he pleased, he imitated +the whistling of the air, the creaking of the branches dashing against +one another, and the particular noise produced by dead leaves when +accumulated in compact masses on the ground. By degrees the rollings of +the drum became more frequent and louder, the chants more sonorous and +shrill, and at last our Indian shrieked, howled, and roared in a most +frightful manner; he struggled and struck his instrument with +extraordinary rapidity. It was a real tempest, to which nothing was +wanting, not even the distant howling of the dogs, nor the bellowing of +the affrighted buffaloes." + +I have observed the same musical inspiration of a storm upon Arabs, who, +during their singing, also accompanied themselves on a drum. I once +spent two weeks in a Mediterranean steamboat, on board of which were more +than two hundred pilgrims, for the greater part wild Bedouins, going to +Mecca. They had a minstrel who sang and played on the _darabuka_, or +earthenware drum, and he was aided by another with a simple _nai_, or +reed-whistle; the same orchestra, in fact, which is in universal use +among all red Indians. To these performers the pilgrims listened with +indescribable pleasure; and I soon found that they regarded me favorably +because I did the same, being, of course, the only Frank on board who +paid any attention to the singing--or any money for it. But it was at +night and during storms that the spirit of music always seemed to be +strongest on the Arabs, and then, amid roaring of wild waters and +thundering, and in dense darkness, the rolling of the drum and the +strange, bewildering ballads never ceased. It was the very counterpart, +in all respects, of the Chippewa storm song. + +After the first gypsy lyric there came another, to which the captain +especially directed my attention as being what Sam Petulengro calls +"reg'lar Romany." It was _I rakli adro o lolo gad_ (The girl in the red +chemise), as well as I can recall his words,--a very sweet song, with a +simple but spirited chorus; and as the sympathetic electricity of +excitement seized the performers we were all in a minute "going down the +rapids in a spring freshet." + +"_Bagan tu rya_, _bagan_!" (Sing, sir,--sing) cried my handsome neighbor, +with her black gypsy eyes sparkling fire. "_Jines hi bagan eto_--_eto +latcho Romanes_." (You can sing that,--it's real Romany.) It was +evident that she and all were singing with thorough enjoyment, and with a +full and realizing consciousness of gypsyism, being greatly stimulated by +my presence and sympathy. I felt that the gypsies were taking unusual +pains to please the Romany rye from the _dur' tem_, or far country, and +they had attained the acme of success by being thoroughly delighted with +themselves, which is all that can be hoped for in art, where the aim is +pleasure and not criticism. + +There was a pause in the performance, but none in the chattering of the +young ladies, and during this a curious little incident occurred. +Wishing to know if my pretty friend could understand an English gypsy +lyric, I sang in an undertone a ballad, taken from George Borrow's +"Lavengro," and which begins with these words:-- + + "Pende Eomani chai ke laki dye; + 'Miri diri dye, mi shom kameli.'" + +I never knew whether this was really an old gypsy poem or one written by +Mr. Borrow. Once, when I repeated it to old Henry James, as he sat +making baskets, I was silenced by being told, "That ain't no real gypsy +_gilli_. That's one of the kind made up by gentlemen and ladies." +However, as soon as I repeated it, the Russian gypsy girl cried eagerly, +"I know that song!" and actually sang me a ballad which was essentially +the same, in which a damsel describes her fall, owing to a Gajo (Gorgio, +a Gentile,--not gypsy) lover, and her final expulsion from the tent. It +was adapted to a very pretty melody, and as soon as she had sung it, +_sotto voce_, my pretty friend exclaimed to another girl, "Only think, +the _rye_ from America knows _that_ song!" Now, as many centuries must +have passed since the English and Russian gypsies parted from the parent +stock, the preservation of this song is very remarkable, and its +antiquity must be very great. I did not take it down, but any resident +in St. Petersburg can, if so inclined, do so among the gypsies at Dorat, +and verify my statement. + +Then there was a pretty dance, of a modified Oriental character, by one +of the damsels. For this, as for the singing, the only musical +instrument used was a guitar, which had seven strings, tuned in Spanish +fashion, and was rather weak in tone. I wished it had been a powerful +Panormo, which would have exactly suited the _timbre_ of these voices. +The gypsies were honestly interested in all I could tell them about their +kind in other lands; while the girls were professionally desirous to hear +more Anglo-Romany songs, and were particularly pleased with one beginning +with the words:-- + + "'Me shom akonyo,' gildas yoi, + Men buti ruzhior, + Te sar i chiriclia adoi + Pen mengy gilior.'" + +Though we "got on" after a manner in our Romany talk, I was often obliged +to have recourse to my friend the general to translate long sentences +into Russian, especially when some sand-bar of a verb or some log of a +noun impeded the current of our conversation. Finally, a formal request +was made by the captain that I would, as one deep beyond all their +experience in Romany matters, kindly tell them what kind of people they +really were, and whence they came. With this demand I cheerfully +complied, every word being listened to with breathless interest. So I +told them what I knew or had conjectured relative to their Indian origin: +how their fathers had wandered forth through Persia; how their travels +could be traced by the Persian, Greek, or Roumanian words in the +language; how in 1417 a band of them appeared in Europe, led by a few men +of great diplomatic skill, who, by crafty dealing, obtained from the +Pope, the Emperor of Germany, and all the kings of Europe, except that of +England, permission to wander for fifty years as pilgrims, declaring that +they had been Christians, but, having become renegades, the King of +Hungary had imposed a penance on them of half a century's exile. Then I +informed them that precisely the same story had been told by them to the +rulers in Syria and Egypt, only that in the Mohammedan countries they +pretended to be good followers of Islam. I said there was reason to +believe that some of their people had been in Poland and the other +Slavonic countries ever since the eleventh century, but that those of +England must have gone directly from Eastern Europe to Great Britain; +for, although they had many Slavic words, such as _krallis_ (king) and +_shuba_, there were no French terms, and very few traces of German or +Italian, in the English dialect. I observed that the men all understood +the geographical allusions which I made, knowing apparently where India, +Persia, and Egypt were situated--a remarkable contrast to our own English +"travelers," one of whom once informed me that he would like to go "on +the road" in America, "because you know, sir, as America lays along into +France, we could get our French baskets cheaper there." + +I found, on inquiry, that the Russian gypsies profess Christianity; but, +as the religion of the Greek church, as I saw it, appears to be +practically something very little better than fetich-worship, I cannot +exalt them as models of evangelical piety. They are, however, according +to a popular proverb, not far from godliness in being very clean in their +persons; and not only did they appear so to me, but I was assured by +several Russians that, as regarded these singing gypsies, it was +invariably the case. As for morality in gypsy girls, their principles +are very peculiar. Not a whisper of scandal attaches to these Russian +Romany women as regards transient amours. But if a wealthy Russian +gentleman falls in love with one, and will have and hold her permanently, +or for a durable connection, he may take her to his home if she likes +him, but must pay monthly a sum into the gypsy treasury; for these people +apparently form an _artel_, or society-union, like all other classes of +Russians. It may be suggested, as an explanation of this apparent +incongruity, that gypsies all the world over regard steady cohabitation, +or agreement, as marriage, binding themselves, as it were, by +_Gand-harbavivaha_, as the saint married Vasantasena, which is an old +Sanskrit way of wedding. And let me remark that if one tenth of what I +heard in Russia about "morals" in the highest or lowest or any other +class be true, the gypsies of that country are shining lights and +brilliant exemplars of morality to all by whom they are surrounded. Let +me also add that never on any occasion did I hear or see among them +anything in the slightest degree improper or unrefined. I knew very well +that I could, if I chose, talk to such _naive_ people about subjects +which would shock an English lady, and, as the reader may remember, I did +quote Mr. Borrow's song, which he has not translated. But a European +girl who would have endured allusions to tabooed subjects would have at +all times shown vulgarity or coarseness, while these Russian Romany girls +were invariably lady-like. It is true that the St. Petersburg party had +a dissipated air; three or four of them looked like second-class French +or Italian theatrical artistes, and I should not be astonished to learn +that very late hours and champagne were familiar to them as cigarettes, +or that their flirtations among their own people were neither faint, nor +few, nor far between. But their conduct in my presence was +irreproachable. Those of Moscow, in fact, had not even the apparent +defects of their St. Petersburg sisters and brothers, and when among them +it always seemed to me as if I were simply with nice gentle creoles or +Cubans, the gypsy manner being tamed down to the Spanish level, their +great black eyes and their guitars increasing the resemblance. + +The indescribably wild and thrilling character of gypsy music is +thoroughly appreciated by the Russians, who pay very high prices for +Romany performances. From five to eight or ten pounds sterling is +usually given to a dozen gypsies for singing an hour or two to a special +party, and this is sometimes repeated twice or thrice of an evening. "A +Russian gentleman, when he is in funds," said the clerk of the Slavansky +Bazaar in Moscow to me, "will make nothing of giving the Zigani a +hundred-ruble note," the ruble rating at half a crown. The result is +that good singers among these lucky Romanys are well to do, and lead soft +lives, for Russia. + + + +MOSCOW. + + +I had no friends in Moscow to direct me where to find gypsies _en +famille_, and the inquiries which I made of chance acquaintances simply +convinced me that the world at large was as ignorant of their ways as it +was prejudiced against them. At last the good-natured old porter of our +hotel told me, in his rough Baltic German, how to meet these mysterious +minstrels to advantage. "You must take a sleigh," he said, "and go out +to Petrovka. That is a place in the country, where there are grand +_cafes_ at considerable distances one from the other. Pay the driver +three rubles for four hours. Enter a _cafe_, call for something to +drink, listen to the gypsies singing, and when they pass round a plate +put some money in it. That's all." This was explicit, and at ten +o'clock in the evening I hired a sleigh and went. + +If the cold which I had experienced in the general's troika in St. +Petersburg might be compared to a moderate rheumatism, that which I +encountered in the sleigh outside the walls of Moscow, on Christmas Eve, +1876, was like a fierce gout. The ride was in all conscience Russian +enough to have its ending among gypsies, Tartars, or Cossacks. To go at +a headlong pace over the creaking snow behind an _istvostshik_, named +Vassili, the round, cold moon overhead, church-spires tipped with great +inverted golden turnips in the distance, and this on a night when the +frost seemed almost to scream in its intensity, is as much of a sensation +in the suburbs of Moscow as it could be out on the steppes. A few +wolves, more or less, make no difference,--and even they come sometimes +within three hours' walk of the Kremlin. _Et ego inter lupos_,--I too +have been among wolves in my time by night, in Kansas, and thought +nothing of such rides compared to the one I had when I went gypsying from +Moscow. + +In half an hour Vassili brought me to a house, which I entered. A "proud +porter," a vast creature, in uniform suggestive of embassies and kings' +palaces, relieved me of my _shuba_, and I found my way into a very large +and high hall, brilliantly lighted as if for a thousand guests, while the +only occupants were four couples, "spooning" _sans gene_, one in each +corner and a small party of men and girls drinking in the middle. I +called a waiter; he spoke nothing but Russian, and Russian is of all +languages the most useless to him who only talks it "a little." A little +Arabic, or even a little Chippewa, I have found of great service, but a +fair vocabulary and weeks of study of the grammar are of no avail in a +country where even men of gentlemanly appearance turn away with childish +_ennui_ the instant they detect the foreigner, resolving apparently that +they cannot and _will not_ understand him. In matters like this the +ordinary Russian is more impatient and less intelligent than any Oriental +or even red Indian. The result of my interview with the waiter was that +we were soon involved in the completest misunderstanding on the subject +of gypsies. The question was settled by reference to a fat and fair +damsel, one of the "spoons" already referred to, who spoke German. She +explained to me that as it was Christmas Eve no gypsies would be there, +or at any other _cafe_. This was disappointing. I called Vassili, and +he drove on to another "garden," deeply buried in snow. + +When I entered the rooms at this place, I perceived at a glance that +matters had mended. There was the hum of many voices, and a perfume like +that of tea and many _papiross_, or cigarettes, with a prompt sense of +society and of enjoyment. I was dazzled at first by the glare of the +lights, and could distinguish nothing, unless it was that the numerous +company regarded me with utter amazement; for it was an "off night," when +no business was expected,--few were there save "professionals" and their +friends,--and I was manifestly an unexpected intruder on Bohemia. As +luck would have it, that which I believed was the one worst night in the +year to find the gypsy minstrels proved to be the exceptional occasion +when they were all assembled, and I had hit upon it. Of course this +struck me pleasantly enough as I looked around, for I knew that at a +touch the spell would be broken, and with one word I should have the +warmest welcome from all. I had literally not a single speaking +acquaintance within a thousand miles, and yet here was a room crowded +with gay and festive strangers, whom the slightest utterance would +convert into friends. + +I was not disappointed. Seeking for an opportunity, I saw a young man of +gentlemanly appearance, well dressed, and with a mild and amiable air. +Speaking to him in German, I asked the very needless question if there +were any gypsies present. + +"You wish to hear them sing?" he inquired. + +"I do not. I only want to talk with one,--with _any_ one." + +He appeared to be astonished, but, pointing to a handsome, slender young +lady, a very dark brunette, elegantly attired in black silk, said,-- + +"There is one." + +I stepped across to the girl, who rose to meet me. I said nothing for a +few seconds, but looked at her intently, and then asked,-- + +"_Rakessa tu Romanes_, _miri pen_?" (Do you talk Romany, my sister?) + +She gave one deep, long glance of utter astonishment, drew one long +breath, and, with a cry of delight and wonder, said,-- + +"_Romanichal_!" + +That word awoke the entire company, and with it they found out who the +intruder was. "Then might you hear them cry aloud, 'The Moringer is +here!'" for I began to feel like the long-lost lord returned, so warm was +my welcome. They flocked around me; they cried aloud in Romany, and one +good-natured, smiling man, who looked like a German gypsy, mounting a +chair, waved a guitar by its neck high in the air as a signal of +discovery of a great prize to those at a distance, repeating rapidly,-- + +"_Av'akai_, _ava'kai_, _Romanichal_!" (Come here; here's a gypsy!) + +And they came, dark and light, great and small, and got round me, and +shook hands, and held to my arms, and asked where I came from, and how I +did, and if it wasn't jolly, and what would I take to drink, and said how +glad they were to see me; and when conversation flagged for an instant, +somebody said to his next neighbor, with an air of wisdom, "American +Romany," and everybody repeated it with delight. Then it occurred to the +guitarist and the young lady that we had better sit down. So my first +acquaintance and discoverer, whose name was Liubasha, was placed, in +right of preemption, at my right hand, the _belle des belles_, Miss +Sarsha, at my left, a number of damsels all around these, and then three +or four circles of gypsies, of different ages and tints, standing up, +surrounded us all. In the outer ring were several fast-looking and +pretty Russian or German blonde girls, whose mission it is, I believe, to +dance--and flirt--with visitors, and a few gentlemanly-looking Russians, +_vieuz garcons_, evidently of the kind who are at home behind the scenes, +and who knew where to come to enjoy themselves. Altogether there must +have been about fifty present, and I soon observed that every word I +uttered was promptly repeated, while every eye was fixed on me. + +I could converse in Romany with the guitarist, and without much +difficulty; but with the charming, heedless young ladies I had as much +trouble to talk as with their sisters in St. Petersburg. The young +gentleman already referred to, to whom in my fancy I promptly gave the +Offenbachian name of Prince Paul, translated whenever there was a +misunderstanding, and in a few minutes we were all intimate. Miss +Sarsha, who had a slight cast in one of her wild black eyes, which added +something to the gypsiness and roguery of her smiles, and who wore in a +ring a large diamond, which seemed as if it might be the right eye in the +wrong place, was what is called an earnest young lady, with plenty to say +and great energy wherewith to say it. What with her eyes, her diamond, +her smiles, and her tongue, she constituted altogether a fine specimen of +irrepressible fireworks, and Prince Paul had enough to do in facilitating +conversation. There was no end to his politeness, but it was an +impossible task for him now and then promptly to carry over a long +sentence from German to Russian, and he would give it up like an +invincible conundrum, with the patient smile and head-wag and hand-wave +of an amiable Dundreary. Yet I began to surmise a mystery even in him. +More than once he inadvertently betrayed a knowledge of Romany, though he +invariably spoke of his friends around in a patronizing manner as "these +gypsies." This was very odd, for in appearance he was a Gorgio of the +Gorgios, and did not seem, despite any talent for languages which he +might possess, likely to trouble himself to acquire Romany while Russian +would answer every purpose of conversation. All of this was, however, +explained to me afterward. + +Prince Paul again asked me if I had come out to hear a concert. I said, +"No; that I had simply come out to see my brothers and sisters and talk +with them, just as I hoped they would come to see me if I were in my own +country." This speech produced a most favorable impression, and there +was, in a quiet way, a little private conversation among the leaders, +after which Prince Paul said to me, in a very pleasant manner, that +"these gypsies," being delighted at the visit from the gentleman from a +distant country, would like to offer me a song in token of welcome. To +this I answered, with many thanks, that such kindness was more than I had +expected, for I was well aware of the great value of such a compliment +from singers whose fame had reached me even in America. It was evident +that my grain of a reply did not fall upon stony ground, for I never was +among people who seemed to be so quickly impressed by any act of +politeness, however trifling. A bow, a grasp of the hand, a smile, or a +glance would gratify them, and this gratification their lively black eyes +expressed in the most unmistakable manner. + +So we had the song, wild and wonderful like all of its kind, given with +that delightful _abandon_ which attains perfection only among gypsies. I +had enjoyed the singing in St. Petersburg, but there was a _laisser +aller_, a completely gay spirit, in this Christmas-Eve gypsy party in +Moscow which was much more "whirling away." For at Dorot the gypsies had +been on exhibition; here at Petrovka they were frolicking _en __famille_ +with a favored guest,--a Romany rye from a far land to astonish and +delight,--and he took good care to let them feel that they were achieving +a splendid success, for I declared many times that it was _butsi shukar_, +or very beautiful. Then I called for tea and lemon, and after that the +gypsies sang for their own amusement, Miss Sarsha, as the incarnation of +fun and jollity, taking the lead, and making me join in. Then the crowd +made way, and in the space appeared a very pretty little girl, in the +graceful old gypsy Oriental dress. This child danced charmingly indeed, +in a style strikingly like that of the Almeh of Egypt, but without any of +the erotic expressions which abound in Eastern pantomime. This little +Romany girl was to me enchanting, being altogether unaffected and +graceful. It was evident that her dancing, like the singing of her elder +sisters, was not an art which had been drilled in by instruction. They +had come into it in infancy, and perfected themselves by such continual +practice that what they did was as natural as walking or talking. When +the dancing was over, I begged that the little girl would come to me, +and, kissing her tiny gypsy hand, I said, "_Spassibo tute kamli_, _eto hi +butsi shukar_" (Thank you, dear; that is very pretty), with which the +rest were evidently pleased. I had observed among the singers, at a +little distance, a very remarkable and rather handsome old woman,--a good +study for an artist,--and she, as I also noticed, had sung with a +powerful and clear voice. "She is our grandmother," said one of the +girls. Now, as every student of gypsies knows, the first thing to do in +England or Germany, on entering a tent-gypsy encampment, is to be polite +to "the old woman." Unless you can win her good opinion you had better +be gone. The Russian city Roms have apparently no such fancies. On the +road, however, life is patriarchal, and the grandmother is a power to be +feared. As a fortune-teller she is a witch, ever at warfare with the +police world; she has a bitter tongue, and is quick to wrath. This was +not the style or fashion of the old gypsy singer; but, as soon as I saw +the _puri babali dye_, I requested that she would shake hand with me, and +by the impression which this created I saw that the Romany of the city +had not lost all the feelings of the road. + +I spoke of Waramoff's beautiful song of the "Krasneya Sarafan," which +Sarsha began at once to warble. The characteristic of Russian gypsy-girl +voices is a peculiarly delicate metallic tone,--like that of the two +silver bells of the Tower of Ivan Velikoi when heard from afar,--yet +always marked with fineness and strength. This is sometimes startling in +the wilder effects, but it is always agreeable. These Moscow gypsy girls +have a great name in their art, and it was round the shoulders of one of +them--for aught I know it may have been Sarsha's great-grandmother--that +Catalani threw the cashmere shawl which had been given to her by the Pope +as "to the best singer in the world." "It is not mine by right," said +the generous Italian; "it belongs to the gypsy." + +The gypsies were desirous of learning something about the songs of their +kindred in distant lands, and, though no singer, I did my best to please +them, the guitarist easily improvising accompaniments, while the girls +joined in. As all were in a gay mood faults were easily excused, and the +airs were much liked,--one lyric, set by Virginia Gabriel, being even +more admired in Moscow than in St. Petersburg, apropos of which I may +mention that, when I afterward visited the gypsy family in their own +home, the first request from Sarsha was, "_Eto gilyo_, _rya_!" (_That_ +song, sir), referring to "Romany," which has been heard at several +concerts in London. And so, after much discussion of the affairs of +Egypt, I took my leave amid a chorus of kind farewells. Then Vassili, +loudly called for, reappeared from some nook with his elegantly frosted +horse, and in a few minutes we were dashing homeward. Cold! It was as +severe as in Western New York or Minnesota, where the thermometer for +many days every winter sinks lower than in St. Petersburg, but where +there are no such incredible precautions taken as in the land of double +windows cemented down, and fur-lined _shubas_. It is remarkable that the +gypsies, although of Oriental origin, are said to surpass the Russians in +enduring cold; and there is a marvelous story told about a Romany who, +for a wager, undertook to sleep naked against a clothed Muscovite on the +ice of a river during an unusually cold night. In the morning the +Russian was found frozen stiff, while the gypsy was snoring away +unharmed. As we returned, I saw in the town something which recalled +this story in more than one _moujik_, who, well wrapped up, lay sleeping +in the open air, under the lee of a house. Passing through silent Moscow +on the early Christmas morn, under the stars, as I gazed at the marvelous +city, which yields neither to Edinburgh, Cairo, nor Prague in +picturesqueness, and thought over the strange evening I had spent among +the gypsies, I felt as if I were in a melodrama with striking scenery. +The pleasing _finale_ was the utter amazement and almost speechless +gratitude of Vassili at getting an extra half-ruble as an early Christmas +gift. + +As I had received a pressing invitation from the gypsies to come again, I +resolved to pay them a visit on Christmas afternoon in their own house, +if I could find it. Having ascertained that the gypsy street was in a +distant quarter, called the _Grouszini_, I engaged a sleigh, standing +before the door of the Slavanski-Bazaar Hotel, and the usual close +bargain with the driver was effected with the aid of a Russian gentleman, +a stranger passing by, who reduced the ruble (one hundred kopecks) at +first demanded to seventy kopecks. After a very long drive we found +ourselves in the gypsy street, and the _istvostshik_ asked me, "To what +house?" + +"I don't know," I replied. "Gypsies live here, don't they?" + +"Gypsies, and no others." + +"Well, I want to find a gypsy." + +The driver laughed, and just at that instant I saw, as if awaiting me on +the sidewalk, Sarsha, Liubasha, and another young lady, with a +good-looking youth, their brother. + +"This will do," I said to the driver, who appeared utterly amazed at +seeing me greeted like an old friend by the Zigani, but who grinned with +delight, as all Russians of the lower class invariably do at anything +like sociability and fraternity. The damsels were faultlessly attired in +Russian style, with full fur-lined, glossy black-satin cloaks and fine +Orenberg scarfs, which are, I believe, the finest woolen fabrics in the +world. The party were particularly anxious to know if I had come +specially to visit _them_, for I have passed over the fact that I had +also made the acquaintance of another very large family of gypsies, who +sang at a rival _cafe_, and who had also treated me very kindly. I was +at once conducted to a house, which we entered in a rather gypsy way, not +in front, but through a court, a back door, and up a staircase, very much +in the style of certain dwellings in the Potteries in London. But, +having entered, I was led through one or two neat rooms, where I saw +lying sound asleep on beds, but dressed, one or two very dark Romanys, +whose faces I remembered. Then we passed into a sitting-room, which was +very well furnished. I observed hanging up over the chimney-piece a good +collection of photographs, nearly all of gypsies, and indicating that +close resemblance to Hindoos which comes out so strongly in such +pictures, being, in fact, more apparent in the pictures than in the +faces; just as the photographs of the old Ulfilas manuscript revealed +alterations not visible in the original. In the centre of the group was +a cabinet-size portrait of Sarsha, and by it another of an Englishman of +_very_ high rank. I thought this odd, but asked no questions. + +My hosts were very kind, offering me promptly a rich kind of Russian +cake, begging to know what else I would like to eat or drink, and +apparently deeply concerned that I could really partake of nothing, as I +had just come from luncheon. They were all light-hearted and gay, so +that the music began at once, as wild and as bewitching as ever. And +here I observed, even more than before, how thoroughly sincere these +gypsies were in their art, and to what a degree they enjoyed and were +excited by their own singing. Here in their own home, warbling like +birds and frolicking like children, their performance was even more +delightful than it had been in the concert-room. There was evidently a +great source of excitement in the fact that I must enjoy it far more than +an ordinary stranger, because I understood Romany, and sympathized with +gypsy ways, and regarded them not as the _Gaji_ or Gentiles do, but as +brothers and sisters. I confess that I was indeed moved by the simple +kindness with which I was treated, and I knew that, with the wonderfully +keen perception of character in which gypsies excel, they perfectly +understood my liking for them. It is this ready intuition of feelings +which, when it is raised from an instinct to an art by practice, enables +shrewd old women to tell fortunes with so much skill. + +I was here introduced to the mother of the girls. She was a neat, +pleasant-looking woman, of perhaps forty years, in appearance and manners +irresistibly reminding me of some respectable Cuban lady. Like the +others, she displayed an intelligent curiosity as to my knowledge of +Romany, and I was pleased at finding that she knew much more of the +language than her children did. Then there entered a young Russian +gentleman, but not "Prince Paul." He was, however, a very agreeable +person, as all Russians can be when so minded; and they are always so +minded when they gather, from information or conjecture, the fact that +the stranger whom they meet is one of education or position. This young +gentleman spoke French, and undertook the part of occasional translator. + +I asked Liubasha if any of them understood fortune-telling. + +"No; we have quite lost the art of _dorriki_. {61} None of us know +anything about it. But we hear that you Romanichals over the Black Water +understand it. Oh, _rya_," she cried, eagerly, "you know so +much,--you're such a deep Romany,--can't _you_ tell fortunes?" + +"I should indeed know very little about Romany ways," I replied, gravely, +"if I could not _pen dorriki_. But I tell you beforehand, _terni pen_, +'_dorrikipen hi hokanipen_,' little sister, fortune-telling is deceiving. +Yet what the lines say I can read." + +In an instant six as pretty little gypsy hands as I ever beheld were +thrust before me, and I heard as many cries of delight. "Tell _my_ +fortune, _rya_! tell mine! and _mine_!" exclaimed the damsels, and I +complied. It was all very well to tell them there was nothing in it; +they knew a trick worth two of that. I perceived at once that the faith +which endures beyond its own knowledge was placed in all I said. In +England the gypsy woman, who at home ridicules her own fortune-telling +and her dupes, still puts faith in a _gusveri mush_, or some "wise man," +who with crystal or magical apparatus professes occult knowledge; for she +thinks that her own false art is an imitation of a true one. It is +really amusing to see the reverence with which an old gypsy will look at +the awful hieroglyphics in Cornelius Agrippa's "Occult Philosophy," or, +better still, "Trithemius," and, as a gift, any ordinary fortune-telling +book is esteemed by them beyond rubies. It is true that they cannot read +it, but the precious volume is treasured like a fetich, and the owner is +happy in the thought of at least possessing darksome and forbidden lore, +though it be of no earthly use to her. After all the kindness they had +shown me, I could not find it in my heart to refuse to tell these gentle +Zingari their little fortunes. It is not, I admit, exactly in the order +of things that the chicken should dress the cook, or the Gorgio tell +fortunes to gypsies; but he who wanders in strange lands meets with +strange adventures. So, with a full knowledge of the legal penalties +attached in England to palmistry and other conjuration, and with the then +pending Slade case knocking heavily on my conscience, I proceeded to +examine and predict. When I afterward narrated this incident to the late +G. H. Lewes, he expressed himself to the effect that to tell fortunes to +gypsies struck him as the very _ne plus ultra_ of cheek,--which shows how +extremes meet; for verily it was with great modesty and proper diffidence +that I ventured to foretell the lives of these little ladies, having an +antipathy to the practice of chiromancing as to other romancing. + +I have observed that as among men of great and varied culture, and of +extensive experience, there are more complex and delicate shades and +half-shades of light in the face, so in the palm the lines are +correspondingly varied and broken. Take a man of intellect and a +peasant, of equal excellence of figure according to the literal rules of +art or of anatomy, and this subtile multiplicity of variety shows itself +in the whole body in favor of the "gentleman," so that it would almost +seem as if every book we read is republished in the person. The first +thing that struck me in these gypsy hands was the fewness of the lines, +their clearly defined sweep, and their simplicity. In every one the line +of life was unbroken, and, in fine, one might think from a drawing of the +hand, and without knowing who its owner might be, that he or she was of a +type of character unknown in most great European cities,--a being gifted +with special culture, and in a certain simple sense refined, but not +endowed with experience in a thousand confused phases of life. The hands +of a true genius, who has passed through life earnestly devoted to a +single art, however, are on the whole like these of the gypsies. Such, +for example, are the hands of Fanny Janauschek, the lines of which agree +to perfection with the laws of chiromancy. The art reminds one of +Cervantes's ape, who told the past and present, but not the future. And +here "tell me what thou hast been, and I will tell what thou wilt be" +gives a fine opportunity to the soothsayer. + +To avoid mistakes I told the fortunes in French, which was translated +into Russian. I need not say that every word was listened to with +earnest attention, or that the group of dark but young and comely faces, +as they gathered around and bent over, would have made a good subject for +a picture. After the girls, the mother must needs hear her _dorriki_ +also, and last of all the young Russian gentleman, who seemed to take as +earnest an interest in his future as even the gypsies. As he alone +understood French, and as he appeared to be _un peu gaillard_, and, +finally, as the lines of his hand said nothing to the contrary, I +predicted for him in detail a fortune in which _bonnes fortunes_ were not +at all wanting. I think he was pleased, but when I asked him if he would +translate what I had said of his future into Russian, he replied with a +slight wink and a scarcely perceptible negative. I suppose he had his +reasons for declining. + +Then we had singing again, and Christopher, the brother, a wild and gay +young gypsy, became so excited that while playing the guitar he also +danced and caroled, and the sweet voices of the girls rose in chorus, and +I was again importuned for the _Romany_ song, and we had altogether a +very Bohemian frolic. I was sorry when the early twilight faded into +night, and I was obliged, notwithstanding many entreaties to the +contrary, to take my leave. These gypsies had been very friendly and +kind to me in a strange city, where I had not an acquaintance, and where +I had expected none. They had given me of their very best; for they gave +me songs which I can never forget, and which were better to me than all +the opera could bestow. The young Russian, polite to the last, went +bareheaded with me into the street, and, hailing a sleigh-driver, began +to bargain for me. In Moscow, as in other places, it makes a great +difference in the fare whether one takes a public conveyance from before +the first hotel or from a house in the gypsy quarter. I had paid seventy +kopecks to come, and I at once found that my new friend and the driver +were engaged in wild and fierce dispute whether I should pay twenty or +thirty to return. + +"Oh, give him thirty!" I exclaimed. "It's little enough." + +"_Non_," replied the Russian, with the air of a man of principles. "_Il +ne faut pas gater ces gens-la_." But I gave the driver thirty, all the +same, when we got home, and thereby earned the usual shower of blessings. + +A few days afterward, while going from Moscow to St. Petersburg, I made +the acquaintance of a young Russian noble and diplomat, who was well +informed on all current gossip, and learned from him some curious facts. +The first young gentleman whom I had seen among the Romanys of Moscow was +the son of a Russian prince by a gypsy mother, and the very noble +Englishman whose photograph I had seen in Sarsha's collection had not +long ago (as rumor averred) paid desperate attentions to the belle of the +Romanys without obtaining the least success. My informant did not know +her name. Putting this and that together, I think it highly probable +that Sarsha was the young lady, and that the _latcho bar_, or diamond, +which sparkled on her finger had been paid for with British gold, while +the donor had gained the same "unluck" which befell one of his type in +the Spanish gypsy song as given by George Borrow:-- + + "Loud sang the Spanish cavalier, + And thus his ditty ran: + 'God send the gypsy maiden here, + But not the gypsy man.' + + "On high arose the moon so bright, + The gypsy 'gan to sing, + 'I gee a Spaniard coming here, + I must be on the wing.'" + + + + +AUSTRIAN GYPSIES. + + +I. + + +In June, 1878, I went to Paris, during the great Exhibition. I had been +invited by Monsieur Edmond About to attend as a delegate the Congres +Internationale Litteraire, which was about to be held in the great city. +How we assembled, how M. About distinguished himself as one of the most +practical and common-sensible of men of genius, and how we were all +finally harangued by M. Victor Hugo with the most extraordinary display +of oratorical sky-rockets, Catherine-wheels, blue-lights, fire-crackers, +and pin-wheels by which it was ever my luck to be amused, is matter of +history. But this chapter is only autobiographical, and we will pass +over the history. As an Anglo-American delegate, I was introduced to +several great men gratis; to the greatest of all I introduced myself at +the expense of half a franc. This was to the Chinese giant, Chang, who +was on exhibition at a small cafe garden near the Trocadero. There were +no other visitors in his pavilion when I entered. He received me with +politeness, and we began to converse in fourth-story English, but +gradually went down-stairs into Pidgin, until we found ourselves fairly +in the kitchen of that humble but entertaining dialect. It is a +remarkable sensation to sit alone with a mild monster, and feel like a +little boy. I do not distinctly remember whether Chang is eight, or ten +or twelve feet high; I only know that, though I am, as he said, "one +velly big piecee man," I sat and lifted my eyes from time to time at the +usual level, forgetfully expecting to meet his eyes, and beheld instead +the buttons on his breast. Then I looked up--like Daruma to Buddha--and +up, and saw far above me his "lights of the soul" gleaming down on me as +it were from the top of a lofty beacon. + +I soon found that Chang, regarding all things from a giant's point of +view, esteemed mankind by their size and looks. Therefore, as he had +complimented me according to his lights, I replied that he was a "numpa +one too muchee glanti handsome man, first chop big." + +Then he added, "You belongy Inklis man?" + +"No. My one piecee _fa-ke-kwok_; {69} my Melican, galaw. You dlinkee +ale some-tim?" + +The giant replied that _pay-wine_, which is Pidgin for beer, was not +ungrateful to his palate or foreign to his habits. So we had a quart of +Alsopp between us, and drank to better acquaintance. I found that the +giant had exhibited himself in many lands, and taken great pains to learn +the language of each, so that he spoke German, Italian, and Spanish well +enough. He had been at a mission-school when he used to "stop +China-side," or was in his native land. I assured him that I had +perceived it from the first, because he evidently "talked ink," as his +countrymen say of words which are uttered by a scholar, and I greatly +gratified him by citing some of my own "beautiful verses," which are +reversed from a Chinese original:-- + + "One man who never leadee {69a} + Like one dly {69b} inkstan be: + You turn he up-side downy, + No ink lun {69c} outside he." + +So we parted with mutual esteem. This was the second man by the name of +Chang whom I had known, and singularly enough they were both exhibited as +curiosities. The other made a living as a Siamese twin, and his brother +was named Eng. They wrote their autographs for me, and put them wisely +at the very top of the page, lest I should write a promise to pay an +immense sum of money, or forge a free pass to come into the exhibition +gratis over their signatures. + +Having seen Chang, I returned to the Hotel de Louvre, dined, and then +went forth with friends to the Orangerie. This immense garden, devoted +to concerts, beer, and cigars, is said to be capable of containing three +thousand people; before I left it it held about five thousand. I knew +not why this unwonted crowd had assembled; when I found the cause I was +astonished, with reason. At the gate was a bill, on which I read "Les +Bohemiennes de Moscow." + +"Some small musical comedy, I suppose," I said to myself. "But let us +see it." We pressed on. + +"Look there!" said my companion. "Those are certainly gypsies." + +Sure enough, a procession of men and women, strangely dressed in gayly +colored Oriental garments, was entering the gates. But I replied, +"Impossible. Not here in Paris. Probably they are performers." + +"But see. They notice you. That girl certainly knows you. She's +turning her head. There,--I heard her say O Romany rye!" + +I was bewildered. The crowd was dense, but as the procession passed me +at a second turn I saw they were indeed gypsies, and I was grasped by the +hand by more than one. They were my old friends from Moscow. This +explained the immense multitude. There was during the Exhibition a great +_furor_ as regarded _les zigains_. The gypsy orchestra which performed +in the Hungarian cafe was so beset by visitors that a comic paper +represented them as covering the roofs of the adjacent houses so as to +hear something. This evening the Russian gypsies were to make their +debut in the Orangerie, and they were frightened at their own success. +They sang, but their voices were inaudible to two thirds of the audience, +and those who could not hear roared, "Louder!" Then they adjourned to +the open air, where the voices were lost altogether on a crowd calling, +"_Garcon_--_vite_--_une tasse cafe_!" or applauding. In the intervals +scores of young Russian gentlemen, golden swells, who had known the girls +of old, gathered round the fair ones like moths around tapers. The +singing was not the same as it had been; the voices were the same, but +the sweet wild charm of the Romany caroling, bird-like, for pleasure was +gone. + +But I found by themselves and unnoticed two of the troupe, whom I shall +not soon forget. They were two very handsome youths,--one of sixteen +years, the other twenty. And with the first words in Romany they fairly +jumped for joy; and the artist who could have caught their picture then +would have made a brave one. They were clad in blouses of colored silk, +which, with their fine dark complexions and great black eyes, gave them a +very picturesque air. These had not seen me in Russia, nor had they +heard of me; they were probably from Novogorod. Like the girls they were +children, but in a greater degree, for they had not been flattered, and +kind words delighted them so that they clapped their hands. They began +to hum gypsy songs, and had I not prevented it they would have run at +once and brought a guitar, and improvised a small concert for me _al +fresco_. I objected to this, not wishing to take part any longer in such +a very public exhibition. For the _gobe-mouches_ and starers, noticing a +stranger talking with _ces zigains_, had begun to gather in a dense crowd +around us, and the two ladies and the gentleman who were with us were +seriously inconvenienced. We endeavored to step aside, but the multitude +stepped aside also, and would not let us alone. They were French, but +they might have been polite. As it was, they broke our merry conference +up effectively, and put us to flight. + +"Do let us come and see you, _rya_," said the younger boy. "We will +sing, for I can really sing beautifully, and we like you so much. Where +do you live?" + +I could not invite them, for I was about to leave Paris, as I then +supposed. I have never seen them since, and there was no adventure and +no strange scenery beyond the thousands of lights and guests and trees +and voices speaking French. Yet to this day the gay boyishness, the +merry laughter, and the child-like _naivete_ of the promptly-formed +liking of those gypsy youths remains impressed on my mind with all the +color and warmth of an adventure or a living poem. Can you recall no +child by any wayside of life to whom you have given a chance smile or a +kind word, and been repaid with artless sudden attraction? For to all of +us,--yes, to the coldest and worst,--there are such memories of young +people, of children, and I pity him who, remembering them, does not feel +the touch of a vanished hand and hear a chord which is still. There are +adventures which we can tell to others as stories, but the best have no +story; they may be only the memory of a strange dog which followed us, +and I have one such of a cat who, without any introduction, leaped wildly +towards me, "and would not thence away." It is a good life which has +many such memories. + +I was walking a day or two after with an English friend, who was also a +delegate to the International Literary Congress, in the Exhibition, when +we approached the side gate, or rear entrance of the Hungarian cafe. Six +or seven dark and strange-looking men stood about, dressed in the uniform +of a military band. I caught their glances, and saw that they were +Romany. + +"Now you shall see something queer," I said to my friend. + +So advancing to the first dark man I greeted him in gypsy. + +"I do not understand you," he promptly replied--or lied. + +I turned to a second. + +"You have more sense, and you do understand. _Adro miro tem penena mande +o baro rai_." (In my country the gypsies call me the great gentleman.) + +This phrase may be translated to mean either the "tall gentleman" or the +"great lord." It was apparently taken in the latter sense, for at once +all the party bowed very low, raising their hands to their foreheads, in +Oriental fashion. + +"Hallo!" exclaimed my English friend, who had not understood what I had +said. "What game is this you are playing on these fellows?" + +Up to the front came a superior, the leader of the band. + +"Great God!" he exclaimed, "what is this I hear? This is wonderful. To +think that there should be anybody here to talk with! I can only talk +Magyar and Romanes." + +"And what do you talk?" I inquired of the first violin. + +"_Ich spreche nur Deutsch_!" he exclaimed, with a strong Vienna accent +and a roar of laughter. "I only talk German." + +This worthy man, I found, was as much delighted with my German as the +leader with my gypsy; and in all my experience I never met two beings so +charmed at being able to converse. That I should have met with them was +of itself wonderful. Only there was this difference: that the Viennese +burst into a laugh every time he spoke, while the gypsy grew more sternly +solemn and awfully impressive. There are people to whom mere talking is +a pleasure,--never mind the ideas,--and here I had struck two at once. I +once knew a gentleman named Stewart. He was the mayor, first physician, +and postmaster of St. Paul, Minnesota. While camping out, _en route_, +and in a tent with him, it chanced that among the other gentlemen who had +tented with us there were two terrible snorers. Now Mr. Stewart had +heard that you may stop a man's snoring by whistling. And here was a +wonderful opportunity. "So I waited," he said, "until one man was coming +down with his snore, _diminuendo_, while the other was rising, +_crescendo_, and at the exact point of intersection, _moderato_, I blew +my car-whistle, and so got both birds at one shot. I stopped them both." +Even as Mayor Stewart had winged his two birds with one ball had I hit my +two peregrines. + +"We are now going to perform," said the gypsy captain. "Will you not +take seats on the platform, and hear us play?" + +I did not know it at the time, but I heard afterwards that this was a +great compliment, and one rarely bestowed. The platform was small, and +we were very near our new friends. Scarcely had the performance begun +ere I perceived that, just as the gypsies in Russia had sung their best +in my honor, these artists were exerting themselves to the utmost, and, +all unheeding the audience, playing directly at me and into me. When any +_tour_ was deftly made the dark master nodded to me with gleaming eyes, +as if saying, "What do you think of _that_, now?" The Viennese laughed +for joy every time his glance met mine, and as I looked at the various +Lajoshes and Joshkas of the band, they blew, beat, or scraped with +redoubled fury, or sank into thrilling tenderness. Hurrah! here was +somebody to play to who knew gypsy and all the games thereof; for a very +little, even a word, reveals a great deal, and I must be a virtuoso, at +least by Romany, if not by art. It was with all the joy of success that +the first piece ended amid thunders of applause. + +"That was not the _racoczy_," I said. "Yet it sounded like it." + +"No," said the captain. "But _now_ you shall hear the _racoczy_ and the +_czardas_ as you never heard them before. For we can play that better +than any orchestra in Vienna. Truly, you will never forget us after +hearing it." + +And then they played the _racoczy_, the national Hungarian favorite, of +gypsy composition, with heart and soul. As these men played for me, +inspired with their own music, feeling and enjoying it far more than the +audience, and all because they had got a gypsy gentleman to play to, I +appreciated what a _life_ that was to them, and what it should be; not +cold-blooded skill, aiming only at excellence or preexcellence and at +setting up the artist, but a fire and a joy, a self-forgetfulness which +whirls the soul away as the soul of the Moenad went with the stream adown +the mountains,--_Evoe Bacchus_! This feeling is deep in the heart of the +Hungarian gypsy; he plays it, he feels it in every air, he knows the rush +of the stream as it bounds onwards,--knows that it expresses his deepest +desire; and so he has given it words in a song which, to him who has the +key, is one of the most touching ever written:-- + + "Dyal o pani repedishis, + M'ro pirano hegedishis; + + "Dyal o pani tale vatra, + M'ro pirano klanetaha. + + "Dyal o pani pe kishai + M'ro pirano tsino rai." + + "The stream runs on with rushing din + As I hear my true love's violin; + + "And the river rolls o'er rock and stone + As he plays the flute so sweet alone. + + "Runs o'er the sand as it began, + Then my true love lives a gentleman." + +Yes, music whirling the soul away as on a rushing river, the violin notes +falling like ripples, the flute tones all aflow among the rocks; and when +it sweeps _adagio_ on the sandy bed, then the gypsy player is at heart +equal to a lord, then he feels a gentleman. The only true republic is +art. There all earthly distinctions pass away; there he is best who +lives and feels best, and makes others feel, not that he is cleverer than +they, but that he can awaken sympathy and joy. + +The intense reality of musical art as a comforter to these gypsies of +Eastern Europe is wonderful. Among certain inedited songs of the +Transylvanian gypsies, in the Kolosvarer dialect, I find the following:-- + + "Na janav ko dad m'ro as, + Niko mallen mange as, + Miro gule dai merdyas + Pirani me pregelyas. + Uva tu o hegedive + Tu sal mindik pash mange." + + "I've known no father since my birth, + I have no friend alive on earth; + My mother's dead this many day, + The girl I loved has gone her way; + Thou violin with music free + Alone art ever true to me." + +It is very wonderful that the charm of the Russian gypsy girls' singing +was destroyed by the atmosphere or applause of a Paris concert-room, +while the Hungarian Romanys conquered it as it were by sheer force, and +by conquering gave their music the charm of intensity. I do not deny +that in this music, be it of voice or instruments, there is much which is +perhaps imagined, which depends on association, which is plain to John +but not to Jack; but you have only to advance or retreat a few steps to +find the same in the highest art. This, at least, we know: that no +performer at any concert in London can awake the feeling of intense +enjoyment which these wild minstrels excite in themselves and in others +by sympathy. Now it is a question in many forms as to whether art for +enjoyment is to die, and art for the sake of art alone survive. Is +joyous and healthy nature to vanish step by step from the heart of man, +and morbid, egoistic pessimism to take its place? Are over-culture, +excessive sentiment, constant self-criticism, and all the brood of +nervous curses to monopolize and inspire art? A fine alliance this they +are making, the ascetic monk and the atheistic pessimist, to kill Nature! +They will never effect it. It may die in many forms. It may lose its +charm, as the singing of Sarsha and of Liubasha was lost among the +rustling and noise of thousands of Parisian _badauds_ in the Orangerie. +But there will be stronger forms of art, which will make themselves +heard, as the Hungarian Romanys heeded no din, and bore all away with +their music. + +"_Latcho divvus miri pralia_!--_miduvel atch pa tumende_!" (Good-day, my +brothers. God rest on you) I said, and they rose and bowed, and I went +forth into the Exhibition. It was a brave show, that of all the fine +things from all parts of the world which man can make, but to me the most +interesting of all were the men themselves. Will not the managers of the +next world show give us a living ethnological department? + +Of these Hungarian gypsies who played in Paris during the Exhibition much +was said in the newspapers, and from the following, which appeared in an +American journal, written by some one to me unknown, the reader may learn +that there were many others to whom their music was deeply thrilling or +wildly exciting:-- + + "The Hungarian Tziganes (Zigeuner) are the rage just now at Paris. + The story is that Liszt picked out the individuals composing the band + one by one from among the gypsy performers in Hungary and Bohemia. + Half-civilized in appearance, dressed in an unbecoming half-military + costume, they are nothing while playing Strauss' waltzes or their + own; but when they play the Radetsky Defile, the Racoksky March, or + their marvelous czardas, one sees and hears the battle, and it is + easy to understand the influence of their music in fomenting + Hungarian revolutions; why for so long it was made treasonable to + play or listen to these czardas; and why, as they heard them, men + rose to their feet, gathered together, and with tears rolling down + their faces, and throats swelling with emotion, departed to do or + die." + +And when I remember that they played for me as they said they had played +for no other man in Paris, "into the ear,"--and when I think of the gleam +in their eyes, I verily believe they _told_ the truth,--I feel glad that +I chanced that morning on those dark men and spoke to them in Romany. + + * * * * * + +Since the above was written I have met in an entertaining work called +"Unknown Hungary," by Victor Tissot, with certain remarks on the +Hungarian gypsy musicians which are so appropriate that I cite them in +full:-- + + "The gypsy artists in Hungary play by inspiration, with inimitable + _verve_ and spirit, without even knowing their notes, and nothing + whatever of the rhymes and rules of the masters. Liszt, who has + closely studied them, says, The art of music being for them a sublime + language, a song, mystic in itself, though dear to the initiated, + they use it according to the wants of the moment which they wish to + express. They have invented their music for their own use, to sing + about themselves to themselves, to express themselves in the most + heartfelt and touching monologues. + + "Their music is as free as their lives; no intermediate modulation, + no chords, no transition, it goes from one key to another. From + ethereal heights they precipitate you into the howling depths of + hell; from the plaint, barely heard, they pass brusquely to the + warrior's song, which bursts loudly forth, passionate and tender, at + once burning and calm. Their melodies plunge you into a melancholy + reverie, or carry you away into a stormy whirlwind; they are a + faithful expression of the Hungarian character, sometimes quick, + brilliant, and lively, sometimes sad and apathetic. + + "The gypsies, when they arrived in Hungary, had no music of their + own; they appropriated the Magyar music, and made from it an original + art which now belongs to them." + +I here break in upon Messieurs Tissot and Liszt to remark that, while it +is very probable that the Roms reformed Hungarian music, it is rather +boldly assumed that they had no music of their own. It was, among other +callings, as dancers and musicians that they left India and entered +Europe, and among them were doubtless many descendants of the ten +thousand Indo-Persian Luris or Nuris. But to resume quotation:-- + + "They made from it an art full of life, passion, laughter, and tears. + The instrument which the gypsies prefer is the violin, which they + call _bas' alja_, 'the king of instruments.' They also play the + viola, the cymbal, and the clarionet. + + "There was a pause. The gypsies, who had perceived at a table a + comfortable-looking man, evidently wealthy, and on a pleasure + excursion in the town, came down from their platform, and ranged + themselves round him to give him a serenade all to himself, as is + their custom. They call this 'playing into the ear.' + + "They first asked the gentleman his favorite air, and then played it + with such spirit and enthusiasm and overflowing richness of variation + and ornament, and with so much emotion, that it drew forth the + applause of the whole company. After this they executed a czardas, + one of the wildest, most feverish, harshest, and, one may say, + tormenting, as if to pour intoxication into the soul of their + listener. They watched his countenance to note the impression + produced by the passionate rhythm of their instruments; then, + breaking off suddenly, they played a hushed, soft, caressing measure; + and again, almost breaking the trembling cords of their bows, they + produced such an intensity of effect that the listener was almost + beside himself with delight and astonishment. He sat as if + bewitched; he shut his eyes, hung his head in melancholy, or raised + it with a start, as the music varied; then jumped up and struck the + back of his head with his hands. He positively laughed and cried at + once; then, drawing a roll of bank-notes from his pocket-book, he + threw it to the gypsies, and fell back in his chair, as if exhausted + with so much enjoyment. And in _this_ lies the triumph of the gypsy + music; it is like that of Orpheus, which moved the rocks and trees. + The soul of the Hungarian plunges, with a refinement of sensation + that we can understand, but cannot follow, into this music, which, + like the unrestrained indulgence of the imagination in fantasy and + caprice, gives to the initiated all the intoxicating sensations + experienced by opium smokers." + +The Austrian gypsies have many songs which perfectly reflect their +character. Most of them are only single verses of a few lines, such as +are sung everywhere in Spain; others, which are longer, seem to have +grown from the connection of these verses. The following translation +from the Roumanian Romany (Vassile Alexandri) gives an idea of their +style and spirit:-- + + +GYPSY SONG. + + + The wind whistles over the heath, + The moonlight flits over the flood; + And the gypsy lights up his fire, + In the darkness of the wood. + Hurrah! + In the darkness of the wood. + + Free is the bird in the air, + And the fish where the river flows; + Free is the deer in the forest, + And the gypsy wherever he goes. + Hurrah! + And the gypsy wherever he goes. + + A GORGIO GENTLEMAN SPEAKS. + + Girl, wilt thou live in my home? + I will give thee a sable gown, + And golden coins for a necklace, + If thou wilt be my own. + + GYPSY GIRL. + + No wild horse will leave the prairie + For a harness with silver stars; + Nor an eagle the crags of the mountain, + For a cage with golden bars; + + Nor the gypsy girl the forest, + Or the meadow, though gray and cold, + For garments made of sable, + Or necklaces of gold. + + THE GORGIO. + + Girl, wilt thou live in my dwelling, + For pearls and diamonds true? {82} + I will give thee a bed of scarlet, + And a royal palace, too. + + GYPSY GIRL. + + My white teeth are my pearlins, + My diamonds my own black eyes; + My bed is the soft green meadow, + My palace the world as it lies. + + Free is the bird in the air, + And the fish where the river flows; + Free is the deer in the forest, + And the gypsy wherever he goes. + Hurrah! + And the gypsy wherever he goes. + +There is a deep, strange element in the gypsy character, which finds no +sympathy or knowledge in the German, and very little in other Europeans, +but which is so much in accord with the Slavonian and Hungarian that he +who truly feels it with love is often disposed to mingle them together. +It is a dreamy mysticism; an indefinite semi-supernaturalism, often +passing into gloom; a feeling as of Buddhism which has glided into +Northern snows, and taken a new and darker life in winter-lands. It is +strong in the Czech or Bohemian, whose nature is the worst understood in +the civilized world. That he should hate the German with all his heart +and soul is in the order of things. We talk about the mystical Germans, +but German self-conscious mysticism is like a problem of Euclid beside +the natural, unexpressed dreaminess of the Czech. The German mystic goes +to work at once to expound his "system" in categories, dressing it up in +a technology which in the end proves to be the only mystery in it. The +Bohemian and gypsy, each in their degrees of culture, form no system and +make no technology, but they feel all the more. Now the difference +between true and imitative mysticism is that the former takes no form; it +is even narrowed by religious creeds, and wing-clipt by pious +"illumination." Nature, and nature alone, is its real life. It was from +the Southern Slavonian lands that all real mysticism, and all that higher +illumination which means freedom, came into Germany and Europe; and after +all, Germany's first and best mystic, Jacob Bohme, was Bohemian by name, +as he was by nature. When the world shall have discovered who the as yet +unknown Slavonian German was who wrote all the best part of "Consuelo," +and who helped himself in so doing from "Der letzte Taborit," by +Herlossohn, we shall find one of the few men who understood the Bohemian. + +Once in a while, as in Fanny Janauschek, the Czech bursts out into art, +and achieves a great triumph. I have seen Rachel and Ristori many a +time, but their best acting was shallow compared to Janauschek's, as I +have seen it in by-gone years, when she played Iphigenia and Medea in +German. No one save a Bohemian could ever so _intuit_ the gloomy +profundity and unearthly fire of the Colchian sorceress. These are the +things required to perfect every artist,--above all, the tragic +artist,--that the tree of his or her genius shall not only soar to heaven +among the angels, but also have roots in the depths of darkness and fire; +and that he or she shall play not only to the audience, and in sympathy +with them, but also unto one's self and down to one's deepest dreams. + +No one will accuse me of wide discussion or padding who understands my +drift in this chapter. I am speaking of the gypsy, and I cannot explain +him more clearly than by showing his affinities with the Slavonian and +Magyar, and how, through music and probably in many other ways, he has +influenced them. As the Spaniard perfectly understands the objective +vagabond side of the Gitano, so the Southeastern European understands the +musical and wild-forest yearnings of the Tsigane. Both to gypsy and +Slavonian there is that which makes them dream so that even debauchery +has for them at times an unearthly inspiration; and as smoking was +inexpressibly sacred to the red Indians of old, so that when the +Guatemalan Christ harried hell, the demons offered him cigars; in like +manner tipsiness is often to the gypsy and Servian, or Czech, or Croat, +something so serious and impressive that it is a thing not to be lightly +thought of, but to be undertaken with intense deliberation and under due +appreciation of its benefits. + +Many years ago, when I had begun to feel this strange element I gave it +expression in a poem which I called "The Bohemian," as expressive of both +gypsy and Slavonian nature:-- + + +THE BOHEMIAN. + + + Chces li tajnou vec aneb pravdu vyzvedeti + Blazen, dite opily clovek o tom umeji povodeti. + + Wouldst thou know a truth or mystery, + A drunkard, fool, or child may tell it thee + + BOHEMIAN PROVERB. + + And now I'll wrap my blanket o'er me, + And on the tavern floor I'll lie, + A double spirit-flask before me, + And watch my pipe clouds, melting, die. + + They melt and die, but ever darken + As night comes on and hides the day, + Till all is black; then, brothers, hearken, + And if ye can write down my lay. + + In yon long loaf my knife is gleaming, + Like one black sail above the boat; + As once at Pesth I saw it beaming, + Half through a dark Croatian throat. + + Now faster, faster, whirls the ceiling, + And wilder, wilder, turns my brain; + And still I'll drink, till, past all feeling, + My soul leaps forth to light again. + + Whence come these white girls wreathing round me? + Barushka!--long I thought thee dead; + Katchenka!--when these arms last bound thee + Thou laid'st by Rajrad, cold as lead. + + And faster, faster, whirls the ceiling, + And wilder, wilder, turns my brain; + And from afar a star comes stealing + Straight at me o'er the death-black plain. + + Alas! I sink. My spirits miss me. + I swim, I shoot from shore to shore! + Klara! thou golden sister--kiss me! + I rise--I'm safe--I'm strong once more. + + And faster, faster, whirls the ceiling, + And wilder, wilder, whirls my brain; + The star!--it strikes my soul, revealing + All life and light to me again. + + * * * * * + + Against the waves fresh waves are dashing, + Above the breeze fresh breezes blow; + Through seas of light new light is flashing, + And with them all I float and flow. + + Yet round me rings of fire are gleaning,-- + Pale rings of fire, wild eyes of death! + Why haunt me thus, awake or dreaming? + Methought I left ye with my breath! + + Ay, glare and stare, with life increasing, + And leech-like eyebrows, arching in; + Be, if ye must, my fate unceasing, + But never hope a fear to win. + + He who knows all may haunt the haunter, + He who fears naught hath conquered fate; + Who bears in silence quells the daunter, + And makes his spoiler desolate. + + O wondrous eyes, of star-like lustre, + How have ye changed to guardian love! + Alas! where stars in myriads cluster, + Ye vanish in the heaven above. + + * * * * * + + I hear two bells so softly ringing; + How sweet their silver voices roll! + The one on distant hills is ringing, + The other peals within my soul. + + I hear two maidens gently talking, + Bohemian maids, and fair to see: + The one on distant hills is walking, + The other maiden,--where is she? + + Where is she? When the moonlight glistens + O'er silent lake or murmuring stream, + I hear her call my soul, which listens, + "Oh, wake no more! Come, love, and dream!" + + She came to earth, earth's loveliest creature; + She died, and then was born once more; + Changed was her race, and changed each feature, + But yet I loved her as before. + + We live, but still, when night has bound me + In golden dreams too sweet to last, + A wondrous light-blue world around me, + She comes,--the loved one of the past. + + I know not which I love the dearest, + For both the loves are still the same: + The living to my life is nearest, + The dead one feeds the living flame. + + And when the sun, its rose-wine quaffing, + Which flows across the Eastern deep, + Awakes us, Klara chides me, laughing, + And says we love too well in sleep. + + And though no more a Voivode's daughter, + As when she lived on earth before, + The love is still the same which sought her, + And I am true, and ask no more. + + * * * * * + + Bright moonbeams on the sea are playing, + And starlight shines upon the hill, + And I should wake, but still delaying + In our old life I linger still. + + For as the wind clouds flit above me, + And as the stars above them shine, + My higher life's in those who love me, + And higher still, our life's divine. + + And thus I raise my soul by drinking, + As on the tavern floor I lie; + It heeds not whence begins our thinking + If to the end its flight is high. + + E'en outcasts may have heart and feeling, + The blackest wild Tsigan be true, + And love, like light in dungeons stealing, + Though bars be there, will still burst through. + +It is the reecho of more than one song of those strange lands, of more +than one voice, and of many a melody; and those who have heard them, +though not more distinctly than Francois Villon when he spoke of flinging +the question back by silent lake and streamlet lone, will understand me, +and say it is true to nature. + +In a late work on Magyarland, by a lady Fellow of the Carpathian Society, +I find more on Hungarian gypsy music, which is so well written that I +quote fully from it, being of the opinion that one ought, when setting +forth any subject, to give quite as good an opportunity to others who are +in our business as to ourselves. And truly this lady has felt the charm +of the Tsigan music and describes it so well that one wishes she were a +Romany in language and by adoption, like unto a dozen dames and damsels +whom I know. + + "The Magyars have a perfect passion for this gypsy music, and there + is nothing that appeals so powerfully to their emotions, whether of + joy or sorrow. These singular musicians are, as a rule, well taught, + and can play almost any music, greatly preferring, however, their own + compositions. Their music, consequently, is highly characteristic. + It is the language of their lives and strange surroundings, a wild, + weird banshee music: now all joy and sparkle, like sunshine on the + plains; now sullen, sad, and pathetic by turns, like the wail of a + crushed and oppressed people,--an echo, it is said, of the minstrelsy + of the _hegedosok_ or Hungarian bards, but sounding to our ears like + the more distant echo of that exceeding bitter cry, uttered long + centuries ago by their forefathers under Egyptian bondage, and borne + over the time-waves of thousands of years, breaking forth in their + music of to-day." + +Here I interrupt the lady--with all due courtesy--to remark that I cannot +agree with her, nor with her probable authority, Walter Simson, in +believing that the gypsies are the descendants of the mixed races who +followed Moses out of Egypt. The Rom in Egypt is a Hindoo stranger now, +as he ever was. But that the echo of centuries of outlawry and +wretchedness and wildness rises and falls, like the ineffable discord in +a wind-harp, in Romany airs is true enough, whatever its origin may have +been. But I beg pardon, madam,--I interrupted you. + + "The soul-stirring, madly exciting, and martial strains of the + Racoczys--one of the Revolutionary airs--has just died upon the ear. + A brief interval of rest has passed. Now listen with bated breath to + that recitative in the minor key,--that passionate wail, that + touching story, the gypsies' own music, which rises and falls on the + air. Knives and forks are set down, hands and arms hang listless, + all the seeming necessities of the moment being either suspended or + forgotten,--merged in the memories which those vibrations, so akin to + human language, reawaken in each heart. Eyes involuntarily fill with + tears, as those pathetic strains echo back and make present some + sorrow of long ago, or rouse from slumber that of recent time. . . . + + "And now, the recitative being ended, and the last chord struck, the + melody begins, of which the former was the prelude. Watch the + movements of the supple figure of the first violin, standing in the + centre of the other musicians, who accompany him softly. How every + nerve is _en rapport_ with his instrument, and how his very soul is + speaking through it! See how gently he draws the bow across the + trembling strings, and how lovingly he lays his cheek upon it, as if + listening to some responsive echo of his heart's inmost feeling, for + it is his mystic language! How the instrument lives and answers to + his every touch, sending forth in turn utterances tender, sad, wild, + and joyous! The audience once more hold their breath to catch the + dying tones, as the melody, so rich, so beautiful, so full of pathos, + is drawing to a close. The tension is absolutely painful as the + gypsy dwells on the last lingering note, and it is a relief when, + with a loud and general burst of sound, every performer starts into + life and motion. _Then_ what crude and wild dissonances are made to + resolve themselves into delicious harmony! What rapturous and fervid + phrases, and what energy and impetuosity, are there in every motion + of the gypsies' figures, as their dark eyes glisten and emit flashes + in unison with the tones!" + +The writer is gifted in giving words to gypsy music. One cannot say, as +the inexhaustible Cad writes of Niagara ten times on a page in the +Visitors' Book, that it is indescribable. I think that if language means +anything this music has been very well described by the writers whom I +have cited. When I am told that the gypsies' impetuous and passionate +natures make them enter into musical action with heart and soul, I feel +not only the strains played long ago, but also hear therein the horns of +Elfland blowing,--which he who has not heard, of summer days, in the +drone of the bee, by reedy rustling stream, will never know on earth in +any wise. But once heard it comes ever, as I, though in the city, heard +it last night in the winter wind, with Romany words mingled in wild +refrain:-- + + "_Kamava tute_, _miri chelladi_!" + + + +II. AUSTRIAN GYPSIES IN PHILADELPHIA. + + +It was a sunny Sunday afternoon, and I was walking down Chestnut Street, +Philadelphia, when I met with three very dark men. + +Dark men are not rarities in my native city. There is, for instance, +Eugene, who has the invaluable faculty of being able to turn his hand to +an infinite helpfulness in the small arts. These men were darker than +Eugene, but they differed from him in this, that while he is a man of +color, they were not. For in America the man of Aryan blood, however +dark he may be, is always "off" color, while the lightest-hued quadroon +is always on it. Which is not the only paradox connected with the +descendants of Africans of which I have heard. + +I saw at a glance that these dark men were much nearer to the old Aryan +stock than are even my purely white readers. For they were more recently +from India, and they could speak a language abounding in Hindi, in pure +old Sanskrit, and in Persian. Yet they would make no display of it; on +the contrary, I knew that they would be very likely at first to deny all +knowledge thereof, as well as their race and blood. For they were +gypsies; it was very apparent in their eyes, which had the Gitano gleam +as one seldom sees it in England. I confess that I experienced a thrill +as I exchanged glances with them. It was a long time since I had seen a +Romany, and, as usual, I knew that I was going to astonish them. They +were singularly attired, having very good clothes of a quite theatrical +foreign fashion, bearing silver buttons as large as and of the shape of +hen's eggs. Their hair hung in black ringlets down their shoulders, and +I saw that they had come from the Austrian Slavonian land. + +I addressed the eldest in Italian. He answered fluently and politely. I +changed to Ilirski or Illyrian and to Serb, of which I have a few phrases +in stock. They spoke all these languages fluently, for one was a born +Illyrian and one a Serb. They also spoke Nemetz, or German; in fact, +everything except English. + +"Have you got through all your languages?" I at last inquired. + +"Tutte, signore,--all of them." + +"Isn't there _one_ left behind, which you have forgotten? Think a +minute." + +"No, signore. None." + +"What, not _one_! You know so many that perhaps a language more or less +makes no difference to you." + +"By the Lord, signore, you have seen every egg in the basket." + +I looked him fixedly in the eyes, and said, in a low tone,-- + +"_Ne rakesa tu Romanes miro prala_?" + +There was a startled glance from one to the other, and a silence. I had +asked him if he could not talk Romany. And I added,-- + +"_Won't_ you talk a word with a gypsy brother?" + +_That_ moved them. They all shook my hands with great feeling, +expressing intense joy and amazement at meeting with one who knew them. + +"_Mishto hom me dikava tute_." (I am glad to see you.) So they told me +how they were getting on, and where they were camped, and how they sold +horses, and so on, and we might have got on much farther had it not been +for a very annoying interruption. As I was talking to the gypsies, a +great number of men, attracted by the sound of a foreign language, +stopped, and fairly pushed themselves up to us, endeavoring to make it +all out. When there were at least fifty, they crowded in between me and +the foreigners, so that I could hardly talk to them. The crowd did not +consist of ordinary people, or snobs. They were well dressed,--young +clerks, at least,--who would have fiercely resented being told that they +were impertinent. + +"Eye-talians, ain't they?" inquired one man, who was evidently zealous in +pursuit of knowledge. + +"Why don't you tell us what they are sayin'?" + +"What kind of fellers air they, any way?" + +I was desirous of going with the Hungarian Roms. But to walk along +Chestnut Street with an augmenting procession of fifty curious Sunday +promenaders was not on my card. In fact, I had some difficulty in +tearing myself from the inquisitive, questioning, well-dressed people. +The gypsies bore the pressure with the serene equanimity of cosmopolite +superiority, smiling at provincial rawness. Even so in China and Africa +the traveler is mobbed by the many, who, there as here, think that "I +want to know" is full excuse for all intrusiveness. _Q'est tout comme +chez nous_. I confess that I was vexed, and, considering that it was in +my native city, mortified. + +A few days after I went out to the _tan_ where these Roms had camped. +But the birds had flown, and a little pile of ashes and the usual debris +of a gypsy camp were all that remained. The police told me that they had +some very fine horses, and had gone to the Northwest; and that is all I +ever saw of them. + +I have heard of a philanthropist who was turned into a misanthrope by +attempting to sketch in public and in galleries. Respectable strangers, +even clergymen, would stop and coolly look over his shoulder, and ask +questions, and give him advice, until he could work no longer. Why is it +that people who would not speak to you for life without an introduction +should think that their small curiosity to see your sketches authorizes +them to act as aquaintances? Or why is the pursuit of knowledge assumed +among the half-bred to be an excuse for so much intrusion? "I want to +know." Well, and what if you do? The man who thinks that his desire for +knowledge is an excuse for impertinence--and there are too many who act +on this in all sincerity--is of the kind who knocks the fingers off +statues, because "he wants them" for his collection; who chips away +tombstones, and hews down historic trees, and not infrequently steals +outright, and thinks that his pretense of culture is full excuse for all +his mean deeds. Of this tribe is the man who cuts his name on all walls +and smears it on the pyramids, to proclaim himself a fool to the world; +the difference being that, instead of wanting to know anything, he wants +everybody to know that His Littleness was once in a great place. + +I knew a distinguished artist, who, while in the East, only secured his +best sketch of a landscape by employing fifty men to keep off the +multitude. I have seen a strange fellow take a lady's sketch out of her +hand, excusing himself with the remark that he was so fond of pictures. +Of course my readers do not act thus. When they are passing through the +Louvre or British Museum they never pause and overlook artists, despite +the notices requesting them not to do so. Of course not. Yet I once +knew a charming young American lady, who scouted the idea as nonsense +that she should not watch artists at work. "Why, we used to make up +parties for the purpose of looking at them!" she said. "It was half the +fun of going there. I'm sure the artists were delighted to get a chance +to talk to us." Doubtless. And yet there are really very few artists +who do not work more at their ease when not watched, and I have known +some to whom such watching was misery. They are not, O intruder, +painting for _your_ amusement! + +This is not such a far cry from my Romanys as it may seem. When I think +of what I have lost in this life by impertinence coming between me and +gypsies, I feel that it could not be avoided. The proportion of men, +even of gentlemen, or of those who dress decently, who cannot see another +well-dressed man talking with a very poor one in public, without at once +surmising a mystery, and endeavoring to solve it, is amazing. And they +do not stop at a trifle, either. + +It is a marked characteristic of all gypsies that they are quite free +from any such mean intrusiveness. Whether it is because they themselves +are continually treated as curiosities, or because great knowledge of +life in a small way has made them philosophers, I will not say, but it is +a fact that in this respect they are invariably the politest people in +the world. Perhaps their calm contempt of the _galerly_, or green +Gorgios, is founded on a consciousness of their superiority in this +matter. + +The Hungarian gypsy differs from all his brethren of Europe in being more +intensely gypsy. He has deeper, wilder, and more original feeling in +music, and he is more inspired with a love of travel. Numbers of +Hungarian Romany chals--in which I include all Austrian gypsies--travel +annually all over Europe, but return as regularly to their own country. +I have met with them exhibiting bears in Baden-Baden. These Ricinari, or +bear-leaders, form, however, a set within a set, and are in fact more +nearly allied to the gypsy bear-leaders of Turkey and Syria than to any +other of their own people. They are wild and rude to a proverb, and +generally speak a peculiar dialect of Romany, which is called the +Bear-leaders' by philologists. I have also seen Syrian-gypsy Ricinari in +Cairo. Many of the better caste make a great deal of money, and some are +rich. Like all really pure-blooded gypsies, they have deep feelings, +which are easily awakened by kindness, but especially by sympathy and +interest. + + + + +ENGLISH GYPSIES. + + +I. OATLANDS PARK. + + +Oatlands Park (between Weybridge and Walton-upon-Thames) was once the +property of the Duke of York, but now the lordly manor-house is a hotel. +The grounds about it are well preserved and very picturesque. They +should look well, for they cover a vast and wasted fortune. There is, +for instance, a grotto which cost forty thousand pounds. It is one of +those wretched and tasteless masses of silly rock-rococo work which were +so much admired at the beginning of the present century, when sham ruins +and sham caverns were preferred to real. There is, also, close by the +grotto, a dogs' burial-ground, in which more than a hundred animals, the +favorites of the late duchess, lie buried. Over each is a tombstone, +inscribed with a rhyming epitaph, written by the titled lady herself, and +which is in sober sadness in every instance doggerel, as befits the +subject. In order to degrade the associations of religion and church +rites as effectually as possible, there is attached to these graves the +semblance of a ruined chapel, the stained-glass window of which was taken +from a church. {97} I confess that I could never see either grotto or +grave-yard without sincerely wishing, out of regard to the memory of both +duke and duchess, that these ridiculous relics of vulgar taste and +affected sentimentalism could be completely obliterated. But, apart from +them, the scenes around are very beautiful; for there are grassy slopes +and pleasant lawns, ancient trees and broad gravel walks, over which, as +the dry leaves fall on the crisp sunny morning, the feet are tempted to +walk on and on, all through the merry golden autumn day. + +The neighborhood abounds in memories of olden time. Near Oatlands is a +modernized house, in which Henry the Eighth lived in his youth. It +belonged then to Cardinal Wolsey; now it is owned by Mr. Lindsay,--a +sufficient cause for wits calling it Lindsay-Wolsey, that being also a +"fabric." Within an hour's walk is the palace built by Cardinal Wolsey, +while over the river, and visible from the portico, is the little old +Gothic church of Shepperton, and in the same view, to the right, is the +old Walton Bridge, by Cowie Stakes, supposed to cover the exact spot +where Caesar crossed. This has been denied by many, but I know that the +field adjacent to it abounds in ancient British jars filled with burned +bones, the relics of an ancient battle,--probably that which legend +states was fought on the neighboring Battle Island. Stout-hearted Queen +Bessy has also left her mark on this neighborhood, for within a mile is +the old Saxon-towered church of Walton, in which the royal dame was asked +for her opinion of the sacrament when it was given to her, to which she +replied:-- + + "Christ was the Word who spake it, + He took the bread and brake it; + And what that Word did make it, + That I believe, and take it." + +In memory of this the lines were inscribed on the massy Norman pillar by +which she stood. From the style and cutting it is evident that the +inscription dates from the reign of Elizabeth. And very near Oatlands, +in fact on the grounds, there are two ancient yew-trees, several hundred +yards apart. The story runs that Queen Elizabeth once drew a long bow +and shot an arrow so far that, to commemorate the deed, one of these +trees was planted where she stood, and the other where the shaft fell. +All England is a museum of touching or quaint relics; to me one of its +most interesting cabinets is this of the neighborhood of Weybridge and +Walton-upon-Thames. + +I once lived for eight months at Oatlands Park, and learned to know the +neighborhood well. I had many friends among the families in the +vicinity, and, guided by their advice, wandered to every old church and +manor-house, ruin and haunted rock, fairy-oak, tower, palace, or shrine +within a day's ramble. But there was one afternoon walk of four miles, +round by the river, which I seldom missed. It led by a spot on the bank, +and an old willow-tree near the bridge, which spot was greatly haunted by +the Romany, so that, excepting during the hopping-season of autumn, when +they were away in Kent, I seldom failed to see from afar a light rising +smoke, and near it a tent and a van, as the evening shadows blended with +the mist from the river in phantom union. + +It is a common part of gypsy life that the father shall be away all day, +lounging about the next village, possibly in the _kitchema_ or ale-house, +or trying to trade a horse, while the wife trudges over the country, from +one farm-house or cottage to another, loaded with baskets, household +utensils, toys, or cheap ornaments, which she endeavors, like a true +Autolyca, with wily arts and wheedling tones, to sell to the rustics. +When it can be managed, this hawking is often an introduction to +fortune-telling, and if these fail the gypsy has recourse to begging. +But it is a weary life, and the poor _dye_ is always glad enough to get +home. During the day the children have been left to look out for +themselves or to the care of the eldest, and have tumbled about the van, +rolled around with the dog, and fought or frolicked as they chose. But +though their parents often have a stock of cheap toys, especially of +penny dolls and the like, which they put up as prizes for games at races +and fairs, I have never seen these children with playthings. The little +girls have no dolls; the boys, indeed, affect whips, as becomes incipient +jockeys, but on the whole they never seemed to me to have the same ideas +as to play as ordinary house-children. The author of "My Indian Garden" +has made the same observation of Hindoo little ones, whose ways are not +as our ways were when we were young. Roman and Egyptian children had +their dolls; and there is something sadly sweet to me in the sight of +these barbarous and naive facsimiles of miniature humanity, which come up +like little spectres out of the dust of ancient days. They are so rude +and queer, these Roman puppets; and yet they were loved once, and had pet +names, and their owl-like faces were as tenderly kissed as their little +mistresses had been by their mothers. So the Romany girl, unlike the +Roman, is generally doll-less and toy-less. But the affection between +mother and child is as warm among these wanderers as with any other +people; and it is a touching sight to see the gypsy who has been absent +all the weary day returning home. And when she is seen from afar off +there is a race among all the little dark-brown things to run to mother +and get kissed, and cluster and scramble around her, and perhaps receive +some little gift which mother's thoughtful love has provided. Knowing +these customs, I was wont to fill my pockets with chestnuts or oranges, +and, distributing them among the little ones, talk with them, and await +the sunset return of their parents. The confidence or love of all +children is delightful; but that of gypsy children resembles the +friendship of young foxes, and the study of their artless-artful ways is +indeed attractive. I can remember that one afternoon six small Romany +boys implored me to give them each a penny. I replied,-- + +"If I had sixpence, how would you divide it?" + +"That would be a penny apiece," said the eldest boy. + +"And if threepence?" + +"A ha'penny apiece." + +"And three ha'pence?" + +"A farden all round. And then it couldn't go no furder, unless we bought +tobacco an' diwided it." + +"Well, I have some tobacco. But can any of you smoke?" + +They were from four to ten years of age, and at the word every one pulled +out the stump of a blackened pipe,--such depraved-looking fragments I +never saw,--and holding them all up, and crowding closely around, like +hungry poultry with uplifted bills, they began to clamor for _tuvalo_, or +tobacco. They were connoisseurs, too, and the elder boy, as he secured +his share, smelled it with intense satisfaction, and said, "That's _rye's +tuvalo_;" that is, "gentleman's tobacco," or best quality. + +One evening, as the shadows were darkening the day, I met a little gypsy +boy, dragging along, with incredible labor, a sack full of wood, which +one needed not go far afield to surmise was neither purchased nor begged. +The alarmed and guilty or despairing look which he cast at me was very +touching. Perhaps he thought I was the gentleman upon whose property he +had "found" the wood; or else a magistrate. How he stared when I spoke +to him in Romany, and offered to help him carry it! As we bore it along +I suggested that we had better be careful and avoid the police, which +remark established perfect confidence between us. But as we came to the +tent, what was the amazement of the boy's mother to see him returning +with a gentleman helping him to carry his load! And to hear me say in +Romany, and in a cheerful tone, "Mother, here is some wood we've been +stealing for you." + +Gypsies have strong nerves and much cheek, but this was beyond her +endowment; she was appalled at the unearthly strangeness of the whole +proceeding, and when she spoke there was a skeleton rattle in her words +and a quaver of startled ghastliness in her laugh. She had been alarmed +for her boy, and when I appeared she thought I was a swell bringing him +in under arrest; but when I announced myself in Romany as an accomplice, +emotion stifled thought. And I lingered not, and spoke no more, but +walked away into the woods and the darkness. However, the legend went +forth on the roads, even unto Kingston, and was told among the rollicking +Romanys of 'Appy Ampton; for there are always a merry, loafing lot of +them about that festive spot, looking out for excursionists through the +months when the gorse blooms, and kissing is in season--which is always. +And he who seeks them on Sunday may find them camped in Green Lane. + +When I wished for a long ramble on the hedge-lined roads--the sweet roads +of old England--and by the green fields, I was wont to take a day's walk +to Netley Abbey. Then I could pause, as I went, before many a quiet, +sheltered spot, adorned with arbors and green alleys, and protected by +trees and hawthorn hedges, and again surrender my soul, while walking, to +tender and vague reveries, in which all definite thoughts swim +overpowered, yet happy, in a sea of voluptuous emotions inspired by +clouds lost in the blue sea of heaven and valleys visioned away into the +purple sky. What opium is to one, what hasheesh may be to another, what +_kheyf_ or mere repose concentrated into actuality is to the Arab, that +is Nature to him who has followed her for long years through poets and +mystics and in works of art, until at last he pierces through dreams and +pictures to reality. + +The ruins of Netley Abbey, nine or ten miles from Oatlands Park, are +picturesque and lonely, and well fitted for the dream-artist in shadows +among sunshine. The priory was called Newstead or De Novo Loco in Norman +times, when it was founded by Ruald de Calva, in the day of Richard Coeur +de Lion. The ruins rise gray, white, and undressed with ivy, that they +may contrast the more vividly with the deep emerald of the meadows +around. "The surrounding scenery is composed of rivers and +rivulets,"--for seven streams run by it, according to Aubrey,--"of +foot-bridge and fords, plashy pools and fringed, tangled hollows, trees +in groups or alone, and cattle dotted over the pastures:" an English Cuyp +from many points of view, beautiful and English-home-like from all. Very +near it is the quaint, out-of-the-way, darling little old church of +Pirford, up a hill, nestling among trees, a half-Norman, decorated +beauty, out of the age, but altogether in the heart. As I came near, of +a summer afternoon, the waving of leaves and the buzzing of bees without, +and the hum of the voices of children at school within the adjoining +building, the cool shade and the beautiful view of the ruined Abbey +beyond, made an impression which I can never forget. Among such scenes +one learns why the English love so heartily their rural life, and why +every object peculiar to it has brought forth a picture or a poem. I can +imagine how many a man, who has never known what poetry was at home, has +wept with yearning inexpressible, when sitting among burning sands and +under the palms of the East, for such scenes as these. + +But Netley Abbey is close by the river Wey, and the sight of that river +and the thought of the story of the monks of the olden time who dwelt in +the Abbey drive away sentiment as suddenly as a north wind scatters +sea-fogs. For the legend is a merry one, and the reader may have heard +it; but if he has not I will give it in one of the merriest ballads ever +written. By whom I know not,--doubtless many know. I sing, while +walking, songs of olden time. + + +THE MONKS OF THE WEY. + + +A TRUE AND IMPORTANT RELATION OF THE WONDERFUL TUNNELL OF NEWARKE ABBEY +AND OF THE UNTIMELY ENDE OF SEVERALL OF YE GHOSTLY BRETH'REN. + + The monks of the Wey seldom sung any psalms, + And little they thought of religion or qualms; + Such rollicking, frolicking, ranting, and gay, + And jolly old boys were the monks of the Wey. + + To the sweet nuns of Ockham devoting their cares, + They had little time for their beads and their prayers; + For the love of these maidens they sighed night and day, + And neglected devotion, these monks of the Wey. + + And happy i' faith might these brothers have been + If the river had never been rolling between + The abbey so grand and the convent so gray, + That stood on the opposite side of the Wey. + + For daily they sighed, and then nightly they pined + But little to anchorite precepts inclined, + So smitten with beauty's enchantments were they, + These rollicking, frolicking monks of the Wey. + + But scandal was rife in the country near, + They dared not row over the river for fear; + And no more could they swim it, so fat were they, + These oily and amorous monks of the Wey. + + Loudly they groaned for their fate so hard, + From the love of these beautiful maidens debarred, + Till a brother just hit on a plan which would stay + The woe of these heart-broken monks of the Wey. + + "Nothing," quoth he, "should true love sunder; + Since we cannot go over, then let us go under! + Boats and bridges shall yield to clay, + We'll dig a long tunnel clean under the Wey." + + So to it they went with right good will, + With spade and shovel and pike and bill; + And from evening's close till the dawn of day + They worked like miners all under the Wey. + + And at vesper hour, as their work begun, + Each sung of the charms of his favorite nun; + "How surprised they will be, and how happy!" said they, + "When we pop in upon them from under the Wey!" + + And for months they kept grubbing and making no sound + Like other black moles, darkly under the ground; + And no one suspected such going astray, + So sly were these mischievous monks of the Wey. + + At last their fine work was brought near to a close + And early one morn from their pallets they rose, + And met in their tunnel with lights to survey + If they'd scooped a free passage right under the Wey. + + But alas for their fate! As they smirked and they smiled. + To think how completely the world was beguiled, + The river broke in, and it grieves me to say + It drowned all the frolicksome monks of the Wey. + + * * * * * + + O churchmen beware of the lures of the flesh, + The net of the devil has many a mesh! + And remember whenever you're tempted to stray, + The fate that befell the poor monks of the Wey. + +It was all long ago, and now there are neither monks nor nuns; the +convent has been converted, little by little, age by age, into cottages, +even as the friars and nuns themselves may have been organically changed +possibly into violets, but more probably into the festive sparrows which +flit and hop and flirt about the ruins with abrupt startles, like +pheasants sudden bursting on the wing. There is a pretty little Latin +epigram, written by a gay monk, of a pretty little lady, who, being very +amorous, and observing that sparrows were like her as to love, hoped that +she might be turned into one after death; and it is not difficult for a +dreamer in an old abbey, of a golden day to fancy that these merry, saucy +birdies, who dart and dip in and out of the sunshine or shadow, chirping +their shameless ditties _pro et con_, were once the human dwellers in the +spot, who sang their gaudrioles to pleasant strains. + +I became familiar with many such scenes for many miles about Oatlands, +not merely during solitary walks, but by availing myself of the kind +invitations of many friends, and by hunting afoot with the beagles. In +this fashion one has hare and hound, but no horse. It is not needed, for +while going over crisp stubble and velvet turf, climbing fences and +jumping ditches, a man has a keen sense of being his own horse, and when +he accomplishes a good leap of being intrinsically well worth 200 pounds. +And indeed, so long as anybody can walk day in and out a greater distance +than would tire a horse, he may well believe he is really worth one. It +may be a good thing for us to reflect on the fact that if slavery +prevailed at the present day as it did among the polished Greeks the +average price of young gentlemen, and even of young ladies, would not be +more than what is paid for a good hunter. Divested of diamonds and of +Worth's dresses, what would a girl of average charms be worth to a +stranger? Let us reflect! + +It was an October morning, and, pausing after a run, I let the pack and +the "course-men" sweep away, while I sat in a pleasant spot to enjoy the +air and scenery. The solemn grandeur of groves and the quiet dignity of +woodland glades, barred with rays of solid-seeming sunshine, such as the +saint of old hung his cloak on, the brook into which the overhanging +chestnuts drop, as if in sport, their creamy golden little boats of +leaves, never seem so beautiful or impressive as immediately after a rush +and cry of many men, succeeded by solitude and silence. Little by little +the bay of the hounds, the shouts of the hunters, and the occasional +sound of the horn grew fainter; the birds once more appeared, and sent +forth short calls to their timid friends. I began again to notice who my +neighbors were, as to daisies and heather which resided around the stone +on which I sat, and the exclusive circle of a fairy-ring at a little +distance, which, like many exclusive circles, consisted entirely of +mushrooms. + +As the beagle-sound died away, and while the hounds were "working around" +to the road, I heard footsteps approaching, and looking up saw before me +a gypsy woman and a boy. She was a very gypsy woman, an ideal witch, +nut-brown, tangle-haired, aquiline of nose, and fierce-eyed; and fiercely +did she beg! As amid broken Gothic ruins, overhung with unkempt ivy, one +can trace a vanished and strange beauty, so in this worn face of the +Romany, mantled by neglected tresses, I could see the remains of what +must have been once a wonderful though wild loveliness. As I looked into +those serpent eyes; trained for a long life to fascinate in +fortune-telling simple dove-girls, I could readily understand the +implicit faith with which many writers in the olden time spoke of the +"fascination" peculiar to female glances. "The multiplication of women," +said the rabbis, "is the increase of witches," for the belles in Israel +were killing girls, with arrows, the bows whereof are formed by pairs of +jet-black eyebrows joined in one. And thus it was that these black-eyed +beauties, by _mashing_ {108} men for many generations, with shafts shot +sideways and most wantonly, at last sealed their souls into the corner of +their eyes, as you have heard before. Cotton Mather tells us that these +witches with peaked eye-corners could never weep but three tears out of +their long-tailed eyes. And I have observed that such tears, as they +sweep down the cheeks of the brunette witches, are also long-tailed, and +recall by their shape and glitter the eyes from which they fell, even as +the daughter recalls the mother. For all love's witchcraft lurks in +flashing eyes,--_lontan del occhio lontan dal' cuor_. + +It is a great pity that the pigeon-eye-peaks, so pretty in young witches, +become in the old ones crow's-feet and crafty. When I greeted the woman, +she answered in Romany, and said she was a Stanley from the North. She +lied bravely, and I told her so. It made no difference in any way, nor +was she hurt. The brown boy, who seemed like a goblin, umber-colored +fungus, growing by a snaky black wild vine, sat by her and stared at me. +I was pleased, when he said _tober_, that she corrected him, exclaiming +earnestly, "Never say _tober_ for road; that is _canting_. Always say +_drom_; that is good Romanes." There is always a way of bringing up a +child in the way he should go,--though it be a gypsy one,--and _drom_ +comes from the Greek _dromos_, which is elegant and classical. Then she +began to beg again, to pass the time, and I lectured her severely on the +sin and meanness of her conduct, and said, with bitterness, "Do dogs eat +dogs, or are all the Gorgios dead in the land, that you cry for money to +me? Oh, you are a fine Stanley! a nice Beshaley you, to sing mumpin and +mongerin, when a half-blood Matthews has too much decency to trouble the +rye! And how much will you take? Whatever the gentleman pleases, and +thank you, my kind sir, and the blessings of the poor gypsy woman on you. +Yes, I know that, _givelli_, you mother of all the liars. You expect a +sixpence, and here it is, and may you get drunk on the money, and be well +thrashed by your man for it. And now see what I had in my hand all the +time to give you. A lucky half crown, my deary; but that's not for you +now. I only give a sixpence to a beggar, but I stand a _pash-korauna_ to +any Romany who's a pal and amal." + +This pleasing discourse made us very good friends, and, as I kept my eyes +sharply fixed on her viper orbs with an air of intense suspicion, +everything like ill-feeling or distrust naturally vanished from her mind; +for it is of the nature of the Romanys and all their kind to like those +whom they respect, and respect those whom they cannot deceive, and to +measure mankind exactly by their capacity of being taken in, especially +by themselves. As is also the case, in good society, with many ladies +and some gentlemen,--and much good may it do them! + +There was a brief silence, during which the boy still looked wistfully +into my face, as if wondering what kind of gentleman I might be, until +his mother said,-- + +"How do you do with them _ryas_ [swells]? What do you tell +'em--about--what do they think--you know?" + +This was not explicit, but I understood it perfectly. There is a great +deal of such loose, disjointed conversation among gypsies and other +half-thinkers. An educated man requires, or pretends to himself to +require, a most accurately-detailed and form-polished statement of +anything to understand it. The gypsy is less exacting. I have observed +among rural Americans much of this lottery style of conversation, in +which one man invests in a dubious question, not knowing exactly what +sort of a prize or blank answer he may draw. What the gypsy meant +effectively was, "How do you account to the Gorgios for knowing so much +about us, and talking with us? Our life is as different from yours as +possible, and you never acquired such a knowledge of all our tricky ways +as you have just shown without much experience of us and a double life. +You are related to us in some way, and you deceive the Gorgios about it. +What is your little game of life, on general principles?" + +For the gypsy is so little accustomed to having any congenial interest +taken in him that he can clearly explain it only by consanguinity. And +as I was questioned, so I answered,-- + +"Well, I tell them I like to learn languages, and am trying to learn +yours; and then I'm a foreigner in the country, anyhow, and they don't +know my _droms_ [ways], and they don't care much what I do,--don't you +see?" + +This was perfectly satisfactory, and as the hounds came sweeping round +the corner of the wood she rose and went her way, and I saw her growing +less and less along the winding road and up the hill, till she +disappeared, with her boy, in a small ale-house. "Bang went the +sixpence." + +When the last red light was in the west I went down to the river, and as +I paused, and looked alternately at the stars reflected and flickering in +the water and at the lights in the little gypsy camp, I thought that as +the dancing, restless, and broken sparkles were to their serene types +above, such were the wandering and wild Romany to the men of culture in +their settled homes. It is from the house-dweller that the men of the +roads and commons draw the elements of their life, but in that life they +are as shaken and confused as the starlight in the rippling river. But +if we look through our own life we find that it is not the gypsy alone +who is merely a reflection and an imitation of the stars above him, and a +creature of second-hand fashion. + +I found in the camp an old acquaintance, named Brown, and also perceived +at the first greeting that the woman Stanley had told Mrs. Brown that I +would not be _mongerdo_, or begged from, and that the latter, proud of +her power in extortion, and as yet invincible in mendicancy, had boasted +that she would succeed, let others weakly fail. And to lose no time she +went at me with an abruptness and dramatic earnestness which promptly +betrayed the secret. And on the spot I made a vow that nothing should +get a farthing from me, though I should be drawn by wild horses. And a +horse was, indeed, brought into requisition to draw me, or my money, but +without success; for Mr. Brown, as I very well knew,--it being just then +the current topic in the best society on the road,--had very recently +been involved in a tangled trouble with a stolen horse. This horse had +been figuratively laid at his door, even as a "love-babe" is sometimes +placed on the front steps of a virtuous and grave citizen,--at least, +this is what White George averred,--and his very innocence and purity +had, like a shining mark, attracted the shafts of the wicked. He had +come out unscathed, with a package of papers from a lawyer, which +established his character above par; but all this had cost money, +beautiful golden money, and brought him to the very brink of ruin! Mrs. +Brown's attack was a desperate and determined effort, and there was more +at stake on its success than the reader may surmise. Among gypsy women +skill in begging implies the possession of every talent which they most +esteem, such as artfulness, cool effrontery, and the power of moving pity +or provoking generosity by pique or humor. A quaint and racy book might +be written, should it only set forth the manner in which the experienced +matrons give straight-tips or suggestions to the maidens as to the manner +and lore of begging; and it is something worth hearing when several sit +together and devise dodges, and tell anecdotes illustrating the noble art +of mendicity, and how it should be properly practiced. + +Mrs. Brown knew that to extort alms from me would place her on the +pinnacle as an artist. Among all the Cooper clan, to which she was +allied, there was not one who ever begged from me, they having all found +that the ripest nuts are those which fall from the tree of their own +accord, or are blown earthward by the soft breezes of benevolence, and +not those which are violently beaten down. She began by pitiful appeals; +she was moving, but I did not budge. She grew pathetic; she touched on +the stolen horse; she paused, and gushed almost to tears, as much as to +say, If it must be, you _shall_ know all. Ruin stared them in the face; +poverty was crushing them. It was well acted,--rather in the Bernhardt +style, which, if M. Ondit speaks the truth, is also employed rather +extensively for acquiring "de monish." I looked at the van, of which the +Browns are proud, and inquired if it were true that it had been insured +for a hundred pounds, as George had recently boasted. Persuasion having +failed, Mrs. Brown tried bold defiance, saying that they needed no +company who were no good to them, and plainly said to me I might be gone. +It was her last card, thinking that a threat to dissolve our acquaintance +would drive me to capitulate, and it failed. I laughed, went into the +van, sat down, took out my brandy flask, and then accepted some bread and +ale, and, to please them, read aloud all the papers acquitting George +from all guilt as concerned the stolen horse,--papers which, he declared, +had cost him full five pounds. This was a sad come-down from the story +first told. Then I seriously rated his wife for begging from me. "You +know well enough," I said, "that I give all I can spare to your family +and your people when they are sick or poor. And here you are, the +richest Romanys on the road between Windsor and the Boro Gav, begging a +friend, who knows all about you, for money! Now, here is a shilling. +Take it. Have half a crown? Two of 'em! No! Oh, you don't want it +here in your own house. Well, you have some decency left, and to save +your credit I won't make you take it. And you scandalize me, a gentleman +and a friend, just to show this tramp of a Stanley _juva_, who hasn't +even got a drag [wagon], that you can beat her _a mongerin mandy_ +[begging me]." + +Mrs. Brown assented volubly to everything, and all the time I saw in her +smiling eyes, ever agreeing to all, and heard from her voluble lips +nothing but the _lie_,--that lie which is the mental action and inmost +grain of the Romany, and especially of the _diddikai_, or half-breed. +Anything and everything--trickery, wheedling or bullying, fawning or +threatening, smiles, or rage, or tears--for a sixpence. All day long +flattering and tricking to tell fortunes or sell trifles, and all life +one greasy lie, with ready frowns or smiles: as it was in India in the +beginning, as it is in Europe, and as it will be in America, so long as +there shall be a rambler on the roads, amen! + +Sweet peace again established, Mrs. Brown became herself once more, and +acted the hospitable hostess, exactly in the spirit and manner of any +woman who has "a home of her own," and a spark of decent feeling in her +heart. Like many actors, she was a bad lot on the boards, but a very +nice person off them. Here in her rolling home she was neither a beggar +nor poor, and she issued her orders grandly. "Boil some tea for the +_rye_--cook some coffee for the _rye_--wait a few minutes, my darling +gentleman, and I'll brile you a steak--or here's a fish, if you'd like +it?" But I declined everything except the corner of a loaf and some ale; +and all the time a little brown boy, with great black eyes, a perfect +Murillo model, sat condensed in wondrous narrow space by the fire, baking +small apples between the bars of the grate, and rolling up his orbs at me +as if wondering what could have brought me into such a circle,--even as +he had done that morning in the greenwood. + +Now if the reader would know what the interior of a gypsy van, or "drag," +or _wardo_, is like, he may see it in the following diagram. + + [Picture: Interior of gypsy van] + +_A_ is the door; _B_ is the bed, or rather two beds, each six feet long, +like berths, with a vacant space below; _C_ is a grate cooking-stove; _D_ +is a table, which hangs by hinges from the wall; _E_ is a chest of +drawers; _f_ and _f_ are two chairs. The general appearance of a +well-kept van is that of a state-room. Brown's is a very good van, and +quite clean. They are admirably well adapted for slow traveling, and it +was in such vans, purchased from gypsies, that Sir Samuel Baker and his +wife explored the whole of Cyprus. + +Mrs. Brown was proud of her van and of her little treasures. From the +great recess under the bed she raked out as a rare curiosity an old Dolly +Varden or damasked skirt, not at all worn, quite pretty, and evidently of +considerable value to a collector. This had belonged to Mrs. Brown's +grandmother, an old gypsy queen. And it may be observed, by the way, +that the claims of every Irishman of every degree to be descended from +one of the ancient kings of Ireland fade into nothing before those of the +gypsy women, all of whom, with rare exception, are the own daughters of +royal personages, granddaughterhood being hardly a claim to true +nobility. Then the bed itself was exhibited with pride, and the princess +sang its praises, till she affirmed that the _rye_ himself did not sleep +on a better one, for which George reprimanded her. But she vigorously +defended its excellence, and, to please her, I felt it and declared it +was indeed much softer than the one I slept on, which was really +true,--thank Heaven--and was received as a great compliment, and +afterwards proclaimed on the roads even unto the ends of Surrey. + +"Yes," said Brown, as I observed some osiers in the cupboard, "when I +feels like it I sometimes makes a pound a day a-making baskets." + +"I should think," I said, "that it would be cheaper to buy French baskets +of Bulrose [Bulureaux] in Houndsditch, ready made." + +"So one would think; but the _ranyor_ [osiers] costs nothin', and so it's +all profit, any way." + +Then I urged the greater profit of living in America, but both assured me +that so long as they could make a good living and be very comfortable, as +they considered themselves, in England, it would be nonsense to go to +America. + +For all things are relative, and many a gypsy whom the begged-from pity +sincerely, is as proud and happy in a van as any lord in the land. A +very nice, neat young gypsy woman, camped long before just where the +Browns were, once said to me, "It isn't having everything fine and +stylish that makes you happy. Now we've got a van, and have everything +so elegant and comfortable, and sleep warm as anybody; and yet I often +say to my husband that we used to be happier when we used to sleep under +a hedge with, may be, only a thin blanket, and wake up covered with +snow." Now this woman had only a wretched wagon, and was always tramping +in the rain, or cowering in a smoky, ragged tent and sitting on the +ground, but she had food, fire, and fun, with warm clothes, and believed +herself happy. Truly, she had better reason to think so than any old +maid with a heart run to waste on church gossip, or the latest +engagements and marriages; for it is better to be a street-boy in a +corner with a crust than one who, without it, discusses, in starvation, +with his friend the sausages and turtle-soup in a cook-shop window, +between which and themselves there is a great pane of glass fixed, never +to be penetrated. + + + +II. WALKING AND VISITING. + + +I never shall forget the sparkling splendor of that frosty morning in +December when I went with a younger friend from Oatlands Park for a day's +walk. I may have seen at other times, but I do not remember, such winter +lace-work as then adorned the hedges. The gossamer spider has within her +an inward monitor which tells if the weather will be fine; but it says +nothing about sudden changes to keen cold, and the artistic result was +that the hedges were hung with thousands of Honiton lamp-mats, instead of +the thread fly-catchers which their little artists had intended. And on +twigs and dead leaves, grass and rock and wall, were such expenditures of +Brussels and Spanish point, such a luxury of real old Venetian run mad, +and such deliria of Russian lace as made it evident that Mrs. Jack Frost +is a very extravagant fairy, but one gifted with exquisite taste. When I +reflect how I have in my time spoken of the taste for lace and diamonds +in women as entirely without foundation in nature, I feel that I sinned +deeply. For Nature, in this lace-work, displays at times a sympathy with +humanity,--especially womanity,--and coquets and flirts with it, as +becomes the subject, in a manner which is merrily awful. There was once +in Philadelphia a shop the windows of which were always filled with +different kinds of the richest and rarest lace, and one cold morning I +found that the fairies had covered the panes with literal frost +fac-similes of the exquisite wares which hung behind. This was no fancy; +the copies were as accurate as photographs. Can it be that in the +invisible world there are Female Fairy Schools of Design, whose scholars +combine in this graceful style Etching on Glass and Art Needlework? + +We were going to the village of Hersham to make a call. It was not at +any stylish villa or lordly manor-house,--though I knew of more than one +in the vicinity where we would have been welcome,--but at a rather +disreputable-looking edifice, which bore on its front the sign of +"Lodgings for Travellers." Now "traveller" means, below a certain circle +of English life, not the occasional, but the habitual wanderer, or one +who dwells upon the roads, and gains his living thereon. I have in my +possession several cards of such a house. I found them wrapped in a +piece of paper, by a deserted gypsy camp, where they had been lost:-- + + A NEW HOUSE. + + _Good Lodging for Travellers_. _With a Large Private Kitchen_. + + THE CROSS KEYS, + WEST STREET . . . MAIDENHEAD. + + BY J. HARRIS. + +The "private kitchen" indicates that the guests will have facilities for +doing their own cooking, as all of them bring their own victuals in +perpetual picnic. In the inclosure of the house in Hersham, the tops of +two or three gypsy vans could always be seen above the high fence, and +there was that general air of mystery about the entire establishment +which is characteristic of all places haunted by people whose ways are +not as our ways, and whose little games are not as our little games. I +had become acquainted with it and its proprietor, Mr. Hamilton, in that +irregular and only way which is usual with such acquaintances. I was +walking by the house one summer day, and stopped to ask my way. A +handsome dark-brown girl was busy at the wash-tub, two or three older +women were clustered at the gate, and in all their faces was the manner +of the _diddikai_ or _chureni_, or half-blood gypsy. As I spoke I +dropped my voice, and said, inquiringly,-- + +"Romanes?" + +"Yes," was the confidential answer. + +They were all astonished, and kept quiet till I had gone a few rods on my +way, when the whole party, recovering from their amazement, raised a +gentle cheer, expressive of approbation and sympathy. A few days after, +walking with a lady in Weybridge, she said to me,-- + +"Who is that man who looked at you so closely?" + +"I do not know." + +"That's very strange. I am quite sure I heard him utter two words in a +strange language, as you passed, as if he only meant them for you. They +sounded like _sarshaun baw_." Which means, "How are you, sir?" or +friend. As we came up the street, I saw the man talking with a +well-dressed, sporting-looking man, not quite a gentleman, who sat +cheekily in his own jaunty little wagon. As I passed, the one of the +wagon said to the other, speaking of me, and in pure Romany, evidently +thinking I did not understand,-- + +"_Dikk'adovo Giorgio_, _adoi_!" (Look at that Gorgio, there!) + +Being a Romany rye, and not accustomed to be spoken of as a Gorgio, I +looked up at him, angrily, when he, seeing that I understood him, smiled, +and bowed politely in apology. I laughed and passed on. But I thought +it a little strange, for neither of the men had the slightest indication +of gypsiness. I met the one who had said _sarishan ba_ again, soon +after. I found that he and the one of the wagon were not of gypsy blood, +but of a class not uncommon in England, who, be they rich or poor, are +affected towards gypsies. The wealthy one lived with a gypsy mistress; +the poorer one had a gypsy wife, and was very fond of the language. +There is a very large class of these mysterious men everywhere about the +country. They haunt fairs; they pop up unexpectedly as Jack-in-boxes in +unsuspected guise; they look out from under fatherly umbrellas; their +name is Legion; their mother is Mystery, and their uncle is Old Tom,--not +of Virginia, but of Gin. Once, in the old town of Canterbury, I stood in +the street, under the Old Woman with the Clock, one of the quaintest +pieces of drollery ever imagined during the Middle Ages. And by me was a +tinker, and as his wheel went _siz-'z-'z-'z_, _uz-uz-uz-z-z_! I talked +with him, and there joined us a fat, little, elderly, spectacled, +shabby-genteel, but well-to-do-looking sort of a punchy, small tradesman. +And, as we spoke, there went by a great, stout, roaring Romany woman,--a +scarlet-runner of Babylon run to seed,--with a boy and a hand-cart to +carry the seed in. And to her I cried, "_Hav akai te mandy'll del tute a +shaori_!" (Come here, and I'll stand a sixpence!) But she did not +believe in my offer, but went her way, like a Burning Shame, through the +crowd, and was lost evermore. I looked at the little old gentleman to +see what effect my outcry in a strange language had upon him. But he +only remarked, soberly, "Well, now, I _should_ 'a' thought a sixpence +would 'a' brought her to!" And the wheel said, "Suz-zuz-zuz-z-z I should +'a' suz-suz 'a' thought a suz-z-zixpence would 'a' suz-zuz 'a' brought +her, too-z-z-z!" And I looked at the Old Woman with the Clock, and she +ticked, +"A--six--pence--would--have--brought--_me_--two--three--four"--and I +began to dream that all Canterbury was Romany. + +We came to the house, the landlord was up-stairs, ill in bed, but would +be glad to see us; and he welcomed us warmly, and went deeply into Romany +family matters with my friend, the Oxford scholar. Meanwhile, his +daughter, a nice brunette, received and read a letter; and he tried to +explain to me the mystery of the many men who are not gypsies, yet speak +Romany, but could not do it, though he was one of them. It appeared from +his account that they were "a kind of mixed, you see, and dusted in, you +know, and on it, out of the family, it peppers up; but not exactly, you +understand, and that's the way it is. And I remember a case in point, +and that was one day, and I had sold a horse, and was with my boy in a +_moramengro's buddika_ [barber's shop], and my boy says to me, in +Romanes, 'Father, I'd like to have my hair cut.' 'It's too dear here, my +son,' said I, Romaneskes; 'for the bill says threepence.' And then the +barber, he ups and says, in Romany, 'Since you're Romanys, I'll cut it +for _two_pence, though it's clear out of all my rules.' And he did it; +but why that man _rakkered Romanes_ I don't know, nor how it comes about; +for he hadn't no more call to it than a pig has to be a preacher. But +I've known men in Sussex to take to diggin' truffles on the same +principles, and one Gorgio in Hastings that adopted sellin' fried fish +for his livin', about the town, because he thought it was kind of +romantic. That's it." + +Over the chimney-piece hung a large engraving of Milton and his +daughters. It was out of place, and our host knew it, and was proud. He +said he had bought it at an auction, and that it was a picture of +Middleton,--a poet, he believed; "anyhow, he was a writing man." But, on +second thought, he remembered that the name was not Middleton, but +Millerton. And on further reflection, he was still more convinced that +Millerton _was_ a poet. + +I once asked old Matthew Cooper the Romany word for a poet. And he +promptly replied that he had generally heard such a man called a +_givellengero_ or _gilliengro_, which means a song-master, but that he +himself regarded _shereskero-mush_, or head-man, as more elegant and +deeper; for poets make songs out of their heads, and are also ahead of +all other men in head-work. There is a touching and unconscious tribute +to the art of arts in this definition which is worth recording. It has +been said that, as people grow polite, they cease to be poetical; it is +certain that in the first circles they do not speak of their poets with +such respect as this. + +Out again into the fresh air and the frost on the crisp, crackling road +and in the sunshine. At such a time, when cold inspires life, one can +understand why the old poets and mystics believed that there was fire in +ice. Therefore, Saint Sebaldus, coming into the hut of a poor and pious +man who was dying of cold, went out, and, bringing in an armful of +icicles, laid them on the andirons and made a good fire. Now this fire +was the inner glowing glory of God, and worked both ways,--of course you +see the connection,--as was shown in Adelheid von Sigolsheim, the Holy +Nun of Unterlinden, who was so full of it that she passed the night in a +freezing stream, and then stood all the morning, ice-clad, in the choir, +and never caught cold. And the pious Peroneta, to avoid a sinful suitor, +lived all winter, up to her neck, in ice-water, on the highest Alp in +Savoy. {125} These were saints. But there was a gypsy, named Dighton, +encamped near Brighton, who told me nearly the same story of another +gypsy, who was no saint, and which I repeat merely to show how extremes +meet. It was that this gypsy, who was inspired with anything but the +inner glowing glory of God, but who was, on the contrary, cram full of +pure cussedness, being warmed by the same,--and the devil,--when chased +by the constable, took refuge in a river full of freezing slush and +broken ice, where he stood up to his neck and defied capture; for he +verily cared no more for it than did Saint Peter of Alcantara, who was +both ice and fire proof. "Come out of that, my good man," said the +gentleman, whose hen he had stolen, "and I'll let you go." "No, I won't +come out," said the gypsy. "My blood be on your head!" So the gentleman +offered him five pounds, and then a suit of clothes, to come ashore. The +gypsy reflected, and at last said, "Well, if you'll add a drink of +spirits, I'll come; but it's only to oblige you that I budge." + +Then we walked in the sober evening, with its gray gathering shadows, as +the last western rose light rippled in the river, yet fading in the +sky,--like a good man who, in dying, speaks cheerfully of earthly things, +while his soul is vanishing serenely into heaven. The swans, looking +like snowballs, unconscious of cold were taking their last swim towards +the reedy, brake-tangled islets where they nested, gossiping as they +went. The deepening darkness, at such a time, becomes more impressive +from the twinkling stars, just as the subduing silence is noted only by +the far-borne sounds from the hamlet or farm-house, or the occasional +whispers of the night-breeze. So we went on in the twilight, along the +Thames, till we saw the night-fire of the Romanys and its gleam on the +_tan_. A _tan_ is, strictly speaking, a tent, but a tent is a dwelling, +or stopping-place; and so from earliest Aryan time, the word _tan_ is +like Alabama, or "here we rest," and may be found in _tun_, the ancestor +of town, and in _stan_, as in Hindostan,--and if I blunder, so much the +better for the philological gentlemen, who, of all others, most delight +in setting erring brothers right, and never miss a chance to show, +through others' shame, how much they know. + +There was a bark of a dog, and a voice said, "The Romany rye!" They had +not seen us, but the dog knew, and they knew his language. + +"_Sarishan ryor_!" + +"_O boro duvel atch' pa leste_!" (The great Lord be on you!) This is +not a common Romany greeting. It is of ancient days and archaic. Sixty +or seventy years ago it was current. Old Gentilla Cooper, the famous +fortune-teller of the Devil's Dike, near Brighton, knew it, and when she +heard it from me she was moved,--just as a very old negro in London was, +when I said to him, "_Sady_, uncle." I said it because I had recognized +by the dog's bark that it was Sam Smith's tan. Sam likes to be +considered as _deep_ Romany. He tries to learn old gypsy words, and he +affects old gypsy ways. He is pleased to be called Petulengro, which +means Smith. Therefore, my greeting was a compliment. + +In a few minutes we were in camp and at home. We talked of many things, +and among others of witches. It is remarkable that while the current +English idea of a witch is that of an old woman who has sold herself to +Satan, and is a distinctly marked character, just like Satan himself, +that of the witch among gypsies is general and Oriental. There is no +Satan in India. Mrs. Smith--since dead--held that witches were to be +found everywhere. "You may know a natural witch," she said, "by certain +signs. One of these is straight hair which curls at the ends. Such +women have it in them." + +It was only recently, as I write, that I was at a very elegant art +reception, which was fully reported in the newspapers. And I was very +much astonished when a lady called my attention to another young and very +pretty lady, and expressed intense disgust at the way the latter wore her +hair. It was simply parted in the middle, and fell down on either side, +smooth as a water-fall, and then broke into curls at the ends, just as +water, after falling, breaks into waves and rapids. But as she spoke, I +felt it all, and saw that Mrs. Petulengro was in the right. The girl +with the end-curled hair was uncanny. Her hair curled at the ends,--so +did her eyes; she _was_ a witch. + +"But there's a many witches as knows clever things," said Mrs. +Petulengro. "And I learned from one of them how to cure the rheumatiz. +Suppose you've got the rheumatiz. Well, just you carry a potato in your +pocket. As the potato dries up, your rheumatiz will go away." + +Sam Smith was always known on the roads as Fighting Sam. Years have +passed, and when I have asked after him I have always heard that he was +either in prison or had just been let out. Once it happened that, during +a fight with a Gorgio, the Gorgio's watch disappeared, and Sam was +arrested under suspicion of having got up the fight in order that the +watch might disappear. All of his friends declared his innocence. The +next trouble was for _chorin a gry_, or stealing a horse, and so was the +next, and so on. As horse-stealing is not a crime, but only "rough +gambling," on the roads, nobody defended him on these counts. He was, so +far as this went, only a sporting character. When his wife died he +married Athalia, the widow of Joshua Cooper, a gypsy, of whom I shall +speak anon. I always liked Sam. Among the travelers, he was always +spoken of as genteel, owing to the fact, that whatever the state of his +wardrobe might be, he always wore about his neck an immaculate white +woolen scarf, and on _jours de fete_, such as horse-races, sported a +_boro stardi_, or chimney-pot hat. O my friend, Colonel Dash, of the +club! Change but the name, this fable is of thee! + +"There's to be a _walgoro_, _kaliko i sala_--a fair to-morrow morning, at +Cobham," said Sam, as he departed. + +"All right. We'll be there." + +As I went forth by the river into the night, and the stars looked down +like loving eyes, there shot a meteor across the sky, one long trail of +light, out of darkness into darkness, one instant bright, then dead +forever. And I remembered how I once was told that stars, like mortals, +often fall in love. O love, forever in thy glory go! And that they send +their starry angels forth, and that the meteors are their messengers. O +love, forever in thy glory go! For love and light in heaven, as on +earth, were ever one, and planets speak with light. Light is their +language; as they love they speak. O love, forever in thy glory go! + + + +III. COBHAM FAIR. + + +The walk from Oatlands Park Hotel to Cobham is beautiful with memorials +of Older England. Even on the grounds there is a quaint brick gateway, +which is the only relic of a palace which preceded the present pile. The +grandfather was indeed a stately edifice, built by Henry VIII., improved +and magnified, according to his lights, by Inigo Jones, and then +destroyed during the civil war. The river is here very beautiful, and +the view was once painted by Turner. It abounds in "short windings and +reaches." Here it is, indeed, the Olerifera Thamesis, as it was called +by Guillaume le Breton in his "Phillipeis," in the days of Richard the +Lion Heart. Here the eyots and banks still recall Norman days, for they +are "wild and were;" and there is even yet a wary otter or two, known to +the gypsies and fishermen, which may be seen of moonlight nights plunging +or swimming silently in the haunted water. + +Now we pass Walton Church, and look in, that my friend may see the massy +Norman pillars and arches, the fine painted glass, and the brasses. One +of these represents John Selwyn, who was keeper of the royal park of +Oatlands in 1587. Tradition, still current in the village, says that +Selwyn was a man of wondrous strength and of rare skill in horsemanship. +Once, when Queen Elizabeth was present at a stag hunt, he leaped from his +horse upon the back of the stag, while both were running at full speed, +kept his seat gracefully, guided the animal towards the queen, and +stabbed him so deftly that he fell dead at her majesty's feet. It was +daintily done, and doubtless Queen Bess, who loved a proper man, was well +pleased. The brass plate represents Selwyn as riding on the stag, and +there is in the village a shop where the neat old dame who presides, or +her daughter, will sell you for a penny a picture of the plate, and tell +you the story into the bargain. In it the valiant ranger sits on the +stag, which he is stabbing through the neck with his _couteau de chasse_, +looking meanwhile as solemn as if he were sitting in a pew and listening +to _De profundis_. He who is great in one respect seldom fails in some +other, and there is in the church another and a larger brass, from which +it appears that Selwyn not only had a wife, but also eleven children, who +are depicted in successive grandeur or gradation. There are monuments by +Roubiliac and Chantrey in the church, and on the left side of the altar +lies buried William Lilly, the great astrologer, the Sidrophel of +Butler's "Hudibras." And look into the chancel. There is a tablet to +his memory, which was put up by Elias Ashmole, the antiquary, who has +left it in print that this "fair black marble stone" cost him 6 pounds +4_s_. 6_d_. When I was a youth, and used to pore in the old Franklin +Library of Philadelphia over Lilly, I never thought that his grave would +be so near my home. But a far greater literary favorite of mine lies +buried in the church-yard without. This is Dr. Maginn, the author of +"Father Tom and the Pope," and many another racy, subtle jest. A fellow +of infinite humor,--the truest disciple of Rabelais,--and here he lies +without a monument! + +Summon the sexton, and let us ask him to show us the scold's, or +gossip's, bridle. This is a rare curiosity, which is kept in the vestry. +It would seem, from all that can be learned, that two hundred years ago +there were in England viragoes so virulent, women so gifted with gab and +so loaded and primed with the devil's own gunpowder, that all moral +suasion was wasted on them, and simply showed, as old Reisersberg wrote, +that _fatue agit qui ignem conatur extinguere sulphure_ ('t is all +nonsense to try to quench fire with brimstone). For such diavolas they +had made--what the sexton is just going to show you--a muzzle of thin +iron bars, which pass around the head and are padlocked behind. In front +a flat piece of iron enters the mouth and keeps down the tongue. On it +is the date 1633, and certain lines, no longer legible:-- + + "Chester presents Walton with a bridle, + To curb women's tongues that talk too idle." + +A sad story, if we only knew it all! What tradition tells is that long +ago there was a Master Chester, who lost a fine estate through the idle, +malicious clack of a gossiping, lying woman. "What is good for a +bootless bene?" What he did was to endow the church with this admirable +piece of head-gear. And when any woman in the parish was unanimously +adjudged to be deserving of the honor, the bridle was put on her head and +tongue, and she was led about town by the beadle as an example to all the +scolding sisterhood. Truly, if it could only be applied to the women and +men who repeat gossip, rumors reports, _on dits_, small slanders, proved +or unproved, to all gobe-mouches, club-gabblers, tea-talkers and +tattlers, chatterers, church-twaddlers, wonderers +if-it-be-true-what-they-say; in fine, to the entire sister and brother +hood of tongue-waggers, I for one would subscribe my mite to have one +kept in every church in the world, to be zealously applied to their vile +jaws. For verily the mere Social Evil is an angel of light on this earth +as regards doing evil, compared to the Sociable Evil,--and thus endeth +the first lesson. + +We leave the church, so full of friendly memories. In this one building +alone there are twenty things known to me from a boy. For from boyhood I +have held in my memory those lines by Queen Elizabeth which she uttered +here, and have read Lilly and Ashmole and Maginn; and this is only one +corner in merrie England! Am I a stranger here? There is a father-land +of the soul, which has no limits to him who, far sweeping on the wings of +song and history, goes forth over many lands. + +We have but a little farther to go on our way before we come to the +quaint old manor-house which was of old the home of President Bradshaw, +the grim old Puritan. There is an old sailor in the village, who owns a +tavern, and he says, and the policeman agrees with him, that it was in +this house that the death-warrant of King Charles the First was signed. +Also, that there is a subterranean passage which leads from it to the +Thames, which was in some way connected with battle, murder, plots, +Puritans, sudden death, and politics; though how this was is more than +legend can clearly explain. Whether his sacred majesty was led to +execution through this cavity, or whether Charles the Second had it for +one of his numerous hiding-places, or returned through it with Nell Gwynn +from his exile, are other obscure points debated among the villagers. +The truth is that the whole country about Walton is subterrened with +strange and winding ways, leading no one knows whither, dug in the days +of the monks or knights, from one long-vanished monastery or castle to +the other. There is the opening to one of these hard by the hotel, but +there was never any gold found in it that ever I heard of. And all the +land is full of legend, and ghosts glide o' nights along the alleys, and +there is an infallible fairy well at hand, named the Nun, and within a +short walk stands the tremendous Crouch oak, which was known of Saxon +days. Whoever gives but a little of its bark to a lady will win her +love. It takes its name from _croix_ (a cross), according to Mr. Kemble, +{134} and it is twenty-four feet in girth. Its first branch, which is +forty-eight feet long, shoots out horizontally, and is almost as large as +the trunk. Under this tree Wickliffe preached, and Queen Elizabeth +dined. + +It has been well said by Irving that the English, from the great +prevalence of rural habits throughout every class of society, have been +extremely fond of those festivals and holidays which agreeably interrupt +the stillness of country life. True, the days have gone when burlesque +pageant and splendid procession made even villages magnificent. Harp and +tabor and viol are no longer heard in every inn when people would be +merry, and men have forgotten how to give themselves up to headlong +roaring revelry. The last of this tremendous frolicking in Europe died +out with the last yearly _kermess_ in Amsterdam, and it was indeed +wonderful to see with what utter _abandon_ the usually stolid Dutch flung +themselves into a rushing tide of frantic gayety. Here and there in +England a spark of the old fire, lit in mediaeval times, still flickers, +or perhaps flames, as at Dorking in the annual foot-ball play, which is +carried on with such vigor that two or three thousand people run wild in +it, while all the windows and street lamps are carefully screened for +protection. But notwithstanding the gradually advancing republicanism of +the age, which is dressing all men alike, bodily and mentally, the +rollicking democracy of these old-fashioned festivals, in which the +peasant bonneted the peer without ceremony, and rustic maids ran races +_en chemise_ for a pound of tea, is entirely too leveling for culture. +There are still, however, numbers of village fairs, quietly conducted, in +which there is much that is pleasant and picturesque, and this at Cobham +was as pretty a bit of its kind as I ever saw. These are old-fashioned +and gay in their little retired nooks, and there the plain people show +themselves as they really are. The better class of the neighborhood, +having no sympathy with such sports or scenes, do not visit village +fairs. It is, indeed, a most exceptional thing to see any man who is a +"gentleman," according to the society standard, in any fair except +Mayfair in London. + +Cobham is well built for dramatic display. Its White Lion Inn is of the +old coaching days, and the lion on its front is a very impressive +monster, one of the few relics of the days when signs were signs in +spirit and in truth. In this respect the tavern keeper of to-day is a +poor snob, that he thinks a sign painted or carven is degenerate and low, +and therefore announces, in a line of letters, that his establishment is +the Pig and Whistle, just as his remote predecessor thought it was low, +or slow, or old-fashioned to dedicate his ale-shop to Pigen Wassail or +Hail to the Virgin, and so changed it to a more genteel and secular form. +In the public place were rows of booths arranged in streets forming +_imperium in imperio_, a town within a town. There was of course the +traditional gilt gingerbread, and the cheering but not inebriating +ginger-beer, dear to the youthful palate, and not less loved by the tired +pedestrian, when, mixed half and half with ale, it foams before him as +_shandy gaff_. There, too, were the stands, presided over by jaunty, +saucy girls, who would load a rifle for you and give you a prize or a +certain number of shots for a shilling. You may be a good shot, but the +better you shoot the less likely will you be to hit the bull's-eye with +the rifle which that black-eyed Egyptian minx gives you; for it is +artfully curved and false-sighted, and the rifle was made only to rifle +your pocket, and the damsel to sell you with her smiles, and the doll is +stuffed with sawdust, and life is not worth living for, and Miching +Mallocko says it,--albeit I believe he lives at times as if there might +be moments when it was forgot. + +And we had not been long on the ground before we were addressed furtively +and gravely by a man whom it required a second glance to recognize as +Samuel Petulengro, so artfully was he disguised as a simple-seeming +agriculturalist of the better lower-class. But that there remained in +Sam's black eyes that glint of the Romany which nothing could disguise, +one would have longed to buy a horse of him. And in the same quiet way +there came, one by one, out of the crowd, six others, all speaking in +subdued voices, like conspirators, and in Romany, as if it were a sin. +And all were dressed rustically, and the same with intent to deceive, and +all had the solemn air of very small farmers, who must sell that horse at +any sacrifice. But when I saw Sam's horses I marked that his disguise of +himself was nothing to the wondrous skill with which he had converted his +five-pound screws into something comparatively elegant. They had been +curried, clipped, singed, and beautified to the last resource, and the +manner in which the finest straw had been braided into mane and tail was +a miracle of art. This was _jour de fete_ for Sam and his _diddikai_, or +half-blood pals; his foot was on his native heath in the horse-fair, +where all inside the ring knew the gypsy, and it was with pride that he +invited us to drink ale, and once in the bar-room, where all assembled +were jockeys and sharps, conversed loudly in Romany, in order to exhibit +himself and us to admiring friends. A Romany rye, on such occasions, is +to a Sam Petulengro what a scion of royalty is to minor aristocracy when +it can lure him into its nets. To watch one of these small horse-dealers +at a fair, and to observe the manner in which he conducts his bargains, +is very curious. He lounges about all day, apparently doing nothing; he +is the only idler around. Once in a while somebody approaches him and +mutters something, to which he gives a brief reply. Then he goes to a +tap-room or stable-yard, and is merged in a mob of his mates. But all +the while he is doing sharp clicks of business. There is somebody +talking to another party about _that horse_; somebody telling a farmer +that he knows a young man as has got a likely 'oss at 'arf price, the +larst of a lot which he wants to clear out, and it may be 'ad, but if the +young man sees 'im [the farmer] he may put it on 'eavy. + +Then the agent calls in one of the disguised Romanys to testify to the +good qualities of the horse. They look at it, but the third _deguise_, +who has it in charge, avers that it has just been sold to a gentleman. +But they have another. By this time the farmer wishes he had bought the +horse. When any coin slips from between our fingers, and rolls down +through a grating into the sewer, we are always sure that it was a +sovereign, and not a half-penny. Yes, and the fish which drops back from +the line into the river is always the biggest take--or mistake--of the +day. And this horse was a bargain, and the three in disguise say so, and +wish they had a hundred like it. But there comes a Voice from the +depths, a casual remark, offering to bet that 'ere gent won't close on +that hoss. "Bet yer ten bob he will." "Done." "How do yer know he +don't take the hoss?" "He carn't; he's too heavy loaded with Bill's +mare. Says he'll sell it for a pound better." The farmer begins to see +his way. He is shrewd; it may be that he sees through all this myth of +"the gentleman." But his attention has been attracted to the horse. +Perhaps he pays a little more, or "the pound better;" in greater +probability he gets Sam's horse for the original price. There are many +ways among gypsies of making such bargains, but the motive power of them +all is _taderin_, or drawing the eye of the purchaser, a game not unknown +to Gorgios. I have heard of a German _yahud_ in Philadelphia, whose +little boy Moses would shoot from the door with a pop-gun or squirt at +passers-by, or abuse them vilely, and then run into the shop for shelter. +They of course pursued him and complained to the parent, who immediately +whipped his son, to the great solace of the afflicted ones. And then the +afflicted seldom failed to buy something in that shop, and the corrected +son received ten per cent. of the profit. The attention of the public +had been drawn. + +As we went about looking at people and pastimes, a Romany, I think one of +the Ayres, said to me,-- + +"See the two policemen? They're following you two gentlemen. They saw +you pallin' with Bowers. That Bowers is the biggest blackguard on the +roads between London and Windsor. I don't want to hurt his charackter, +but it's no bad talkin' nor _dusherin_ of him to say that no decent +Romanys care to go with him. Good at a mill? Yes, he's that. A reg'lar +_wastimengro_, I call him. And that's why it is." + +Now there was in the fair a vast institution which proclaimed by a +monstrous sign and by an excessive eruption of advertisement that it was +THE SENSATION OF THE AGE. This was a giant hand-organ in connection with +a forty-bicycle merry-go-round, all propelled by steam. And as we walked +about the fair, the two rural policemen, who had nothing better to do, +shadowed or followed us, their bucolic features expressing the intensest +suspicion allied to the extremest stupidity; when suddenly the Sensation +of the Age struck up the Gendarme's chorus, "We'll run 'em in," from +Genevieve de Brabant, and the arrangement was complete. Of all airs ever +composed this was the most appropriate to the occasion, and therefore it +played itself. The whole formed quite a little opera-bouffe, gypsies not +being wanting. And as we came round, in our promenade, the pretty girl, +with her rifle in hand, implored us to take a shot, and the walk wound up +by her finally letting fly herself and ringing the bell. + +That pretty girl might or might not have a touch of Romany blood in her +veins, but it is worth noting that among all these show-men and +show-women, acrobats, exhibitors of giants, purse-droppers, +gingerbread-wheel gamblers, shilling knife-throwers, pitch-in-his-mouths, +Punches, Cheap-Jacks, thimble-rigs, and patterers of every kind there is +always a leaven and a suspicion of gypsiness. If there be not descent, +there is affinity by marriage, familiarity, knowledge of words and ways, +sweethearting and trafficking, so that they know the children of the Rom +as the house-world does not know them, and they in some sort belong +together. It is a muddle, perhaps, and a puzzle; I doubt if anybody +quite understands it. No novelist, no writer whatever, has as yet +_clearly_ explained the curious fact that our entire nomadic population, +excepting tramps, is not, as we thought in our childhood, composed of +English people like ourselves. It is leavened with direct Indian blood; +it has, more or less modified, a peculiar _morale_. It was old before +the Saxon heptarchy. + +I was very much impressed at this fair with the extensive and unsuspected +amount of Romany existent in our rural population. We had to be +satisfied, as we came late into the tavern for lunch, with cold boiled +beef and carrots, of which I did not complain, as cold carrots are much +nicer than warm, a fact too little understood in cookery. There were +many men in the common room, mostly well dressed, and decent even if +doubtful looking. I observed that several used Romany words in casual +conversation. I came to the conclusion at last that all who were present +knew something of it. The greatly reprobated Bowers was not himself a +gypsy, but he had a gypsy wife. He lived in a cottage not far from +Walton, and made baskets, while his wife roamed far and near, selling +them; and I have more than once stopped and sent for a pot of ale, and +shared it with Bill, listening meantime to his memories of the road as he +caned chairs or "basketed." I think his reputation came rather from a +certain Bohemian disregard of _convenances_ and of appearances than from +any deeply-seated sinfulness. For there are Bohemians even among +gypsies; everything in this life being relative and socially-contractive. +When I came to know the disreputable William well, I found in him the +principles of Panurge, deeply identified with the _morale_ of Falstaff; a +wondrous fund of unbundled humor, which expressed itself more by tones +than words; a wisdom based on the practices of the prize-ring; and a +perfectly sympathetic admiration of my researches into Romany. One day, +at Kingston Fair, as I wished to depart, I asked Bill the way to the +station. "I will go with you and show you," he said. But knowing that +he had business in the fair I declined his escort. He looked at me as if +hurt. + +"_Does tute pen mandy'd chore tute_?" (Do you think I would rob _you_ or +pick your pockets?) For he believed I was afraid of it. I knew Bill +better. I knew that he was perfectly aware that I was about the only man +in England who had a good opinion of him in any way, or knew what good +there was in him. When a _femme incomprise_, a woman not as yet found +out, discovers at last the man who is so much a master of the art of +flattery as to satisfy somewhat her inordinate vanity, she is generally +grateful enough to him who has thus gratified her desires to refrain from +speaking ill of him, and abuse those who do, especially the latter. In +like manner, Bill Bowers, who was every whit as interesting as any _femme +incomprise_ in Belgravia, or even Russell Square, believing that I had a +little better opinion of him than anybody else, would not only have +refrained from robbing me, but have proceeded to lam with his fists +anybody else who would have done so,--the latter proceeding being, from +his point of view, only a light, cheerful, healthy, and invigorating +exercise, so that, as he said, and as I believe truthfully, "I'd rather +be walloped than not fight." Even as my friend H. had rather lose than +not play "farrer." + +This was a very pretty little country fair at Cobham; pleasant and purely +English. It was very picturesque, with its flags, banners, gayly +bedecked booths, and mammoth placards, there being, as usual, no lack of +color or objects. I wonder that Mr. Frith, who has given with such +idiomatic genius the humors of the Derby, has never painted an +old-fashioned rural fair like this. In a few years the last of them will +have been closed, and the last gypsy will be there to look on. + +There was a pleasant sight in the afternoon, when all at once, as it +seemed to me, there came hundreds of pretty, rosy-cheeked children into +the fair. There were twice as many of them as of grown people. I think +that, the schools being over for the day, they had been sent a-fairing +for a treat. They swarmed in like small bee-angels, just escaped from +some upset celestial hive; they crowded around the booths, buying little +toys, chattering, bargaining, and laughing, when my eye caught theirs, as +though to be noticed was the very best joke in the whole world. They +soon found out the Sensation of the Age, and the mammoth steam bicycle +was forthwith crowded with the happy little creatures, raptured in all +the glory of a ride. The cars looked like baskets full of roses. It was +delightful to see them: at first like grave and stolid little +Anglo-Saxons, occupied seriously with the new Sensation; then here and +there beaming with thawing jollity; then smiling like sudden sun-gleams; +and then laughing, until all were in one grand chorus, as the speed +became greater, and the organ roared out its notes as rapidly as a +runaway musical locomotive, and the steam-engine puffed in time, until a +high-pressure scream told that the penn'orth of fun was up. + +As we went home in the twilight, and looked back at the trees and roofs +of the village, in dark silhouette against the gold-bronze sky, and heard +from afar and fitfully the music of the Great Sensation mingled with the +beat of a drum and the shouts of the crowd, rising and falling with the +wind, I felt a little sad, that the age, in its advancing refinement, is +setting itself against these old-fashioned merry-makings, and shrinking +like a weakling from all out-of-doors festivals, on the plea of their +being disorderly, but in reality because they are believed to be vulgar. +They come down to us from rough old days; but they are relics of a time +when life, if rough, was at least kind and hearty. We admire that life +on the stage, we ape it in novels, we affect admiration and appreciation +of its rich picturesqueness and vigorous originality, and we lie in so +doing; for there is not an aesthetic prig in London who could have lived +an hour in it. Truly, I should like to know what Francois Villon and +Chaucer would have thought of some of their modern adorers, or what the +lioness Fair-sinners of the olden time would have had to say to the +nervous weaklings who try to play the genial blackguard in their praise! +It is to me the best joke of the age that those who now set themselves up +for priests of the old faith are the men, of all others, whom the old +gods would have kicked, _cum magna injuria_, out of the temple. When I +sit by Bill Bowers, as he baskets, and hear the bees buzz about his +marigolds, or in Plato Buckland's van, or with a few hearty and true men +of London town of whom I wot, _then_ I know that the old spirit liveth in +its ashes; but there is little of it, I trow, among its penny +prig-trumpeters. + + + +IV. THE MIXED FORTUNES. + + + "Thus spoke the king to the great Master: 'Thou didst bless and ban + the people; thou didst give benison and curse, luck and sorrow, to + the evil or the good.' + + "And the Master said, 'It may be so.' + + "And the king continued, 'There came two men, and one was good and + the other bad. And one thou didst bless, thinking he was good; but + he was wicked. And the other thou didst curse, and thought him bad; + but he was good.' + + "The Master said, 'And what came of it?' + + "The king answered, 'All evil came upon the good man, and all + happiness to the bad.' + + "And the Master said, 'I write letters, but I am not the messenger; I + hunt the deer, but I am not the cook; I plant the vine, but I do not + pour the wine to the guests; I ordain war, yet do not fight; I send + ships forth on the sea, but do not sail them. There is many a slip + between cup and lip, as the chief of the rebel spirits said when he + was thrown out of heaven, and I am not greater nor wiser than he was + before he fell. Hast thou any more questions, O son?' + + "And the king went his way." + +One afternoon I was walking with three ladies. One was married, one was +a young widow, and one, no longer very young, had not as yet husbanded +her resources. And as we went by the Thames, conversation turned upon +many things, and among them the mystery of the future and mediums; and +the widow at last said she would like to have her fortune told. + +"You need not go far to have it done," I said. "There is a gypsy camp +not a mile away, and in it one of the cleverest fortune-tellers in +England." + +"I am almost afraid to go," said the maiden lady. "It seems to me to be +really wrong to try to look into the awful secrets of futurity. One can +never be certain as to what a gypsy may not know. It's all very well, I +dare say, to declare it's all rubbish, but then you know you never can +tell what may be in a rubbish-heap, and they may be predicting true +things all the time while they think they're humbugging you. And they do +often foretell the most wonderful things; I know they do. My aunt was +told that she would marry a man who would cause her trouble, and, sure +enough, she did; and it was such a shame, she was such a sweet-tempered, +timid woman, and he spent half her immense fortune. Now wasn't that +wonderful?" + +It would be a curious matter for those who like studying statistics and +chance to find out what proportion in England of sweet-tempered, timid +women of the medium-middle class, in newly-sprouted families, with +immense fortunes, do _not_ marry men who only want their money. Such +heiresses are the natural food of the noble shark and the swell sucker, +and even a gypsy knows it, and can read them at a glance. I explained +this to the lady; but she knew what she knew, and would not know +otherwise. + +So we came along the rippling river, watching the darting swallows and +light water-gnats, as the sun sank afar into the tawny, golden west, and +Night, in ever-nearing circles, wove her shades around us. We saw the +little tents, like bee-hives,--one, indeed, not larger than the hive in +which Tyll Eulenspiegel slept his famous nap, and in which he was carried +away by the thieves who mistook him for honey and found him vinegar. And +the outposts, or advanced pickets of small, brown, black-eyed elves, were +tumbling about as usual, and shouted their glad greeting; for it was only +the day before that I had come down with two dozen oranges, which by +chance proved to be just one apiece for all to eat except for little +Synfie Cooper, who saved hers up for her father when he should return. + +I had just an instant in which to give the gypsy sorceress a "straight +tip," and this I did, saying in Romany that one of the ladies was married +and one a widow. I was indeed quite sure that she must know the married +lady as such, since she had lived near at hand, within a mile, for +months. And so, with all due solemnity, the sorceress went to her work. + +"You will come first, my lady, if you please," she said to the married +dame, and led her into a hedge-corner, so as to be remote from public +view, while we waited by the camp. + +The hand was inspected, and properly crossed with a shilling, and the +seeress began her prediction. + +"It's a beautiful hand, my lady, and there's luck in it. The line o' +life runs lovely and clear, just like a smooth river from sea to sea, and +that means you'll never be in danger before you die, nor troubled with +much ill. And it's written that you'll have another husband very soon." + +"But I don't want another," said the lady. + +"Ah, my dear lady, so you'll say till you get him, but when he comes +you'll be glad enough; so do you just get the first one out of your head +as soon as you can, for the next will be the better one. And you'll +cross the sea and travel in a foreign land, and remember what I told you +to the end of your life days." + +Then the widow had her turn. + +"This is a lucky hand, and little need you had to have your fortune told. +You've been well married once, and once is enough when it's all you need. +There's others as is never satisfied and wants everything, but you've had +the best, and more you needn't want, though there'll be many a man who'll +be in love with you. Ay, indeed, there's fair and dark as will feel the +favor of your beautiful eyes, but little good will it do them, and barons +and lords as would kiss the ground you tread on; and no wonder, either, +for you have the charm which nobody can tell what it is. But it will do +'em no good, nevermore." + +"Then I'm never to have another husband," said the widow. + +"No, my lady. He that you married was the best of all, and, after him, +you'll never need another; and that was written in your hand when you +were born, and it will be your fate, forever and ever: and that is the +gypsy's production over the future, and what she has producted will come +true. All the stars in the fermentation of heaven can't change it. But +if you ar'n't satisfied, I can set a planet for you, and try the cards, +which comes more expensive, for I never do that under ten shillings." + +There was a comparing of notes among the ladies and much laughter, when +it appeared that the priestess of the hidden spell, in her working, had +mixed up the oracles. Jacob had manifestly got Esau's blessing. It was +agreed that the _bonnes fortunes_ should be exchanged, that the shillings +might not be regarded as lost, and all this was explained to the +unmarried lady. She said nothing, but in due time was also _dukkered_ or +fortune-told. With the same mystery she was conducted to the secluded +corner of the hedge, and a very long, low-murmuring colloquy ensued. +What it was we never knew, but the lady had evidently been greatly +impressed and awed. All that she would tell was that she had heard +things that were "very remarkable, which she was sure no person living +could have known," and in fact that she believed in the gypsy, and even +the blunder as to the married lady and the widow, and all my assurances +that chiromancy as popularly practiced was all humbug, made no +impression. There was once "a disciple in Yabneh" who gave a hundred and +fifty reasons to prove that a reptile was no more unclean than any other +animal. But in those days people had not been converted to the law of +turtle soup and the gospel of Saint Terrapin, so the people said it was a +vain thing. And had I given a hundred and fifty reasons to this lady, +they would have all been vain to her, for she wished to believe; and when +our own wishes are served up unto us on nice brown pieces of the +well-buttered toast of flattery, it is not hard to induce us to devour +them. + +It is written that when Ashmedai, or Asmodeus, the chief of all the +devils of mischief, was being led a captive to Solomon, he did several +mysterious things while on the way, among others bursting into +extravagant laughter, when he saw a magician conjuring and predicting. +On being questioned by Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, why he had seemed so +much amused, Ashmedai answered that it was because the seer was at the +very time sitting on a princely treasure, and he did not, with all his +magic and promising fortune to others, know this. Yet, if this had been +told to all the world, the conjurer's business would not have suffered. +Not a bit of it. _Entre Jean_, _passe Jeannot_: one comes and goes, +another takes his place, and the poor will disappear from this world +before the too credulous shall have departed. + +It was on the afternoon of the following day that I, by chance, met the +gypsy with a female friend, each with a basket, by the roadside, in a +lonely, furzy place, beyond Walton. + +"You are a nice fortune-teller, aren't you now?" I said to her. "After +getting a tip, which made it all as clear as day, you walk straight into +the dark. And here you promise a lady two husbands, and she married +already; but you never promised me two wives, that I might make merry +withal. And then to tell a widow that she would never be married again! +You're a _bori chovihani_ [a great witch],--indeed, you aren't." + +"_Rye_," said the gypsy, with a droll smile and a shrug,--I think I can +see it now,--"the _dukkerin_ [prediction] was all right, but I pet the +right _dukkerins_ on the wrong ladies." + +And the Master said, "I write letters, but I am not the messenger." His +orders, like the gypsy's, had been all right, but they had gone to the +wrong shop. Thus, in all ages, those who affect superior wisdom and +foreknowledge absolute have found that a great practical part of the real +business consisted in the plausible explanation of failures. The great +Canadian weather prophet is said to keep two clerks busy, one in +recording his predictions, the other in explaining their failures; which +is much the case with the rain-doctors in Africa, who are as ingenious +and fortunate in explaining a miss as a hit, as, indeed, they need be, +since they must, in case of error, submit to be devoured alive by +ants,--insects which in Africa correspond in several respects to editors +and critics, particularly the stinging kind. "_Und ist man bei der +Prophezeiung angestellt_," as Heine says; "when a man has a situation in +a prophecy-office," a great part of his business is to explain to the +customers why it is that so many of them draw blanks, or why the trains +of fate are never on time. + + + +V. HAMPTON RACES. + + +On a summer day, when waking dreams softly wave before the fancy, it is +pleasant to walk in the noon-stillness along the Thames, for then we pass +a series of pictures forming a gallery which I would not exchange for +that of the Louvre, could I impress them as indelibly upon the eye-memory +as its works are fixed on canvas. There exists in all of us a spiritual +photographic apparatus, by means of which we might retain accurately all +we have ever seen, and bring out, at will, the pictures from the +pigeon-holes of the memory, or make new ones as vivid as aught we see in +dreams, but the faculty must be developed in childhood. So surely as I +am now writing this will become, at some future day, a branch of +education, to be developed into results of which the wildest imagination +can form no conception, and I put the prediction on record. As it is, I +am sorry that I was never trained to this half-thinking, half-painting +art, since, if I had been, I should have left for distant days to come +some charming views of Surrey as it appears in this decade. + +The reedy eyots and the rising hills; the level meadows and the little +villes, with their antique perpendicular Gothic churches, which form the +points around which they have clustered for centuries, even as groups of +boats in the river are tied around their mooring-posts; the bridges and +trim cottages or elegant mansions with their flower-bordered grounds +sweeping down to the water's edge, looking like rich carpets with new +baize over the centre, make the pictures of which I speak, varying with +every turn of the Thames; while the river itself is, at this season, like +a continual regatta, with many kinds of boats, propelled by stalwart +young Englishmen or healthy, handsome damsels, of every rank, the better +class by far predominating. There is a disposition among the English to +don quaint holiday attire, to put on the picturesque, and go to the very +limits which custom permits, which would astonish an American. Of late +years this is becoming the case, too, in Trans-Atlantis, but it has +always been usual in England, to mark the fete day with a festive dress, +to wear gay ribbons, and to indulge the very harmless instinct of youth +to be gallant and gay. + +I had started one morning on a walk by the Thames, when I met a friend, +who asked,-- + +"Aren't you going to-day to the Hampton races?" + +"How far is it?" + +"Just six miles. On Molesy Hurst." + +Six miles, and I had only six shillings in my pocket. I had some +curiosity to see this race, which is run on the Molesy Hurst, famous as +the great place for prize-fighting in the olden time, and which has never +been able to raise itself to respectability, inasmuch as the local +chronicler says that "the course attracts considerable and not very +reputable gatherings." In fact, it is generally spoken of as the +Costermonger's race, at which a mere welsher is a comparatively +respectable character, and every man in a good coat a swell. I was +nicely attired, by chance, for the occasion, for I had come out, thinking +of a ride, in a white hat, new corduroy pantaloons and waistcoat, and a +velveteen coat, which dress is so greatly admired by the gypsies that it +may almost be regarded as their "national costume." + +There was certainly, to say the least, a rather _bourgeois_ tone at the +race, and gentility was conspicuous by its absence; but I did not find it +so outrageously low as I had been led to expect. I confess that I was +not encouraged to attempt to increase my little hoard of silver by +betting, and the certainty that if I lost I could not lunch made me +timid. But the good are never alone in this world, and I found friends +whom I dreamed not of. Leaving the crowd, I sought the gypsy vans, and +by one of these was old Liz Buckland. + +"_Sarishan rye_! And glad I am to see you. Why didn't you come down +into Kent to see the hoppin'? Many a time the Romanys says they expected +to see their _rye_ there. Just the other night, your Coopers was a-lyin' +round their fire, every one of 'em in a new red blanket, lookin' so +beautiful as the light shone on 'em, and I says, 'If our _rye_ was to see +you, he'd just have that book of his out, and take all your pictures.'" + +After much gossip over absent friends, I said,-- + +"Well, _dye_, I stand a shilling for beer, and that's all I can do +to-day, for I've come out with only _shove trin-grushi_." + +Liz took the shilling, looked at it and at me with an earnest air, and +shook her head. + +"It'll never do, _rye_,--never. A gentleman wants more than six +shillin's to see a race through, and a reg'lar Romany rye like you ought +to slap down his _lovvo_ with the best of 'em for the credit of his +people. And if you want a _bar_ [a pound] or two, I'll lend you the +money, and never fear about your payment." + +It was kind of the old _dye_, but I thought that I would pull through on +my five shillings, before I would draw on the Romany bank. To be +considered with sincere sympathy, as an object of deserving charity, on +the lowest race-ground in England, and to be offered eleemosynary relief +by a gypsy, was, indeed, touching the hard pan of humiliation. I went my +way, idly strolling about, mingling affably with all orders, for my watch +was at home. _Vacuus viator cantabit_. As I stood by a fence, I heard a +gentlemanly-looking young man, who was evidently a superior pickpocket, +or "a regular fly gonoff," say to a friend,-- + +"She's on the ground,--a great woman among the gypsies. What do they +call her?" + +"Mrs. Lee." + +"Yes. A swell Romany she is." + +Whenever one hears an Englishman, not a scholar, speak of gypsies as +"Romany," he may be sure that man is rather more on the loose than +becomes a steady citizen, and that he walks in ways which, if not of +darkness, are at least in a shady _demi-jour_, with a gentle down grade. +I do not think there was anybody on the race-ground who was not familiar +with the older word. + +It began to rain, and before long my new velveteen coat was very wet. I +looked among the booths for one where I might dry myself and get +something to eat, and, entering the largest, was struck by the appearance +of the landlady. She was a young and decidedly pretty woman, nicely +dressed, and was unmistakably gypsy. I had never seen her before, but I +knew who she was by a description I had heard. So I went up to the bar +and spoke:-- + +"How are you, Agnes?" + +"Bloomin'. What will you have, sir?" + +"_Dui curro levinor_, _yeck for tute_, _yeck for mandy_." (Two glasses +for ale,--one for you, one for me.) + +She looked up with a quick glance and a wondering smile, and then said,-- + +"You must be the Romany rye of the Coopers. I'm glad to see you. Bless +me, how wet you are. Go to the fire and dry yourself. Here, Bill, I +say! Attend to this gentleman." + +There was a tremendous roaring fire at the farther end of the booth, at +which were pieces of meat, so enormous as to suggest a giant's roast or a +political barbecue rather than a kitchen. I glanced with some interest +at Bill, who came to aid me. In all my life I never saw a man who looked +so thoroughly the regular English bull-dog bruiser of the lowest type, +but battered and worn out. His nose, by oft-repeated pummeling, had +gradually subsided almost to a level with his other features, just as an +ancient British grave subsides, under the pelting storms of centuries, +into equality with the plain. His eyes looked out from under their +bristly eaves like sleepy wild-cats from a pig-pen, and his physique was +tremendous. He noticed my look of curiosity. + +"Old Bruisin' Bill, your honor. I was well knowed in the prize-ring +once. Been in the newspapers. Now, you mus'n't dry your coat that way! +New welweteen ought always to be wiped afore you dry it. I was a +gamekeeper myself for six years, an' wore it all that time nice and +proper, I did, and know how may be you've got a thrip'ny bit for old +Bill. Thanky." + +I will do Mrs. Agnes Wynn the credit to say that in her booth the best +and most abundant meal that I ever saw for the price in England was given +for eighteen pence. Fed and dried, I was talking with her, when there +came up a pretty boy of ten, so neat and well dressed and altogether so +nice that he might have passed current for a gentleman's son anywhere. + +"Well, Agnes. You're Wynn by name and winsome by nature, and all the +best you have has gone into that boy. They say you gypsies used to steal +children. I think it's time to turn the tables, and when I take the game +up I'll begin by stealing your _chavo_." + +Mrs. Wynn looked pleased. "He is a good boy, as good as he looks, and he +goes to school, and don't keep low company." + +Here two or three octoroon, duodecaroon, or vigintiroon Romany female +friends of the landlady came up to be introduced to me, and of course to +take something at my expense for the good of the house. This they did in +the manner specially favored by gypsies; that is to say, a quart of ale, +being ordered, was offered first to me, in honor of my social position, +and then passed about from hand to hand. This rite accomplished, I went +forth to view the race. The sun had begun to shine again, the damp flags +and streamers had dried themselves in its cheering rays, even as I had +renewed myself at Dame Wynn's fire, and I crossed the race-course. The +scene was lively, picturesque, and thoroughly English. There are certain +pleasures and pursuits which, however they may be perfected in other +countries, always seem to belong especially to England, and chief among +these is the turf. As a fresh start was made, as the spectators rushed +to the ropes, roaring with excitement, and the horses swept by amid +hurrahs, I could realize the sympathetic feeling which had been developed +in all present by ancient familiarity and many associations with such +scenes. Whatever the moral value of these may be, it is certain that +anything so racy with local color and so distinctly fixed in popular +affection as the _race_ will always appeal to the artist and the student +of national scenes. + +I found Old Liz lounging with Old Dick, her husband, on the other side. +There was a canvas screen, eight feet high, stretched as a background to +stop the sticks hurled by the players at "coker-nuts," while the nuts +themselves, each resting on a stick five feet high, looked like +disconsolate and starved spectres, waiting to be cruelly treated. In +company with the old couple was a commanding-looking, eagle-eyed Romany +woman, in whom I at once recognized the remarkable gypsy spoken of by the +pickpocket. + +"My name is Lee," she said, in answer to my greeting. "What is yours?" + +"Leland." + +"Yes, you have added land to the lee. You are luckier than I am. I'm a +Lee without land." + +As she spoke she looked like an ideal Meg Merrilies, and I wished I had +her picture. It was very strange that I made the wish at that instant, +for just then she was within an ace of having it taken, and therefore +arose and went away to avoid it. An itinerant photographer, seeing me +talking with the gypsies, was attempting, though I knew it not, to take +the group. But the keen eye of the Romany saw it all, and she went her +way, because she was of the real old kind, who believe it is unlucky to +have their portraits taken. I used to think that this aversion was of +the same kind as that which many good men evince in a marked manner when +requested by the police to sit for their photographs for the rogues' +gallery. But here I did the gypsies great injustice; for they will allow +their likenesses to be taken if you will give them a shoe-string. That +this old superstition relative to the binding and loosing of ill-luck by +the shoe-string should exist in this connection is of itself curious. In +the earliest times the shoe-latchet brought luck, just as the shoe itself +did, especially when filled with corn or rice, and thrown after the +bride. It is a great pity that the ignorant Gentiles, who are so careful +to do this at every wedding, do not know that it is all in vain unless +they cry aloud in Hebrew, "_Peru urphu_!" {159} with all their might when +the shoe is cast, and that the shoe should be filled with rice. + +She went away, and in a few minutes the photographer came in great glee +to show a picture which he had taken. + +"'Ere you are, sir. An elegant photograph, surroundin' sentimental +scenery and horiental coker-nuts thrown in,--all for a diminitive little +shillin'." + +"Now that time you missed it," I said; "for on my honor as a gentleman, I +have only ninepence in all my pockets." + +"A gent like you with only ninepence!" said the artist. + +"If he hasn't got money in his pocket now," said Old Liz, speaking up in +my defense, "he has plenty at home. He has given pounds and pounds to us +gypsies." + +"_Dovo's a huckaben_," I said to her in Romany. "_Mandy kekker delled +tute kumi'n a trin-grushi_." (That is untrue. I never gave you more +than a shilling.) + +"Anyhow," said Liz, "ninepence is enough for it." And the man, +assenting, gave it to me. It was a very good picture, and I have since +had several copies taken of it. + +"Yes, _rya_," said Old Liz, when I regretted the absence of my Lady Lee, +and talked with her about shoe-strings and old shoes, and how necessary +it was to cry out "_Peru urphu_!" when you throw them,--"yes. That's the +way the Gorgis always half does things. You see 'em get a horse-shoe off +the roads, and what do they do with it! Goes like _dinneli_ idiots and +nails it up with the p'ints down, which, as is well beknown, brings all +the bad luck there is flyin' in the air into the house, and _taders +chovihanees_ [draws witches] like anise-seed does rats. Now common sense +ought to teach that the shoe ought to be put like horns, with the p'ints +up. For if it's lucky to put real horns up, of course the horse-shoe +goes the same _drom_ [road]. And it's lucky to pick up a red string in +the morning,--yes, or at any time; but it's sure love from a girl if you +do,--specially silk. And if so be she gives you a red string or cord, or +a strip of red stuff, _that_ means she'll be bound to you and loves you." + + + +VI. STREET SKETCHES. + + +London, during hot weather, after the close of the wise season, suggests +to the upper ten thousand, and to the lower twenty thousand who reflect +their ways, and to the lowest millions who minister to them all, a scene +of doleful dullness. I call the time which has passed wise, because that +which succeeds is universally known as the silly season. Then the +editors in town have recourse to the American newspapers for amusing +murders, while their rural brethren invent great gooseberries. Then the +sea-serpent again lifts his awful head. I am always glad when this +sterling inheritance of the Northern races reappears; for while we have +_him_ I know that the capacity for swallowing a big bouncer, or for +inventing one, is not lost. He is characteristic of a fine, bold race. +Long may he wave! It is true that we cannot lie as gloriously as our +ancestors did about him. When the great news-dealer of Norse times had +no home-news he took his lyre, and either spun a yarn about Vinland such +as would smash the "Telegraph," or else sung about "that sea-snake +tremendous curled, whose girth encircles half the world." It is +wonderful, it is awful, to consider how true we remain to the traditions +of the older time. The French boast that they invented the _canard_. +Let them boast. They also invented the shirt-collar; but hoary legends +say that an Englishman invented the shirt for it, as well as the art of +washing it. What the shirt is to the collar, that is the glorious, tough +old Northern _saga_, or maritime spun yarn, to the _canard_, or duck. +The yarn will wash; it passes into myth and history; it fits exactly, +because it was made to order; its age and glory illustrate the survival +of the fittest. + +I have, during three or four summers, remained a month in London after +the family had taken flight to the sea-side. I stayed to finish books +promised for the autumn. It is true that nearly four million of people +remain in London during the later summer; but it is wonderful what an +influence the absence of a few exerts on them and on the town. Then you +realize by the long lines of idle vehicles in the ranks how few people in +this world can afford a cab; then you find out how scanty is the number +of those who buy goods at the really excellent shops; and then you may +finally find out by satisfactory experience, if you are inclined to +grumble at your lot in life or your fortune, how much better off you are +than ninety-nine in a hundred of your fellow-murmurers at fate. + +It was my wont to walk out in the cool of the evening, to smoke my cigar +in Regent's Park, seated on a bench, watching the children as they played +about the clock-and-bull fountain,--for it embraces these objects among +its adornments,--presented by Cowasie Jehanguire, who added to these +magnificent Persian names the prosaic English postscript of Ready Money. +In this his name sets forth the history of his Parsee people, who, from +being heroic Ghebers, have come down to being bankers, who can "do" any +Jew, and who might possibly tackle a Yankee so long as they kept out of +New Jersey. One evening I walked outside of the Park, passing by the +Gloucester Bridge to a little walk or boulevard, where there are a few +benches. I was in deep moon-shadow, formed by the trees; only the ends +of my boots shone like eyes in the moonlight as I put them out. After a +while I saw a nice-looking young girl, of the humble-decent class, seated +by me, and with her I entered into casual conversation. On the bench +behind us were two young Italians, conversing in strongly marked +Florentine dialect. They evidently thought that no one could understand +them; as they became more interested they spoke more distinctly, letting +out secrets which I by no means wished to hear. + +At that instant I recalled the famous story of Prince Bismarck and the +Esthonian young ladies and the watch-key. I whispered to the girl,-- + +"When I say something to you in a language which you do not understand, +answer '_Si_' as distinctly as you can." + +The damsel was quick to understand. An instant after I said,-- + +"_Ha veduto il mio 'havallo la sera_?" + +"_Si_." + +There was a dead silence, and then a rise and a rush. My young friend +rolled her eyes up at me, but said nothing. The Italians had departed +with their awful mysteries. Then there came by a man who looked much +worse. He was a truculent, untamable rough, evidently inspired with gin. +At a glance I saw by the manner in which he carried his coat that he was +a traveler, or one who lived on the roads. Seeing me he stopped, and +said, grimly,--"Do you love your Jesus?" This is certainly a pious +question; but it was uttered in a tone which intimated that if I did not +answer it affirmatively I might expect anything but Christian treatment. +I knew why the man uttered it. He had just come by an open-air preaching +in the Park, and the phrase had, moreover, been recently chalked and +stenciled by numerous zealous and busy nonconformists all over +northwestern London. I smiled, and said, quietly,-- + +"_Pal_, _mor rakker sa drovan_. _Ja pukenus on the drum_." (Don't talk +so loud, brother. Go away quietly.) + +The man's whole manner changed. As if quite sober, he said,-- + +"_Mang your shunaben_, _rye_. _But tute jins chomany_. _Kushti ratti_!" +(Beg your pardon, sir. But you _do_ know a thing or two. Good-night!) + +"I was awfully frightened," said the young girl, as the traveler +departed. "I'm sure he meant to pitch into us. But what a wonderful way +you have, sir, of sending people away! I wasn't so much astonished when +you got rid of the Italians. I suppose ladies and gentlemen know +Italian, or else they wouldn't go to the opera. But this man was a +common, bad English tramp; yet I'm sure he spoke to you in some kind of +strange language, and you said something to him that changed him into as +peaceable as could be. What was it?" + +"It was gypsy, young lady,--what the gypsies talk among themselves." + +"Do you know, sir, I think you're the most mysterious gentleman I ever +met." + +"Very likely. Good-night." + +"Good night, sir." + +I was walking with my friend the Palmer, one afternoon in June, in one of +the several squares which lie to the west of the British Museum. As we +went I saw a singular-looking, slightly-built man, lounging at a corner. +He was wretchedly clad, and appeared to be selling some rudely-made, but +curious contrivances of notched sticks, intended to contain flowerpots. +He also had flower-holders made of twisted copper wire. But the greatest +curiosity was the man himself. He had such a wild, wasted, wistful +expression, a face marked with a life of almost unconscious misery. And +most palpable in it was the unrest, which spoke of an endless struggle +with life, and had ended by goading him into incessant wandering. I +cannot imagine what people can be made of who can look at such men +without emotion. + +"That is a gypsy," I said to the Palmer. "_Sarishan_, _pal_!" + +The wanderer seemed to be greatly pleased to hear Romany. He declared +that he was in the habit of talking it so much to himself when alone that +his ordinary name was Romany Dick. + +"But if you come down to the Potteries, and want to find me, you mus'n't +ask for Romany Dick, but Divius Dick." "That means Wild Dick." "Yes." +"And why?" "Because I wander about so, and can never stay more than a +night in any one place. I can't help it. I must keep going." He said +this with that wistful, sad expression, a yearning as for something which +he had never comprehended. Was it _rest_? + +"And so I _rakker_ Romany [talk gypsy to myself], when I'm alone of a +night, when the wind blows. It's better company than talkin' Gorginess. +More sociable. _He_ says--no--_I_ say more sensible things Romaneskas +than in English. You understand me?" he exclaimed suddenly, with the +same wistful stare. + +"Perfectly. It's quite reasonable. It must be like having two heads +instead of one, and being twice as knowing as anybody else." + +"Yes, that's it. But everybody don't know it." + +"What do you ask for one of those flower-stands, Dick?" + +"A shillin', sir." + +"Well, here is my name and where I live, on an envelope. And here are +two shillings. But if you _chore mandy_ [cheat me] and don't leave it at +the house, I'll look you up in the Potteries, and _koor tute_ [whip +you]." + +He looked at me very seriously. "Ah, yes. You could _koor me kenna_ +[whip me now]. But you couldn't have _koored_ my _dadas_ [whipped my +father]. Leastways not afore he got his leg broken fightin' Lancaster +Sam. You must have heard of my father,--Single-stick Dick. But if +your're comin' down to the Potteries, don't come next Sunday. Come +Sunday three weeks. My brother is _stardo kenna_ for _chorin_ a _gry_ +[in prison for horse-stealing]. In three weeks he'll be let out, and +we're goin' to have a great family party to welcome him, and we'll be +glad to see you. Do come." + +The flower-stand was faithfully delivered, but another engagement +prevented an acceptance of the invitation, and I have never seen Dick +since. + + * * * * * + +I was walking along Marylebone Road, which always seems to be a worn and +wind-beaten street, very pretty once, and now repenting it; when just +beyond Baker Street station I saw a gypsy van hung all round with baskets +and wooden-ware. Smoke issued from its pipe, and it went along smoking +like any careless pedestrian. It always seems strange to think of a +family being thus conveyed with its dinner cooking, the children playing +about the stove, over rural roads, past common and gorse and hedge, in +and out of villages, and through Great Babylon itself, as if the family +had a _pied a terre_, and were as secluded all the time as though they +lived in Little Pedlington or Tinnecum. For they have just the same +narrow range of gossip, and just the same set of friends, though the set +are always on the move. Traveling does not make a cosmopolite. + +By the van strolled the lord and master, with his wife. I accosted him. + +"_Sarishan_?" + +"_Sarishan rye_!" + +"Did you ever see me before? Do you know me?" + +"No, sir." + +"I'm sorry for that. I have a nice velveteen coat which I have been +keeping for your father. How's your brother Frank? Traveling about +Kingston, I suppose. As usual. But I don't care about trusting the coat +to anybody who don't know me." + +"I'll take it to him, safe enough, sir." + +"Yes, I dare say. On your back. And wear it yourself six months before +you see him." + +Up spoke his wife: "That he shan't. I'll take good care that the _pooro +mush_ [the old man] gets it all right, in a week." + +"Well, _dye_, I can trust you. You remember me. And, Anselo, here is my +address. Come to the house in half an hour." + +In half an hour the housekeeper, said with a quiet smile,-- + +"If you please, sir, there's a gentleman--a _gypsy_ gentleman--wishes to +see you." + +It is an English theory that the master can have no "visitors" who are +not gentlemen. I must admit that Anselo's dress was not what could be +called gentlemanly. From his hat to his stout shoes he looked the +impenitent gypsy and sinful poacher, unaffected and natural. There was a +cutaway, sporting look about his coat which indicated that he had grown +to it from boyhood "in woodis grene." He held a heavy-handled whip, a +regular Romany _tchupni_ or _chuckni_, which Mr. Borrow thinks gave rise +to the word "jockey." I thought the same once, but have changed my mind, +for there were "jockeys" in England before gypsies. Altogether, Anselo +(which comes from Wenceslas) was a determined and vigorous specimen of an +old-fashioned English gypsy, a type which, with all its faults, is not +wanting in sundry manly virtues. + +I knew that Anselo rarely entered any houses save ale-houses, and that he +had probably never before been in a study full of books, arms, and +bric-a-brac. And he knew that I was aware of it. Now, if he had been +more of a fool, like a red Indian or an old-fashioned fop, he would have +affected a stoical indifference, for fear of showing his ignorance. As +it was, he sat down in an arm-chair, glanced about him, and said just the +right thing. + +"It must be a pleasant thing, at the end of the day, after one has been +running about, to come home to such a room as this, so full of fine +things, and sit down in such a comfortable chair." "Will I have a glass +of old ale? Yes, I thank you." "That is _kushto levinor_ [good ale]. I +never tasted better." "Would I rather have wine or spirits? No, I thank +you; such ale as this is fit for a king." + +Here Anselo's keen eye suddenly rested on something which he understood. + +"What a beautiful little rifle! That's what I call a _rinkno yag-engree_ +[pretty gun]." + +"Has it been a _wafedo wen_ [hard winter], Anselo?" + +"It has been a dreadful winter, sir. We have been hard put to it +sometimes for food. It's dreadful to think of. I've acti'lly seen the +time when I was almost desperated, and if I'd had such a gun as that I'm +afraid, if I'd been tempted, I could a-found it in my heart to knock over +a pheasant." + +I looked sympathetically at Anselo. The idea of his having been brought +to the very brink of such a terrible temptation and awful crime was +touching. He met the glance with the expression of a good man, who had +done no more than his duty, closed his eyes, and softly shook his head. +Then he took another glass of ale, as if the memory of the pheasants or +something connected with the subject had been too much for him, and +spoke:-- + +"I came here on my horse. But he's an ugly old white punch. So as not +to discredit you, I left him standing before a gentleman's house, two +doors off." + +Here Anselo paused. I acknowledged this touching act of thoughtful +delicacy by raising my glass. He drank again, then resumed:-- + +"But I feel uneasy about leaving a horse by himself in the streets of +London. He'll stand like a driven nail wherever you put him--but there's +always plenty of claw-hammers to draw such nails." + +"Don't be afraid, Anselo. The park-keeper will not let anybody take him +through the gates. I'll pay for him if he goes." + +But visions of a stolen horse seemed to haunt Anselo. One would have +thought that something of the kind had been familiar to him. So I sent +for the velveteen coat, and, folding it on his arm, he mounted the old +white horse, while waving an adieu with the heavy-handled whip, rode away +in the mist, and was seen no more. + +Farewell, farewell, thou old brown velveteen! I had thee first in +by-gone years, afar, hunting ferocious fox and horrid hare, near +Brighton, on the Downs, and wore thee well on many a sketching tour to +churches old and castles dark or gray, when winter went with all his +raines wete. Farewell, my coat, and benedicite! I bore thee over France +unto Marseilles, and on the steamer where we took aboard two hundred +Paynim pilgrims of Mahound. Farewell, my coat, and benedicite! Thou +wert in Naples by great Virgil's tomb, and borest dust from Posilippo's +grot, and hast been wetted by the dainty spray from bays and shoals of +old Etrurian name. Farewell, my coat, and benedicite! And thou wert in +the old Egyptian realm: I had thee on that morning 'neath the palms when +long I lingered where of yore had stood the rose-red city, half as old as +time. Farewell, my coat, and benedicite! It was a lady called thee into +life. She said, Methinks ye need a velvet coat. It is a seemly guise to +ride to hounds. Another gave me whip and silvered spurs. Now all have +vanished in the darkening past. Ladies and all are gone into the gloom. +Farewell, my coat, and benedicite. Thou'st had a venturous and traveled +life, for thou wert once in Moscow in the snow. A true Bohemian thou +hast ever been, and as a right Bohemian thou wilt die, the garment of a +roving Romany. Fain would I see and hear what thou'rt to know of +reckless riding and the gypsy _tan_, of camps in dark green lanes, afar +from towns. Farewell, mine coat, and benedicite! + + + +VII. OF CERTAIN GENTLEMEN AND GYPSIES. + + +One morning I was walking with Mr. Thomas Carlyle and Mr. Froude. We +went across Hyde Park, and paused to rest on the bridge. This is a +remarkable place, since there, in the very heart of London, one sees a +view which is perfectly rural. The old oaks rise above each other like +green waves, the houses in the distance are country-like, while over the +trees, and far away, a village-looking spire completes the picture. I +think that it was Mr. Froude who called my attention to the beauty of the +view, and I remarked that it needed only a gypsy tent and the curling +smoke to make it in all respects perfectly English. + +"You have paid some attention to gypsies," said Mr. Carlyle. "They're +not altogether so bad a people as many think. In Scotland, we used to +see many of them. I'll not say that they were not rovers and reivers, +but they could be honest at times. The country folk feared them, but +those who made friends wi' them had no cause to complain of their +conduct. Once there was a man who was persuaded to lend a gypsy a large +sum of money. My father knew the man. It was to be repaid at a certain +time. The day came; the gypsy did not. And months passed, and still the +creditor had nothing of money but the memory of it; and ye remember +'_nessun maggior dolore_,'--that there's na greater grief than to +remember the siller ye once had. Weel, one day the man was surprised to +hear that his frien' the gypsy wanted to see him--interview, ye call it +in America. And the gypsy explained that, having been arrested, and +unfortunately detained, by some little accident, in preeson, he had na +been able to keep his engagement. 'If ye'll just gang wi' me,' said the +gypsy, 'aw'll mak' it all right.' 'Mon, aw wull,' said the +creditor,--they were Scotch, ye know, and spoke in deealect. So the +gypsy led the way to the house which he had inhabited, a cottage which +belonged to the man himself to whom he owed the money. And there he +lifted up the hearthstone; the hard-stane they call it in Scotland, and +it is called so in the prophecy of Thomas of Ercildowne. And under the +hard-stane there was an iron pot. It was full of gold, and out of that +gold the gypsy carle paid his creditor. Ye wonder how 't was come by? +Well, ye'll have heard it's best to let sleeping dogs lie." + +"Yes. And what was said of the Poles who had, during the Middle Ages, a +reputation almost as good as that of gypsies? _Ad secretas Poli_, _curas +extendere noli_." (Never concern your soul as to the secrets of a Pole.) + +Mr. Carlyle's story reminds me that Walter Simpson, in his history of +them, says that the Scottish gypsies have ever been distinguished for +their gratitude to those who treated them with civility and kindness, +anent which he tells a capital story, while other instances sparkle here +and there with many brilliant touches in his five hundred-and-fifty-page +volume. + +I have more than once met with Romanys, when I was in the company of men +who, like Carlyle and Bilderdijk, "were also in the world of letters +known," or who might say, "We have deserved to be." One of the many +memories of golden days, all in the merrie tyme of summer song in +England, is of the Thames, and of a pleasure party in a little +steam-launch. It was a weenie affair,--just room for six forward outside +the cubby, which was called the cabin; and of these six, one was Mr. +Roebuck,--"the last Englishman," as some one has called him, but as the +late Lord Lytton applies the same term to one of his characters about the +time of the Conquest, its accuracy may be doubted. Say the last type of +a certain phase of the Englishman; say that Roebuck was the last of the +old iron and oak men, the _triplex aes et robur_ chiefs of the Cobbet +kind, and the phrase may pass. But it will only pass over into a new +variety of true manhood. However frequently the last Englishman may die, +I hope it will be ever said of him, _Le roi est mort_,--_vive le roi_! I +have had talks with Lord Lytton on gypsies. He, too, was once a Romany +rye in a small way, and in the gay May heyday of his young manhood once +went off with a band of Romanys, and passed weeks in their tents,--no bad +thing, either, for anybody. I was more than once tempted to tell him the +strange fact that, though he had been among the black people and thought +he had learned their language, what they had imposed upon him for that +was not Romany, but cant, or English thieves' slang. For what is given, +in good faith, as the gypsy tongue in "Paul Clifford" and the "Disowned," +is only the same old mumping _kennick_ which was palmed off on Bampfylde +Moore Carew; or which he palmed on his readers, as the secret of the +Roms. But what is the use or humanity of disillusioning an author by +correcting an error forty years old. If one could have corrected it in +the proof, _a la bonne heure_! Besides, it was of no particular +consequence to anybody whether the characters in "Paul Clifford" called a +clergyman a _patter-cove_ or a _rashai_. It is a supreme moment of +triumph for a man when he discovers that his specialty--whatever it +be--is not of such value as to be worth troubling anybody with it. As +for Everybody, _he_ is fair game. + +The boat went up the Thames, and I remember that the river was, that +morning, unusually beautiful. It is graceful, as in an outline, even +when leaden with November mists, or iron-gray in the drizzle of December, +but under the golden sunlight of June it is lovely. It becomes every +year, with gay boating parties in semi-fancy dresses, more of a carnival, +in which the carnivalers and their carnivalentines assume a more decided +character. It is very strange to see this tendency of the age to unfold +itself in new festival forms, when those who believe that there can never +be any poetry or picturing in life but in the past are wailing over the +vanishing of May-poles and old English sports. There may be, from time +to time, a pause between the acts; the curtain may be down a little +longer than usual; but in the long run the world-old play of the Peoples' +Holiday will go on, as it has been going ever since Satan suggested that +little apple-stealing excursion to Eve, which, as explained by the +Talmudists, was manifestly the direct cause of all the flirtations and +other dreadful doings in all little outings down to the present day, in +the drawing-room or "on the leads," world without end. + +And as the boat went along by Weybridge we passed a bank by which was a +small gypsy camp; tents and wagons, donkeys and all, reflected in the +silent stream, as much as were the swans in the fore-water. And in the +camp was a tall, handsome, wild beauty, named Britannia, who knew me +well; a damsel fond of larking, with as much genuine devil's gunpowder in +her as would have made an entire pack or a Chinese hundred of sixty-four +of the small crackers known as fast girls, in or around society. She was +a splendid creature, long and lithe and lissom, but well rounded, of a +figure suggestive of leaping hedges; and as the sun shone on her white +teeth and burning black eyes, there was a hint of biting, too, about her. +She lay coiled and basking, in feline fashion, in the sun; but at sight +of me on the boat, up she bounded, and ran along the bank, easily keeping +up with the steamer, and crying out to me in Romanes. + +Now it just so happened that I by no means felt certain that _all_ of the +company present were such genial Bohemians as to appreciate anything like +the joyous intimacy which Britannia was manifesting, as she, +Atalanta-like, coursed along. Consequently, I was not delighted with her +attentions. + +"What a fine girl!" said Mr. Roebuck. "How well she would look on the +stage! She seems to know you." + +"Certainly," said one of the ladies, "or she would not be speaking her +language. Why don't you answer her? Let us hear a conversation." + +Thus adjured, I answered,-- + +"_Miri pen_, _miri kushti pen_, _beng lel tute_, _ma rakker sa drovan_! +_Or ma rakker Romaneskas_. _Man dikesa te rania shan akai_. _Miri +kameli_--_man kair __mandy ladge_!" (My sister, my nice, sweet +sister!--devil take you! don't hallo at me like that! Or else don't talk +Romany. Don't you see there are ladies here? My dear, don't put me to +shame!) + +"_Pen the rani ta wusser mandy a trin-grushi_--_who_--_op_, _hallo_!" +(Tell the lady to shy me a shilling--whoop!) cried the fast damsel. + +"_Pa miri duvels kam_, _pen_--_o bero se ta duro_. _Mandy'll de tute a +pash-korauna keratti if tu tevel ja_. _Gorgie shan i foki kavakoi_!" +(For the Lord's sake, sister!--the boat is too far from shore. I'll give +you half a crown this evening if you'll clear out. These be Gentiles, +these here.) + +"It seems to be a melodious language," said Mr. Roebuck, greatly amused. +"What are you saying?" + +"I am telling her to hold her tongue, and go." + +"But how on earth does it happen that you speak such a language?" +inquired a lady. "I always thought that the gypsies only talked a kind +of English slang, and this sounds like a foreign tongue." + +All this time Britannia, like the Cork Leg, never tired, but kept on the +chase, neck and neck, till we reached a lock, when, with a merry laugh +like a child, she turned on her track and left us. + +"Mr. L.'s proficiency in Romany," said Mr. Roebuck, "is well known to me. +I have heard him spoken of as the successor to George Borrow." + +"That," I replied, "I do not deserve. There are other gentlemen in +England who are by far my superiors in knowledge of the people." + +And I spoke very sincerely. Apropos of Mr. George Borrow, I knew him, +and a grand old fellow he was,--a fresh and hearty giant, holding his six +feet two or three inches as uprightly at eighty as he ever had at +eighteen. I believe that was his age, but may be wrong. Borrow was like +one of the old Norse heroes, whom he so much admired, or an old-fashioned +gypsy bruiser, full of craft and merry tricks. One of these he played on +me, and I bear him no malice for it. The manner of the joke was this: I +had written a book on the English gypsies and their language; but before +I announced it, I wrote a letter to Father George, telling him that I +proposed to print it, and asking his permission to dedicate it to him. +He did not answer the letter, but "worked the tip" promptly enough, for +he immediately announced in the newspapers on the following Monday his +"Word-Book of the Romany Language," "with many pieces in gypsy, +illustrative of the way of speaking and thinking of the English gypsies, +with specimens of their poetry, and an account of various things relating +to gypsy life in England." This was exactly what I had told him that my +book would contain; for I intended originally to publish a vocabulary. +Father George covered the track by not answering my letter; but I +subsequently ascertained that it had been faithfully delivered to him by +a gentleman from whom I obtained the information. + +It was like the contest between Hildebrand the elder and his son:-- + + "A ready trick tried Hildebrand, + That old, gray-bearded man; + For when the younger raised to strike, + Beneath his sword he ran." + +And, like the son, I had no ill feeling about it. My obligations to him +for "Lavengro" and the "Romany Rye" and his other works are such as I owe +to few men. I have enjoyed gypsying more than any sport in the world, +and I owe my love of it all to George Borrow. I have since heard that a +part of Mr. Borrow's "Romano Lavo-Lil" had been in manuscript for thirty +years, and that it might never have been published but for my own work. +I hope that this is true; for I am sincerely proud to think that I may +have been in any way, directly or indirectly, the cause of his giving it +to the world. I would gladly enough have burnt my own book, as I said, +with a hearty laugh, when I saw the announcement of the "Lavo-Lil," if it +would have pleased the old Romany rye, and I never spoke a truer word. +He would not have believed it; but it would have been true, all the same. + +I well remember the first time I met George Borrow. It was in the +British Museum, and I was introduced to him by Mrs. Estelle Lewis,--now +dead,--the well known-friend of Edgar A. Poe. He was seated at a table, +and had a large old German folio open before him. We talked about +gypsies, and I told him that I had unquestionably found the word for +"green," _shelno_, in use among the English Romany. He assented, and +said that he knew it. I mention this as a proof of the manner in which +the "Romano Lavo-Lil" must have been hurried, because he declares in it +that there is no English gypsy word for "green." In this work he asserts +that the English gypsy speech does not probably amount to fourteen +hundred words. It is a weakness with the Romany rye fraternity to +believe that there are no words in gypsy which they to not know. I am +sure that my own collection contains nearly four thousand Anglo-Romany +terms, many of which I feared were doubtful, but which I am constantly +verifying. America is a far better place in which to study the language +than England. As an old Scotch gypsy said to me lately, the deepest and +cleverest old gypsies all come over here to America, where they have +grown rich, and built the old language up again. + +I knew a gentleman in London who was a man of extraordinary energy. +Having been utterly ruined, at seventy years of age, by a relative, he +left England, was absent two or three years in a foreign country, during +which time he made in business some fifty thousand pounds, and, +returning, settled down in England. He had been in youth for a long time +the most intimate friend of George Borrow, who was, he said, a very wild +and eccentric youth. One night, when skylarking about London, Borrow was +pursued by the police, as he wished to be, even as Panurge so planned as +to be chased by the night-watch. He was very tall and strong in those +days, a trained shoulder-hitter, and could run like a deer. He was +hunted to the Thames, "and there they thought they had him." But the +Romany rye made for the edge, and, leaping into the wan water, like the +Squyre in the old ballad, swam to the other side, and escaped. + +I have conversed with Mr. Borrow on many subjects,--horses, gypsies, and +Old Irish. Anent which latter subject I have heard him declare that he +doubted whether there was any man living who could really read an old +Irish manuscript. I have seen the same statement made by another writer. +My personal impressions of Mr. Borrow were very agreeable, and I was +pleased to learn afterwards from Mrs. Lewis that he had expressed himself +warmly as regarded myself. As he was not invariably disposed to like +those whom be met, it is a source of great pleasure to me to reflect that +I have nothing but pleasant memories of the good old Romany rye, the +Nestor of gypsy gentlemen. It is commonly reported among gypsies that +Mr. Borrow was one by blood, and that his real name was Boro, or great. +This is not true. He was of pure English extraction. + +When I first met "George Eliot" and G. H. Lewes, at their house in North +Bank, the lady turned the conversation almost at once to gypsies. They +spoke of having visited the Zincali in Spain, and of several very curious +meetings with the _Chabos_. Mr. Lewes, in fact, seldom met me--and we +met very often about town, and at many places, especially at the +Trubners'--without conversing on the Romanys. The subject evidently had +for him a special fascination. I believe that I have elsewhere mentioned +that after I returned from Russia, and had given him, by particular +request, an account of my visits to the gypsies of St. Petersburg and +Moscow, he was much struck by the fact that I had chiromanced to the +Romany clan of the latter city. To tell the fortunes of gypsy girls was, +he thought, the refinement of presumption. "There was in this world +nothing so impudent as a gypsy when determined to tell a fortune; and the +idea of not one, but many gypsy girls believing earnestly in my palmistry +was like a righteous retribution." + +The late Tom Taylor had, while a student at Cambridge, been _aficionado_, +or smitten, with gypsies, and made a manuscript vocabulary of Romany +words, which he allowed me to use, and from which I obtained several +which were new to me. This fact should make all smart gypsy scholars +"take tent" and heed as to believing that they know everything. I have +many Anglo-Romany words--purely Hindi as to origin--which I have verified +again and again, yet which have never appeared in print. Thus far the +Romany vocabulary field has been merely scratched over. + +Who that knows London knoweth not Sir Patrick Colquhoun? I made his +acquaintance in 1848, when, coming over from student-life in Paris and +the Revolution, I was most kindly treated by his family. A glorious, +tough, widely experienced man he was even in early youth. For then he +already bore the enviable reputation of being the first amateur sculler +on the Thames, the first gentleman light-weight boxer in England, a +graduate with honors of Cambridge, a Doctor Ph. of Heidelberg, a +diplomat, and a linguist who knew Arabic, Persian, and Gaelic, Modern +Greek and the Omnium Botherum tongues. They don't make such men +nowadays, or, if they do, they leave out the genial element. + +Years had passed, and I had returned to London in 1870, and found Sir +Patrick living, as of yore, in the Temple, where I once and yet again and +again dined with him. It was in the early days of this new spring of +English life that we found ourselves by chance at a boat-race on the +Thames. It was on the Thames, by his invitation, that I had twenty years +before first seen an English regatta, and had a place in the gayly +decked, superbly luncheoned barge of his club. It is a curious point in +English character that the cleverest people do not realize or understand +how festive and genial they really are, or how gayly and picturesquely +they conduct their sports. It is a generally accepted doctrine with them +that they do this kind of thing better in France; they believe sincerely +that they take their own amusements sadly; it is the tone, the style, +with the wearily-witty, dreary clowns of the weekly press, in their +watery imitations of Thackeray's worst, to ridicule all English festivity +and merry-making, as though sunshine had faded out of life, and God and +Nature were dead, and in their place a great wind-bag Jesuit-Mallock were +crying, in tones tainted with sulphuretted hydrogen, "_Ah bah_!" Reader +mine, I have seen many a fete in my time, all the way from illuminations +of Paris to the Khedive's fifteen-million-dollar spree in 1873 and the +last grand flash of the Roman-candle carnival of 1846, but for true, +hearty enjoyment and quiet beauty give me a merry party on the Thames. +Give me, I say, its sparkling waters, its green banks, the joyous, +beautiful girls, the hearty, handsome men. Give me the boats, darting +like fishes, the gay cries. And oh--oh!--give me the Alsopp's ale in a +quart mug, and not a remark save of approbation when I empty it. + +I had met Sir Patrick in the crowd, and our conversation turned on +gypsies. When living before-time in Roumania, he had Romany servants, +and learned a little of their language. Yes, he was inclined to be +"affected" into the race, and thereupon we went gypsying. Truly, we had +not far to seek, for just outside the crowd a large and flourishing +community of the black-blood had set itself up in the _pivlioi_ +(cocoa-nut) or _kashta_ (stick) business, and as it was late in the +afternoon, and the entire business-world was about as drunk as mere beer +could make it, the scene was not unlively. At that time I was new to +England, and unknown to every gypsy on the ground. In after-days I +learned to know them well, very well, for they were chiefly Coopers and +their congeners, who came to speak of me as _their_ rye and own special +property or proprietor,--an allegiance which involved on one side an +amount of shillings and beer which concentrated might have set up a +charity, but which was duly reciprocated on the other by jocular tenures +of cocoa-nuts, baskets, and choice and deep words in the language of +Egypt. + +As we approached the cock-shy, where sticks were cast at cocoa-nuts, a +young gypsy _chai_, whom I learned to know in after-days as Athalia +Cooper, asked me to buy some sticks. A penny a throw, all the cocoa-nuts +I could hit to be my own. I declined; she became urgent, jolly, riotous, +insistive. I endured it well, for I held the winning cards. _Qui minus +propere_, _minus prospere_. And then, as her voice rose _crescendo_ into +a bawl, so that all the Romanys around laughed aloud to see the green +Gorgio so chaffed and bothered, I bent me low, and whispered softly in +her ear a single monosyllable. + +Why are all those sticks dropped so suddenly? Why does Athalia in a +second become sober, and stand up staring at me, all her chaff and +urgency forgotten. Quite polite and earnest now. But there is joy +behind in her heart. This _is_ a game, a jolly game, and no mistake. +And uplifting her voice again, as the voice of one who findeth an +exceeding great treasure even in the wilderness, she cried aloud,--"_It's +a Romany rye_!" + +The spiciest and saltest and rosiest of Sir Patrick's own stories, told +after dinner over his own old port to a special conventicle of clergymen +about town, was never received with such a roar of delight as that cry of +Athalia's was by the Romany clan. Up went three sheers at the find; +further afield went the shout proclaiming the discovery of an +aristocratic stranger of their race, a _rye_, who was to them as +wheat,--a gypsy gentleman. Neglecting business, they threw down their +sticks, and left their cocoanuts to grin in solitude; the _dyes_ turned +aside from fortune-telling to see what strange fortune had sent such a +visitor. In ten minutes Sir Patrick and I were surrounded by such a +circle of sudden admirers and vehement applauders, as it seldom happens +to any mortal to acquire--out of Ireland--at such exceedingly short +notice and on such easy terms. + +They were not particular as to what sort of a gypsy I was, or where I +came from, or any nonsense of that sort, you know. It was about +_cerevisia vincit omnia_, or the beery time of day with them, and they +cared not for anything. I was extremely welcome; in short, there was +poetry in me. I had come down on them by a way that was dark and a trick +that was vain, in the path of mystery, and dropped on Athalia and picked +her up. It was gypsily done and very creditable to me, and even Sir +Patrick was regarded as one to be honored as an accomplice. It is a +charming novelty in every life to have the better class of one's own kind +come into it, and nobody feels so keenly as a jolly Romany that _jucundum +nihil est nisi quod ref icit varietas_--naught pleases us without +variety. + +Then and there I drew to me the first threads of what became in +after-days a strange and varied skein of humanity. There was the Thames +upon a holiday. Now I look back to it, I ask, _Ubi sunt_? (Where are +they all?) Joshua Cooper, as good and earnest a Rom as ever lived, in +his grave, with more than one of those who made my acquaintance by +hurrahing for me. Some in America, some wandering wide. Yet there by +Weybridge still the Thames runs on. + +By that sweet river I made many a song. One of these, to the tune of +"Waves in Sunlight Dancing," rises and falls in memory like a fitful +fairy coming and going in green shadows, and that it may not perish +utterly I here give it a place:-- + + AVELLA PARL O PANI. + + Av' kushto parl o pani, + Av' kushto mir' akai! + Mi kameli chovihani, + Avel ke tiro rye! + + Shan raklia rinkenidiri, + Mukkellan rinkeni se; + Kek rakli 'dre i temia + Se rinkenidiri mi. + + Shan dudnidiri yakka, + Mukkelan dudeni; + Kek yakk peshel' sa kushti + Pa miro kameli zi. + + Shan balia longi diri, + Mukk 'lende bori 'pre, + Kek waveri raklia balia, + Te lian man opre. + + Yoi lela angustrini, + I miri tacheni, + Kek wavei mush jinella, + Sa dovo covva se. + + Adre, adre o doeyav + Patrinia pellelan, + Kenna yek chumer kerdo + O wavero well' an. + + Te wenna butidiri, + Ke jana sig akoi + Sa sig sa yeck si gillo + Shan waveri adoi. + + Avella parl o pani, + Avella sig akai! + Mi kamli tani-rani + Avell' ke tiro rye! + + * * * * * + + COME OVER THE RIVER + + O love, come o'er the water, + O love, where'er you be! + My own sweetheart, my darling, + Come over the river to me! + + If any girls are fairer, + Then fairer let them be; + No maid in all the country + Is half so fair to me. + + If other eyes are brighter, + Then brighter let them shine; + I know that none are lighter + Upon this heart of mine. + + If other's locks are longer, + Then longer let them grow; + Hers are the only fish-lines + Which ever caught me so. + + She wears upon her finger + A ring we know so well, + And we and that ring only + Know what the ring can tell. + + From trees into the water + Leaves fall and float away, + So kisses come and leave us, + A thousand in a day. + + Yet though they come by thousands, + Yet still they show their face; + As soon as one has left us + Another fills its place. + + O love, come o'er the water, + O lore, where'er you be! + My own sweetheart, my darling, + Come over the river to me! + + + + +WELSH GYPSIES. + + +I. MAT WOODS THE FIDDLER. + + +The gypsies of Wales are to those of England what the Welsh themselves +are to the English; more antique and quaint, therefore to a collector of +human bric-a-brac more curious. The Welsh Rom is specially grateful for +kindness or courtesy; he is deeper as to language, and preserves many of +the picturesque traits of his race which are now so rapidly vanishing. +But then he has such excellent opportunity for gypsying. In Wales there +are yet thousands of acres of wild land, deep ravines, rocky corners, and +roadside nooks, where he can boil the kettle and _hatch the tan_, or +pitch his tent, undisturbed by the rural policeman. For it is a charming +country, where no one need weary in summer, when the days are long, or in +early autumn,-- + + "When the barley is ripe, + And the frog doth pipe, + In golden stripe + And green all dressed; + When the red apples + Roll in the chest." + +Then it is pleasant walking in Wales, and there too at times, between +hedge-rows, you may meet with the Romany. + +I was at Aberystwith by the sea, and one afternoon we went, a party of +three gentlemen and three ladies, in a char-a-banc, or wagonette, to +drive. It was a pleasant afternoon, and we had many a fine view of +distant mountains, on whose sides were mines of lead with silver, and of +which there were legends from the time of Queen Elizabeth. The hills +looked leaden and blue in the distance, while the glancing sea far beyond +recalled silver,--for the alchemy of imagery, at least, is never wanting +to supply ideal metals, though the real may show a sad _deficit_ in the +returns. + +As we drove we suddenly overtook a singular party, the first of whom was +the leader, who had lagged behind. He was a handsome, slender, very dark +young man, carrying a violin. Before him went a little open cart, in +which lay an old woman, and by her a harp. With it walked a good-looking +gypsy girl, and another young man, not a gypsy. He was by far the +handsomest young fellow, in form and features, whom I ever met among the +agricultural class in England; we called him a peasant Apollo. It became +evident that the passional affinity which had drawn this rustic to the +gypsy girl, and to the roads, was according to the law of natural +selection, for they were wonderfully well matched. The young man had the +grace inseparable from a fine figure and a handsome face, while the girl +was tall, lithe, and pantherine, with the diavolesque charm which, though +often attributed by fast-fashionable novelists to their heroines, is +really never found except among the lowborn beauties of nature. It is +the beauty of the Imp and of the Serpent; it fades with letters; it dies +in the drawing-room or on the stage. You are mistaken when you think you +see it coming out of the synagogue, unless it be a very vulgar one. Your +Lahova has it not, despite her black eyes, for she is too clever and too +conscious; the devil-beauty never knows how to read, she is unstudied and +no actress. Rachel and the Bernhardt have it not, any more than Saint +Agnes or Miss Blanche Lapin. It is not of good or of evil, or of +culture, which is both; it is all and only of nature, and it does not +know itself. + +As the wagonette stopped I greeted the young man at first in English, +then in Romany. When he heard the gypsy tongue he started, his +countenance expressing the utmost surprise and delight. As if he could +hardly believe in such a phenomenon he inquired, "_Romany_?" and as I +nodded assent, he clasped my hand, the tears coming into his eyes. Such +manifestations are not common among gypsies, but I can remember how one, +the wife of black Ben Lee, was thus surprised and affected. How well I +recall the time and scene,--by the Thames, in the late twilight, when +every tree and twig was violet black against the amber sky, where the +birds were chirp-chattering themselves to roost and rest, and the river +rippled and murmured a duet with the evening breeze. I was walking +homeward to Oatlands when I met the tawny Sinaminta, bearing her little +stock of baskets to the tent and van which I had just quitted, and where +Ben and his beautiful little boy were lighting the _al fresco_ fire. "I +have prayed to see this day!" exclaimed the gypsy woman. "I have so +wanted to see the Romany rye of the Coopers. And I laid by a little +_delaben_, a small present, for you when we should meet. It's a +photograph of Ben and me and our child." I might have forgotten the +evening and the amber sky, rippling river and dark-green hedge-rows, but +for this strange meeting and greeting of an unknown friend, but a few +kind words fixed them all for life. That must be indeed a wonderful +landscape which humanity does not make more impressive. + +I spoke but a few words to the gypsy with the violin, and we drove on to +a little wayside inn, where we alighted and rested. After a while the +gypsies came along. + +"And now, if you will, let us have a real frolic," I said to my friends. +A word was enough. A quart of ale, and the fiddle was set going, and I +sang in Romany, and the rustic landlord and his household wondered what +sort of guests we could be. That they had never before entertained such +a mixed party I can well believe. Here, on one hand, were indubitable +swells, above their usual range; there, on the other, were the dusky +vagabonds of the road; and it could be no common condescending patronage, +for I was speaking neither Welsh nor English, and our friendly fraternity +was evident. Yes, many a time, in England, have I seen the civil +landlady or the neat-handed Phillis awed with bewilderment, as I have +introduced Plato Buckland, or the most disreputable-looking but +oily--yea, glycerine-politeful--old Windsor Frog, into the parlor, and +conversed with him in mystic words. Such an event is a rare joy to the +gypsy. For he loves to be lifted up among men; he will tell you with +pride of the times when he was pointed at, and people said, "_He's_ the +man!" and how a real gentleman once invited him into his house and gave +him a glass of wine. But to enter the best room of the familiar tavern, +to order, in politest but imperative tones, "beer"--sixpenny beer--for +himself and "the other gentleman," is indeed bliss. Then, in addition to +the honor of moving in distinguished society, before the very eyes and in +the high places of those who have hitherto always considered him as a +lowly cuss, the Romany realizes far more than the common peasant the +contrast-contradiction, or the humor of the drama, its bit of +mystification, and especially the mystification of the house-folk. This +is unto him the high hour of the soul, and it is not forgotten. It +passes unto the golden legends of the heart, and you are tenderly +enshrined in it. + +Once, when I was wandering afoot with old Cooper, we stopped at an inn, +and in a room by ourselves ordered luncheon. The gypsy might have had +poultry of the best; he preferred cold pork. While the attendant was in +the room, he sat with exemplary dignity at the table; but as the girl +left, he followed her step sounds with his ears, like a dog, moved his +head, glanced at me with a nod, turned sideways from the table, and, +putting his plate on his knees, proceeded to eat without a fork. + +"For it isn't proper for me to eat at the table with you, or _as_ you +do." + +The Welsh gypsy played well, and his sister touched the harp and sang, +the ale circulated, and the villagers, assembling, gazed in a crowd into +the hall. Then the girl danced solo, just as I have seen her sisters do +in Egypt and in Russia, to her brother's fiddling. Even so of old, +Syrian and Egyptian girls haunted gardens and taverns, and danced _pas +seul_ all over the Roman empire, even unto Spain, behaving so gypsily +that wise men have conjectured that they were gypsies in very truth. And +who shall say they were not? For it is possible that prehistorically, +and beyond all records of Persian Luri and Syrian Ballerine and Egyptian +Almeh, there was all over the East an outflowing of these children of art +from one common primeval Indian stock. From one fraternity, in Italy, at +the present day, those itinerant pests, the hand-organ players, proceed +to the ends of the earth and to the gold-diggings thereof, and time will +yet show that before all time, or in its early dawn, there were root-born +Romany itinerants singing, piping, and dancing unto all the known world; +yea, and into the unknown darkness beyond, _in partibus infidelium_. + +A gentleman who was in our party had been long in the East. I had known +him in Alexandria during the carnival, and he had lived long time _outre +mer_, in India. Hearing me use the gypsy numerals--_yeck_, _dui_, +_trin_, _shtor_, _panj_,--he proceeded to count in Hindustani or Persian, +in which the same words from one to ten are almost identical with Romany. +All of this was carefully noted by the old gypsy mother,--as, also, that +my friend is of dark complexion, with sparkling black eyes. Reduced in +dress, or diluted down to worn corduroy and a red tie, he might easily +pass muster, among the Sons of the Road, as one of them. + +And now the ladies must, of course, have their fortunes told, and this, I +could observe, greatly astonished the gypsies in their secret souls, +though they put a cool face on it. That we, ourselves, were some kind of +a mysterious high-caste Romany they had already concluded, and what faith +could we put in _dukkerin_? But as it would indubitably bring forth +shillings to their benefit, they wisely raised no questions, but calmly +took this windfall, which had fallen as it were, from the skies, even as +they had accepted the beer, which had come, like a providential rain, +unto them, in the thirst of a dry journey. + +It is customary for all gypsy sorceresses to take those who are to be +fortune-told aside, and, if possible, into a room by themselves. This is +done partly to enhance the mystery of the proceeding, and partly to avoid +the presence of witnesses to what is really an illegal act. And as the +old sorceress led a lady into the little parlor, the gypsy man, whose +name was Mat, glanced up at me, with a droll, puzzled expression, and +said, "Patchessa _tu_ adovo?" (Do _you_ believe in that?) With a wink, +I answered, "Why not? I, too, tell fortunes myself." _Anch io sono +pittore_. It seemed to satisfy him, for he replied, with a nod-wink, and +proceeded to pour forth the balance of his thoughts, if he had any, into +the music of his violin. + +When the ladies had all been instructed as to their future, my friend, +who had been in the East, must needs have his destiny made known unto +him. He did not believe in this sort of thing, you know,--of course not. +But he had lived a long time among Orientals, and he just happened to +wish to know how certain speculations would fall out, and he loves, above +all things, a lark, or anything out of the common. So he went in. And +when alone with the sybil, she began to talk to him in Romany. + +"Oh, I say, now, old lady, stow that!" he exclaimed. "I don't understand +you." + +"You don't understand me!" exclaimed the fortune-teller. "Perhaps you +didn't understand your own mother when she talked Romany to you. What's +the use of your tryin' to make yourself out a Gorgio to _me_? Don't I +know our people? Didn't your friend there talk Romanes? Isn't he all +Romaneskas? And didn't I hear you with my own ears count up to ten in +Romany? And now, after that, you would deny your own blood and people! +Yes, you've dwelt in Gorgines so long that you think your eyes are blue +and your hair is yellow, my son, and you have been far over the sea; but +wherever you went you knew Romanes, if you don't know your own color. +But you shall hear your fortune. There is lead in the mines and silver +in the lead, and wealth for him who is to win it, and that will be a dark +man who has been nine times over the sea, and eaten his bread under the +black tents, and been three times near death, once from a horse, and once +from a man, and once through a woman. And you will know something you +don't know now before a month is over, and something will be found that +is now hidden, and has been hidden since the world was made. And there's +a good fortune coming to the man it was made for, before the oldest tree +that's a-growing was a seed, and that's a man as knows how to count +Romanes up to ten, and many a more thing beside that, that he's learned +beyond the great water." + +And so we went our ways, the harp and violin sounds growing fainter as we +receded, till they were like the buzzing of bees in drying clover, and +the twilight grew rosier brown. I never met Mat Woods again, though I +often heard of his fame as a fiddler. Whether my Anglo-Indian friend +found the fortune so vaguely predicted is to me as yet unknown. But I +believe that the prediction encouraged him. That there are evils in +palmistry, and sin in card-drawing, and iniquity in coffee-grounding, and +vice in all the planets, is established by statute, and yet withal I +incline to believe that the art of prediction cheers up many a despondent +soul, and does some little good, even as good ale, despite the wickedness +of drinking, makes some hearts merry and others stronger. If there are +foolish maids who have had their heads turned by being told of coming +noblemen and prospective swells, who loved the ground they trod on, and +were waiting to woo and win and wed, and if the same maidens herein +described have thereby, in the manner set forth, been led by the +aforesaid devices unto their great injury, as written in the above +indictment, it may also _per contra_ and on the other hand be pleaded +that divers girls, to wit, those who believe in prediction, have, by +encouragement and hope to them held out of legally marrying sundry young +men of good estate, been induced to behave better than they would +otherwise have done, and led by this hope have acted more morally than +was their wont, and thereby lifted themselves above the lowly state of +vulgarity, and even of vice, in which they would otherwise have groveled, +hoveled, or cottaged. And there have been men who, cherishing in their +hearts a prediction, or, what amounts to the same thing, a conviction, or +a set fancy, have persevered in hope until the hope was realized. You, O +Christian, who believe in a millennium, you, O Jew, who expect a Messiah, +and await the fulfillment of your _dukkerin_, are both in the right, for +both will come true when you _make_ them do so. + + + +II. THE PIOUS WASHERWOMAN. + + +There is not much in life pleasanter than a long ramble on the road in +leaf-green, sun-gold summer. Then it is Nature's merry-time, when fowls +in woods them maken blithe, and the crow preaches from the fence to his +friends afield, and the honeysuckle winketh to the wild rose in the hedge +when she is wooed by the little buzzy bee. In such times it is good for +the heart to wander over the hills and far away, into haunts known of +old, where perhaps some semi-Saxon church nestles in a hollow behind a +hill, where grass o'ergrows each mouldering tomb, and the brook, as it +ripples by in a darksome aldered hollow, speaks in a language which man +knows no more, but which is answered in the same forgotten tongue by the +thousand-year yew as it rustles in the breeze. And when there are Runic +stones in this garden of God, where He raises souls, I often fancy that +this old dialect is written in their rhythmic lines. The yew-trees were +planted by law, lang-syne, to yield bows to the realm, and now archery is +dead and Martini-Henry has taken its place, but the yews still live, and +the Runic fine art of the twisted lines on the tombs, after a thousand +years' sleep, is beginning to revive. Every thing at such a time speaks +of joy and resurrection--tree and tomb and bird and flower and bee. + +These are all memories of a walk from the town of Aberystwith, in Wales, +which walk leads by an ancient church, in the soul garden of which are +two Runic cross tombstones. One day I went farther afield to a more +ancient shrine, on the top of a high mountain. This was to the summit of +Cader Idris, sixteen miles off. On this summit there is a Druidical +circle, of which the stones, themselves to ruin grown, are strange and +death-like old. Legend says that this is the burial-place of Taliesin, +the first of Welsh bards, the primeval poet of Celtic time. Whoever +sleeps on the grave will awake either a madman or a poet, or is at any +rate unsafe to become one or the other. I went, with two friends, afoot +on this little pilgrimage. Both were professors at one of the great +universities. The elder is a gentleman of great benevolence, learning, +and gentleness; the other, a younger man, has been well polished and +sharpened by travel in many lands. It is rumored that he has preached +Islam in a mosque unto the Moslem even unto taking up a collection, which +is the final test of the faith which reaches forth into a bright +eternity. That he can be, as I have elsewhere noted, a Persian unto +Persians, and a Romany among Roms, and a professional among the +hanky-pankorites, is likewise on the cards, as surely as that he knows +the roads and all the devices and little games of them that dwell +thereon. Though elegant enough in his court dress and rapier when he +kisses the hand of our sovereign lady the queen, he appears such an +abandoned rough when he goes a-fishing that the innocent and guileless +gypsies, little suspecting that a _rye_ lies _perdu_ in his wrap-rascal, +will then confide in him as if he and in-doors had never been acquainted. + +We had taken with us a sparing lunch of thin sandwiches and a frugal +flask of modest, blushing brandy, which we diluted at a stingy little +fountain spring which dropped economically through a rift in the rock, as +if its nymph were conscious that such a delicious drink should not be +wasted. As it was, it refreshed us, and we were resting in a blessed +repose under the green leaves, when we heard footsteps, and an old woman +came walking by. + +She was the ideal of decent and extreme poverty. I never saw anybody who +was at once so poor and so clean. In her face and in her thin garments +was marked the mute, resolute struggle between need and self-respect, +which, to him who understands it, is as brave as any battle between life +and death. She walked on as if she would have gone past without a word, +but when we greeted her she paused, and spoke respectfully. Without +forwardness she told her sad and simple story: how she belonged to the +Wesleyan confession, how her daughter was dying in the hospital at +Caernarvon; how she had walked sixty miles to see her, and hoped to get +there in time to close her eyes. In reply to a question as to her means, +she admitted that they were exhausted, but that she could get through +without money; she did not beg. And then came naturally enough the rest +of the little artless narrative, as it generally happens among the simple +annals of the poor: how she had been for forty years a washerwoman, and +had a letter from her clergyman. + +There was a tear in the eye of the elder professor, and his hand was in +his pocket. The younger smoked in silence. I was greatly moved +myself,--perhaps bewildered would be the better word,--when, all at once, +as the old woman turned in the sunlight, I caught the expression _of the +corner of an eye_! + +My friend Salaman, who boasts that he is of the last of the +Sadducees,--that strange, ancient, and secret sect, who disguise +themselves as the _Neu Reformirte_,--declares that the Sephardim may be +distinguished from the Ashkenazim as readily as from the confounded +Goyim, by the corners of their eyes. This he illustrated by pointing out +to me, as they walked by in the cool of the evening, the difference +between the eyes of Fraulein Eleonora Kohn and Senorita Linda Abarbanel +and divers and sundry other young ladies,--the result being that I +received in return thirty-six distinct _oeillades_, several of which +expressed indignation, and in all of which there was evidently an entire +misconception of my object in looking at them. Now the eyes of the +Sephardesses are unquestionably fascinating; and here it may be recalled +that, in the Middle Ages, witches were also recognized by having exactly +the same corners, or peaks, to the eye. This is an ancient mystery of +darksome lore, that the enchantress always has the bird-peaked eye, which +betokens danger to somebody, be she of the Sephardim, or an ordinary +witch or enchantress, or a gypsy. + +Now, as the old Wesleyan washerwoman turned around in the sunshine, I saw +the witch-pointed eye and the glint of the Romany. And then I glanced at +her hands, and saw that they had not been long familiar with wash-tubs; +for, though clean, they were brown, and had never been blanched with an +age of soap-suds. And I spoke suddenly, and said,-- + +"_Can tute rakker Romanes_, _miri dye_?" (Can you speak Romany, my +mother?) And she answered, as if bewildered,-- + +"The Lord forbid, sir, that I should talk any of them wicked languages." + +The younger professor's eyes expressed dawning delight. I followed my +shot with,-- + +"_Tute needn't be attrash to rakker_. _Mandy's been apre the drom +mi-kokero_." (You needn't be afraid to speak. I have been upon the road +myself.) + +And, still more confused, she answered in English,-- + +"Why, sir, you be upon the road now!" + +"It seems to me, old lady," remarked the younger professor, "that you +understand Romany very well for one who has been for forty years in the +Methodist communion." + +It may be observed that he here confounded washing with worshiping. + +The face of the true believer was at this point a fine study. All her +confidence had deserted her. Whether she thought we were of her kind in +disguise, or that, in the unknown higher world of respectability, there +might be gypsies of corresponding rank, even as there might be gypsy +angels among the celestial hierarchies, I cannot with confidence assert. +About a week ago a philologist and purist told me that there is no exact +synonym in English for the word _flabbergasted_, as it expresses a +peculiar state of bewilderment as yet unnamed by scholars, and it exactly +sets forth the condition in which our virtuous poverty appeared. She +was, indeed, flabbergasted. _Cornix scorpum rapuit_,--the owl had come +down on the rabbits, and lo! they had fangs. I resumed,-- + +"Now, old lady, here is a penny. You are a very poor person, and I pity +you so much that I give you this penny for your poverty. But there is a +pocketful where this came from, and you shall have the lot if you'll +_rakker_,"--that is, talk gypsy. + +And at that touch of the Ithuriel spear the old toad flashed up into the +Romany devil, as with gleaming eyes and a witch-like grin she cried in a +mixture of gypsy and tinker languages,-- + +"Gents, I'll have tute jin when you tharis mandy you rakker a reg'lar fly +old bewer." Which means, "Gentlemen, I'll have you know, when you talk +to me, you talk to a reg'lar shrewd old female thief." + +The face of the elder professor was a study of astonishment for Lavater. +His fingers relaxed their grasp of the shilling, his hand was drawn from +his pocket, and his glance, like Bill Nye's, remarked: "_Can_ this be?" +He tells the story to this day, and always adds, "I _never_ was so +astonished in my life." But the venerable washerwoman was also changed, +and, the mask once thrown aside, she became as festive as a witch on the +Brocken. Truly, it is a great comfort to cease playing a part, +particularly a pious one, and be at home and at ease among your like; and +better still if they be swells. This was the delight of Anderson's ugly +duck when it got among the swans, "and, blest sensation, felt genteel." +And to show her gratitude, the sorceress, who really seemed to have grown +several shades darker, insisted on telling our fortunes. I think it was +to give vent to her feelings in defiance of the law that she did this; +certain it was that just then, under the circumstances, it was the only +way available in which the law could be broken. And as it was, indeed, +by heath and hill that the priestess of the hidden spell bade the Palmer +from over the sea hold out his palm. And she began in the usual +sing-song tone, mocking the style of gypsy fortune-tellers, and +satirizing herself. And thus she spoke,-- + +"You're born under a lucky star, my good gentleman, and you're a married +man; but there's a black-eyed young lady that's in love with you." + +"Oh, mother of all the thieves!" I cried, "you've put the _dukkerin_ on +the wrong man. I'm the one that the dark girls go after." + +"Yes, my good gentleman. She's in love with you both." + +"And now tell my fortune!" I exclaimed, and with a grim expression, +casting up my palm, I said,-- + +"_Pen mengy if mandy'll be bitchade padel for chorin a gry_, _or nasherdo +for merin a gav-mush_." (Tell me if I am to be transported for stealing +a horse, or hung for killing a policeman.) + +The old woman's face changed. "You'll never need to steal a horse. The +man that knows what you know never need be poor like me. I know who +_you_ are _now_; you're not one of these tourists. You're the boro +Romany rye [the tall gypsy gentleman]. And go your way, and brag about +it in your house,--and well you may,--that Old Moll of the Roads couldn't +take you in, and that you found her out. Never another _rye_ but you +will ever say that again. Never." + +And she went dancing away in the sunshine, capering backwards along the +road, merrily shaking the pennies in her hand for music, while she sang +something in gypsy,--witch to the last, vanishing as witches only can. +And there came over me a feeling as of the very olden time, and some +memory of another witch, who had said to another man, "_Thou_ art no +traveler, Great master, I know thee now;" and who, when he called her the +mother of the giants, replied, "Go thy way, and boast at home that no man +will ever waken me again with spells. Never." That was the parting of +Odin and the Vala sorceress, and it was the story of oldest time; and so +the myth of ancient days becomes a tattered parody, and thus runs the +world away to Romanys and rags--when the gods are gone. + +When I laughed at the younger professor for confounding forty years in +the church with as many at the wash-tub, he replied,-- + +"Cleanliness is with me so near to godliness that it is not remarkable +that in my hurry I mistook one for the other." + +So we went on and climbed Cader Idris, and found the ancient grave of +rocks in a mystic circle, whose meaning lies buried with the last Druid, +who would perhaps have told you they were-- + + "Seats of stone nevir hewin with mennes hand + But wrocht by Nature as it ane house had bene + For Nymphes, goddis of floudes and woodis grene." + +And we saw afar the beautiful scene, "where fluddes rynnys in the foaming +sea," as Gawain Douglas sings, and where, between the fresh water and +salt, stands a village, even where it stood in earliest Cymric +prehistoric dawn, and the spot where ran the weir in which the prince who +was in grief because his weir yielded no fish, at last fished up a poet, +even as Pharaoh's daughter fished out a prophet. I shall not soon forget +that summer day, nor the dream-like panorama, nor the ancient grave; nor +how the younger professor lay down on the seat of stone nevir hewin with +mennes hand, and declared he had a nap,--just enough to make him a poet. +To prove which he wrote a long poem on the finding of Taliesin in the +nets, and sent it to the Aberystwith newspaper; while I, not to be +behindhand, wrote another, in imitation of the triplets of Llydwarch Hen, +which were so greatly admired as tributes to Welsh poetry that they were +forthwith translated faithfully into lines of consonants, touched up with +so many _w_'s that they looked like saws; and they circulated even unto +Llandudno, and, for aught I know, may be sung at Eistedfodds, now and +ever, to the twanging of small harps,--_in soecula saeculorum_. Truly, +the day which had begun with a witch ended fitly enough at the tomb of a +prophet poet. + + + +III. THE GYPSIES AT ABERYSTWITH. + + +Aberystwith is a little fishing-village, which has of late years first +bloomed as a railway-station, and then fruited into prosperity as a +bathing-place. Like many _parvenus_, it makes a great display of its +Norman ancestor, the old castle, saying little about the long centuries +of plebeian obscurity in which it was once buried. This castle, after +being woefully neglected during the days when nobody cared for its early +respectability, has been suddenly remembered, now that better times have +come, and, though not restored, has been made comely with grass banks, +benches, and gravel walks, reminding one of an Irish grandfather in +America, taken out on a Sunday with "the childher," and looking "gintale" +in the clean shirt and whole coat unknown to him for many a decade in +Tipperary. Of course the castle and the wealth, or the hotels and +parade, are well to the fore, or boldly displayed, as Englishly as +possible, while the little Welsh town shrinks quietly into the hollow +behind. And being new to prosperity, Aberystwith is also a little +muddled as to propriety. It would regard with horror the idea of +allowing ladies and gentlemen to bathe together, even though completely +clad; but it sees nothing out of the way when gentlemen in pre-fig-leaf +costume disport themselves, bathing just before the young ladies' +boarding-school and the chief hotel, or running joyous races on the +beach. I shall never forget the amazement and horror with which an +Aberystwithienne learned that in distant lands ladies and gentlemen went +into the water arm in arm, although dressed. But when it was urged that +the Aberystwith system was somewhat peculiar, she replied, "Oh, _that_ is +a very different thing!" + +On which words for a text a curious sermon might be preached to the +Philistiny souls who live perfectly reconciled to absurd paradoxes, +simply because they are accustomed to them. Now, of all human beings, I +think the gypsies are freest from trouble with paradoxes as to things +being different or alike, and the least afflicted with moral problems, +burning questions, social puzzles, or any other kind of mental rubbish. +They are even freer than savages or the heathen in this respect, since of +all human beings the Fijian, New Zealander, Mpongwe, or Esquimaux is most +terribly tortured with the laws of etiquette, religion, social position, +and propriety. Among many of these heathen unfortunates the meeting with +an equal involves fifteen minutes of bowing, re-bowing, surre-bowing, and +rejoinder-bowing, with complementary complimenting, according to old +custom, while the worship of Mrs. Grundy through a superior requires a +half hour wearisome beyond belief. "In Fiji," says Miss C. F. Gordon +Cumming, "strict etiquette rules every action of life, and the most +trifling mistake in such matters would cause as great dissatisfaction as +a breach in the order of precedence at a European ceremonial." In +dividing cold baked missionary at a dinner, especially if a chief be +present, the host committing the least mistake as to helping the proper +guest to the proper piece in the proper way would find himself promptly +put down in the _menu_. In Fiji, as in all other countries, this +punctilio is nothing but the direct result of ceaseless effort on the +part of the upper classes to distinguish themselves from the lower. +Cannibalism is a joint sprout from the same root; "the devourers of the +poor" are the scorners of the humble and lowly, and they are all grains +of the same corn, of the devil's planting, all the world over. Perhaps +the quaintest error which haunts the world in England and America is that +so much of this stuff as is taught by rule or fashion as laws for "the +_elite_" is the very nucleus of enlightenment and refinement, instead of +its being a remnant of barbarism. And when we reflect on the degree to +which this naive and child-like faith exists in the United States, as +shown by the enormous amount of information in certain newspapers as to +what is the latest thing necessary to be done, acted, or suffered in +order to be socially saved, I surmise that some future historian will +record that we, being an envious people, turned out the Chinese, because +we could not endure the presence among us of a race so vastly our +superiors in all that constituted the true principles of culture and +"custom." + +Arthur Mitchell, in inquiring What is Civilization? {209} remarks that +"all the things which gather round or grow upon a high state of +civilization are not necessarily true parts of it. These +conventionalities are often regarded as its very essence." And it is +true that the greater the fool or snob, the deeper is the conviction that +the conventional is the core of "culture." "'It is not genteel,' 'in +good form,' or 'the mode,' to do this or do that, or say this or say +that." "Such things are spoken of as marks of a high civilization, or by +those who do not confound civilization with culture as differentiators +between the cultured and the uncultured." Dr. Mitchell "neither praises +nor condemns these things;" but it is well for a man, while he is about +it, to know his own mind, and I, for myself, condemn them with all my +heart and soul, whenever anybody declares that such brass counters in the +game of life are real gold, and insists that I shall accept them as such. +For small play in a very small way with small people, I would endure +them; but many men and nearly all women make their capital of them. And +whatever may be said in their favor, it cannot be denied that they +constantly lead to lying and heartlessness. Even Dr. Mitchell, while he +says he does not condemn them, proceeds immediately to declare that +"while we submit to them they constitute a sort of tyranny, under which +we fret and secretly pine for escape. Does not the exquisite of Rotten +Row weary for his flannel shirt and shooting-jacket? Do not +'well-constituted' men want to fish and shoot or kill something, +themselves, by climbing mountains, when they can find nothing else? In +short, does it not appear that these conventionalities are irksome, and +are disregarded when the chance presents itself? And does it not seem as +if there were something in human nature pulling men back to a rude and +simple life?" To find that _men_ suffer under the conventionalities, +"adds, on the whole," says our canny, prudent Scot, "to the +respectability of human nature." _Tu ha ragione_ (right you are), Dr. +Mitchell, there. For the conventional, whether found among Fijians as +they were, or in Mayfair as it is, whenever it is vexatious and merely +serves as a cordon to separate "sassiety" from society, detracts from the +respectability of humanity, and is in itself vulgar. If every man in +society were a gentleman and every woman a lady, there would be no more +conventionalism. _Usus est tyrannus_ (custom is a tyrant), or, as the +Talmud proverb saith, "Custom is the plague of wise men, but is the idol +of fools." And he was a wise Jew, whoever he was, who declared it. + +But let us return to our black sheep, the gypsy. While happy in not +being conventional, and while rejoicing, or at least unconsciously +enjoying freedom from the bonds of etiquette, he agrees with the Chinese, +red Indians, May Fairies, and Fifth Avenoodles in manifesting under the +most trying circumstances that imperturbability which was once declared +by an eminent Philadelphian to be "the Corinthian ornament of a +gentleman." He who said this builded better than he knew, for the +ornament in question, if purely Corinthian, is simply brass. One morning +I was sauntering with the Palmer in Aberystwith, when we met with a young +and good-looking gypsy woman, with whom we entered into conversation, +learning that she was a Bosville, and acquiring other items of news as to +Egypt and the roads, and then left. + +We had not gone far before we found a tinker. He who catches a tinker +has got hold of half a gypsy and a whole cosmopolite, however bad the +catch may be. He did not understand the greeting _Sarishan_!--he really +could not remember to have heard it. He did not know any gypsies,--"he +could not get along with them." They were a bad lot. He had seen some +gypsies three weeks before on the road. They were curious dark people, +who lived in tents. He could not talk Romany. + +This was really pitiable. It was too much. The Palmer informed him that +he was wasting his best opportunities, and that it was a great pity that +any man who lived on the roads should be so ignorant. The tinker never +winked. In the goodness of our hearts we even offered to give him +lessons in the _kalo jib_, or black language. The grinder was as calm as +a Belgravian image. And as we turned to depart the professor said,-- + +"_Mandy'd del tute a shahori to pi moro kammaben_, _if tute jinned sa +mandi pukkers_." (I'd give you a sixpence to drink our health, if you +knew what I am saying.) + +With undisturbed gravity the tinker replied,-- + +"Now I come to think of it, I do remember to have heard somethin' in the +parst like that. It's a conwivial expression arskin' me if I won't have +a tanner for ale. Which I will." + +"Now since you take such an interest in gypsies," I answered, "it is a +pity that you should know so little about them. I have seen them since +you have. I saw a nice young woman, one of the Bosvilles here, not half +an hour ago. Shall I introduce you?" + +"That young woman," remarked the tinker, with the same immovable +countenance, "is my wife. And I've come down here, by app'intment, to +meet some Romany pals." + +And having politely accepted his sixpence, the griddler went his way, +tinkling his bell, along the road. He did not disturb himself that his +first speeches did not agree with his last; he was not in the habit of +being disturbed about anything, and he knew that no one ever learned +Romany without learning with it not to be astonished at any little +inconsistencies. Serene and polished as a piece of tin in the sunshine, +he would not stoop to be put out by trifles. He was a typical tinker. +He knew that the world had made up proverbs expressing the utmost +indifference either for a tinker's blessing or a tinker's curse, and he +retaliated by not caring a curse whether the world blessed or banned him. +In all ages and in all lands the tinker has always been the type of this +droning indifference, which goes through life bagpiping its single +melody, or whistling, like the serene Marquis de Crabs, "Toujours +Santerre." + + "Es ist und bleibt das alte Lied + Von dem versoff'nen Pfannenschmied, + Und wer's nicht weiter singen kann, + Der fang's von Vorne wieder an." + + 'T will ever be the same old song + Of tipsy tinkers all day long, + And he who cannot sing it more + May sing it over, as before. + +I should have liked to know John Bunyan. As a half-blood gypsy tinker he +must have been self-contained and pleasant. He had his wits about him, +too, in a very Romanly way. When confined in prison he made a flute or +pipe out of the leg of his three legged-stool, and would play on it to +pass time. When the jailer entered to stop the noise, John replaced the +leg in the stool, and sat on it looking innocent as only a gypsy tinker +could,--calm as a summer morning. I commend the subject for a picture. +Very recently, that is, in the beginning of 1881, a man of the same +tinkering kind, and possibly of the same blood as Honest John, confined +in the prison of Moyamensing, Philadelphia, did nearly the same thing, +only that instead of making his stool leg into a musical pipe he +converted it into a pipe for tobacco. But when the watchman, led by the +smell, entered his cell, there was no pipe to be found; only a deeply +injured man complaining that "somebody, had been smokin' outside, and it +had blowed into his cell through the door-winder from the corridore, and +p'isoned the atmosphere. And he didn't like it." And thus history +repeats itself. 'T is all very well for the sticklers for Wesleyan +gentility to deny that John Bunyan was a gypsy, but he who in his life +cannot read Romany between the lines knows not the jib nor the cut +thereof. Tough was J. B., "and de-vil-ish sly," and altogether a much +better man than many suppose him to have been. + +The tinker lived with his wife in a "tramps' lodging-house" in the town. +To those Americans who know such places by the abominable dens which are +occasionally reported by American grand juries, the term will suggest +something much worse than it is. In England the average tramp's lodging +is cleaner, better regulated, and more orderly than many Western +"hotels." The police look closely after it, and do not allow more than a +certain number in a room. They see that it is frequently cleaned, and +that clean sheets are frequently put on the beds. One or two hand-organs +in the hall, with a tinker's barrow or wheel, proclaimed the character of +the lodgers, and in the sitting-room there were to be found, of an +evening, gypsies, laborers with their families seeking work or itinerant +musicians. I can recall a powerful and tall young man, with a badly +expressive face, one-legged, and well dressed as a sailor. He was a +beggar, who measured the good or evil of all mankind by what they gave +him. He was very bitter as to the bad. Yet this house was in its way +upper class. It was not a den of despair, dirt, and misery, and even the +Italians who came there were obliged to be decent and clean. It would +not have been appropriate to have written for them on the door, "_Voi che +intrate lasciate ogni speranza_." (He who enters here leaves soap +behind.) The most painful fact which struck me, in my many visits, was +the intelligence and decency of some of the boarders. There was more +than one who conversed in a manner which indicated an excellent early +education; more than one who read the newspaper aloud and commented on it +to the company, as any gentleman might have done. Indeed, the painful +part of life as shown among these poor people was the manifest fact that +so many of them had come down from a higher position, or were qualified +for it. And this is characteristic of such places. In his "London +Labour and the London Poor," vol. i. p. 217, Mahew tells of a low +lodging-house "in which there were at one time five university men, three +surgeons, and several sorts of broken-down clerks." The majority of +these cases are the result of parents having risen from poverty and +raised their families to "gentility." The sons are deprived by their +bringing up of the vulgar pluck and coarse energy by which the father +rose, and yet are expected to make their way in the world, with nothing +but a so-called "education," which is too often less a help than a +hindrance. In the race of life no man is so heavily handicapped as a +young "gentleman." The humblest and raggedest of all the inmates of this +house were two men who got their living by _shelkin gallopas_ (or selling +ferns), as it is called in the Shelta, or tinker's and tramp's slang. +One of these, whom I have described in another chapter as teaching me +this dialect, could conjugate a French verb; we thought he had studied +law. The other was a poor old fellow called Krooty, who could give the +Latin names for all the plants which he gathered and sold, and who would +repeat poetry very appropriately, proving sufficiently that he had read +it. Both the fern-sellers spoke better English than divers Lord Mayors +and Knights to whom I have listened, for they neither omitted _h_ like +the lowly, nor _r_ like the lofty ones of London. + +The tinker's wife was afflicted with a nervous disorder, which caused her +great suffering, and made it almost impossible for her to sell goods, or +contribute anything to the joint support. Her husband always treated her +with the greatest kindness; I have seldom seen an instance in which a man +was more indulgent and gentle. He made no display whatever of his +feelings; it was only little by little that I found out what a heart this +imperturbable rough of the road possessed. Now the Palmer, who was +always engaged in some wild act of unconscious benevolence, bought for +her some medicine, and gave her an order on the first physician in the +town for proper advice; the result being a decided amelioration of her +health. And I never knew any human being to be more sincerely grateful +than the tinker was for this kindness. Ascertaining that I had tools for +wood-carving, he insisted on presenting me with crocus powder, "to put an +edge on." He had a remarkably fine whetstone, "the best in England; it +was worth half a sovereign," and this he often and vainly begged me to +accept. And he had a peculiar little trick of relieving his kindly +feelings. Whenever we dropped in of an evening to the lodging-house, he +would cunningly borrow my knife, and then disappear. Presently the +_whiz-whiz_, _st'st_ of his wheel would be heard without, and then the +artful dodger would reappear with a triumphant smile, and with the knife +sharpened to a razor edge. Anent which gratitude I shall have more to +say anon. + +One day I was walking on the Front, when I overtook a gypsy van, loaded +with baskets and mats, lumbering along. The proprietor, who was a +stranger to me, was also slightly or lightly lumbering in his gait, being +cheerfully beery, while his berry brown wife, with a little +three-year-old boy, peddled wares from door to door. Both were amazed +and pleased at being accosted in Romany. In the course of conversation +they showed great anxiety as to their child, who had long suffered from +some disorder which caused them great alarm. The man's first name was +Anselo, though it was painted Onslow on his vehicle. Mr. Anselo, though +himself just come to town, was at once deeply impressed with the duty of +hospitality to a Romany rye. I had called him _pal_, and this in +gypsydom involves the shaking of hands, and with the better class an +extra display of courtesy. He produced half a crown, and declared his +willingness to devote it all to beer for my benefit. I declined, but he +repeated his offer several times,--not with any annoying display, but +with a courteous earnestness, intended to set forth a sweet sincerity. +As I bade him good-by, he put the crown-piece into one eye, and as he +danced backward, gypsy fashion up the street and vanished in the sunny +purple twilight towards the sea I could see him winking with the other, +and hear him cry, "Don't say no--now's the last chance--do I hear a bid?" + +We found this family in due time at the lodging-house, where the little +boy proved to be indeed seriously ill, and we at once discovered that the +parents, in their ignorance, had quite misunderstood his malady and were +aggravating it by mal-treatment. To these poor people the good Palmer +also gave an order on the old physician, who declared that the boy must +have died in a few days, had he not taken charge of him. As it was, the +little fellow was speedily cured. There was, it appeared, some kind of +consanguinity between the tinker or his wife and the Anselo family. +These good people, anxious to do anything, yet able to do little, +consulted together as to showing their gratitude, and noting that we were +specially desirous of collecting old gypsy words gave us all they could +think of, and without informing us of their intention, which indeed we +only learned by accident a long time after, sent a messenger many miles +to bring to Aberystwith a certain Bosville, who was famed as being deep +in Romany lore, and in possession of many ancient words. Which was +indeed true, he having been the first to teach us _pisali_, meaning a +saddle, and in which Professor Cowell, of Cambridge, promptly detected +the Sanskrit for sit-upon, the same double meaning also existing in +_boshto_; or, as old Mrs. Buckland said to me at Oaklands Park, in +Philadelphia, "a _pisali_ is the same thing with a _boshto_." + +"What will gain thy faith?" said Quentin Durward to Hayradden Maugrabhin. +"Kindness," answered the gypsy. + +The joint families, solely with intent to please us, although they never +said a word about it, next sent for a young Romany, one of the Lees, and +his wife whom they supposed we would like to meet. Walking along the +Front, I met the tinker's wife with the handsomest Romany girl I ever +beheld. In a London ball-room or on the stage she would have been a +really startling beauty. This was young Mrs. Lee. Her husband was a +clever violinist, and it was very remarkable that when he gave himself up +to playing, with _abandon_ or self-forgetfulness, there came into his +melodies the same wild gypsy expression, the same chords and tones, which +abound in the music of the Austrian Tsigane. It was not my imagination +which prompted the recognition; the Palmer also observed it, without +thinking it remarkable. From the playing of both Mat Woods and young +Lee, I am sure that there has survived among the Welsh gypsies some of +the spirit of their old Eastern music, just as in the solo dancing of +Mat's sister there was precisely the same kind of step which I had seen +in Moscow. Among the hundreds of the race whom I have met in Great +Britain, I have never known any young people who were so purely Romany as +these. The tinker and Anselo with his wife had judged wisely that we +would be pleased with this picturesque couple. They always seemed to me +in the house like two wild birds, and tropical ones at that, in a cage. +There was a tawny-gold, black and scarlet tone about them and their garb, +an Indian Spanish duskiness and glow which I loved to look at. + +Every proceeding of the tinker and Anselo was veiled in mystery and +hidden in the obscurity so dear to such grown-up children, but as I +observed after a few days that Lee did nothing beyond acting as assistant +to the tinker at the wheel, I surmised that the visit was solely for our +benefit. As the tinker was devoted to his poor wife, so was Anselo and +his dame devoted to their child. He was, indeed, a brave little fellow, +and frequently manifested the precocious pluck and sturdiness so greatly +admired by the Romanys of the road; and when he would take a whip and +lead the horse, or in other ways show his courage, the delight of his +parents was in its turn delightful. They would look at the child as if +charmed, and then at one another with feelings too deep for words, and +then at me for sympathetic admiration. + +The keeper of the house where they lodged was in his way a character and +a linguist. Welsh was his native tongue and English his second best. He +also knew others, such as Romany, of which he was proud, and the Shelta +or Minklas of the tinkers, of which he was not. The only language which +he knew of which he was really ashamed was Italian, and though he could +maintain a common conversation in it he always denied that he remembered +more than a few words. For it was not as the tongue of Dante, but as the +lingo of organ-grinders and such "catenone" that he knew it, and I think +that the Palmer and I lost dignity in his eyes by inadvertently admitting +that it was familiar to us. "I shouldn't have thought it," was all his +comment on the discovery, but I knew his thought, and it was that we had +made ourselves unnecessarily familiar with vulgarity. + +It is not every one who is aware of the extent to which Italian is known +by the lower orders in London. It is not spoken as a language; but many +of its words, sadly mangled, are mixed with English as a jargon. Thus +the Italian _scappare_, to escape, or run away, has become _scarper_; and +a dweller in the Seven Dials has been heard to say he would "_scarper_ +with the _feele_ of the _donna_ of the _cassey_;" which means, run away +with the daughter of the landlady of the house, and which, as the editor +of the Slang Dictionary pens, is almost pure Italian,--_scappare colla +figlia della donna_, _della casa_. Most costermongers call a penny a +_saltee_, from _soldo_; a crown, a _caroon_; and one half, _madza_, from +_mezza_. They count as follows:-- + + ITALIAN. +Oney saltee, a penny Uno soldo. +Dooey saltee, twopence Dui soldi. +Tray saltee, threepence Tre soldi. +Quarterer saltee, fourpence Quattro soldi. +Chinker saltee, fivepence Cinque soldi. +Say saltee, sixpence Sei soldi. +Say oney saltee, or setter Sette soldi. +saltee, sevenpence +Say dooee saltee, or otter Otto soldi. +saltee, eightpence +Say tray saltee, or nobba saltee, Nove soldi. +ninepence +Say quarterer saltee, or dacha Dieci soldi. +(datsha) saltee, tenpence +Say chinker saltee, or dacha one Dieci uno soldi +saltee, elevenpence +Oney beong, one shilling Uno bianco. +A beong say saltee, one shilling Uno bianco sei soldi. +and sixpence +Madza caroon, half a crown Mezza corona. + +Mr. Hotten says that he could never discover the derivation of _beong_, +or _beonk_. It is very plainly the Italian _bianco_, white, which, like +_blanc_ in French and _blank_ in German, is often applied slangily to a +silver coin. It is as if one had said, "a shiner." Apropos of which +word there is something curious to be noted. It came forth in evidence, +a few years ago in England, that burglars or other thieves always carried +with them a piece of coal; and on this disclosure, a certain writer, in +his printed collection of curiosities, comments as if it were a +superstition, remarking that the coal is carried for an amulet. But the +truth is that the thief has no such idea. The coal is simply a sign for +money; and when the bearer meets with a man whom he thinks may be a +"fence," or a purchaser of stolen goods, he shows the coal, which is as +much as to say, Have you money? Money, in vulgar gypsy, is _wongur_, a +corruption of the better word _angar_, which also means a hot coal; and +_braise_, in French _argot_, has the same double meaning. I may be +wrong, but I suspect that _rat_, a dollar in Hebrew, or at least in +Schmussen, has its root in common with _ratzafim_, coals, and possibly +_poschit_, a farthing, with _pecham_, coal. In the six kinds of fire +mentioned in the Talmud, {222} there is no identification of coals with +money; but in the German legends of Rubezahl, there is a tale of a +charcoal-burner who found them changed to gold. Coins are called shiners +because they shine like glowing coals, and I dare say that the simile +exists in many more languages. + +One twilight we found in the public sitting-room of the lodging-house a +couple whom I can never forget. It was an elderly gypsy and his wife. +The husband was himself characteristic; the wife was more than merely +picturesque. I have never met such a superb old Romany as she was; +indeed, I doubt if I ever saw any woman of her age, in any land or any +range of life, with a more magnificently proud expression or such +unaffected dignity. It was the whole poem of "Crescentius" living in +modern time in other form. + +When a scholar associates much with gypsies there is developed in him in +due time a perception or intuition of certain kinds of men or minds, +which it is as difficult to describe as it is wonderful. He who has read +Matthew Arnold's "Gipsy Scholar" may, however, find therein many apt +words for it. I mean very seriously what I say; I mean that through the +Romany the demon of Socrates acquires distinctness; I mean that a faculty +is developed which is as strange as divination, and which is greatly akin +to it. The gypsies themselves apply it directly to palmistry; were they +well educated they would feel it in higher forms. It may be reached +among other races and in other modes, and Nature is always offering it to +us freely; but it seems to live, or at least to be most developed, among +the Romany. It comes upon the possessor far more powerfully when in +contact with certain lives than with others, and with the sympathetic it +takes in at a glance that which may employ it at intervals for years to +think out. + +And by this _duk_ I read in a few words in the Romany woman an eagle +soul, caged between the bars of poverty, ignorance, and custom; but a +great soul for all that. Both she and her husband were of the old type +of their race, now so rare in England, though commoner in America. They +spoke Romany with inflection and conjugation; they remembered the old +rhymes and old words, which I quoted freely, with the Palmer. Little by +little, the old man seemed to be deeply impressed, indeed awed, by our +utterly inexplicable knowledge. I wore a velveteen coat, and had on a +broad, soft felt hat. + +"You talk as the old Romanys did," said the old man. "I hear you use +words which I once heard from old men who died when I was a boy. I +thought those words were lying in graves which have long been green. I +hear songs and sayings which I never expected to hear again. You talk +like gypsies, and such gypsies as I never meet now; and you look like +Gorgios. But when I was still young, a few of the oldest Romany _chals_ +still wore hats such as you have; and when I first looked at you, I +thought of them. I don't understand you. It is strange, very strange." + +"It is the Romany _soul_," said his wife. "People take to what is in +them; if a bird were born a fox, it would love to fly." + +I wondered what flights she would have taken if she had wings. But I +understood why the old man had spoken as he did; for, knowing that we had +intelligent listeners, the Palmer and I had brought forth all our best +and quaintest Romany curios, and these rural Welsh wanderers were not, +like their English pals, familiar with Romany ryes. And I was moved to +like them, and nobody perceives this sooner than a gypsy. The old couple +were the parents of young Lee, and said they had come to visit him; but I +think that it was rather to see us that we owed their presence in +Aberystwith. For the tinker and Anselo were at this time engaged, in +their secret and owl-like manner, as befitted men who were up to all +manner of ways that were dark, in collecting the most interesting +specimens of Romanys, for our especial study; and whenever this could be +managed so that it appeared entirely accidental and a surprise, then they +retired into their shadowed souls and chuckled with fiendish glee at +having managed things so charmingly. But it will be long ere I forget +how the old man's eye looked into the past as he recalled,-- + + "The hat of antique shape and coat of gray, + The same the gypsies wore," + +and went far away back through my words to words heard in the olden time, +by fires long since burnt out, beneath the flame-gilt branches of forests +which have sailed away as ships, farther than woods e'er went from +Dunsinane, and been wrecked in Southern seas. But though I could not +tell exactly what was in every room, I knew into what house his soul had +gone; and it was for this that the scholar-gypsy went from Oxford halls +"to learn strange arts and join a gypsy tribe." His friends had gone +from earth long since, and were laid to sleep; some, perhaps, far in the +wold and wild, amid the rocks, where fox and wild bird were their +visitors; but for an instant they rose again from their graves, and I +knew them. + +"They could do wonders by the power of the imagination," says Glanvil of +the gypsies; "their fancy binding that of others." Understand by +imagination and fancy all that Glanvil really meant, and I agree with +him. It is a matter of history that, since the Aryan morning of mankind, +the Romanys have been chiromancing, and, following it, trying to read +people's minds and bind them to belief. Thousands of years of +transmitted hereditary influences always result in something; it has +really resulted with the gypsies in an instinctive, though undeveloped, +intuitive perception, which a sympathetic mind acquires from them,--nay, +is compelled to acquire, out of mere self-defense; and when gained, it +manifests itself in many forms, + + "But it needs heaven-sent moments for this skill." + + + + +AMERICAN GYPSIES. + + +I. GYPSIES IN PHILADELPHIA. + + +It is true that the American gypsy has grown more vigorous in this +country, and, like many plants, has thriven better for being trans--I was +about to write incautiously _ported_, but, on second thought, say +_planted_. Strangely enough, he is more Romany than ever. I have had +many opportunities of studying both the elders from England and the +younger gypsies, born of English parents, and I have found that there is +unquestionably a great improvement in the race here, even from a gypsy +stand-point. The young sapling, under more favorable influences, has +pushed out from the old root, and grown stronger. The causes for this +are varied. Gypsies, like peacocks, thrive best when allowed to range +afar. _Il faut leur donner le clef des champs_ (you must give them the +key of the fields), as I once heard an old Frenchman, employed on +Delmonico's Long Island farm, lang syne, say of that splendid poultry. +And what a range they have, from the Atlantic to the Pacific! Marry, +sir, 't is like roaming from sunrise to sunset, east and west, "and from +the aurora borealis to a Southern blue-jay," and no man shall make them +afraid. Wood! "Well, 't is a _kushto tem for kasht_" (a fair land for +timber), as a very decent _Romani-chal_ said to me one afternoon. It was +thinking of him which led me to these remarks. + +I had gone with my niece--who speaks Romany--out to a gypsyry by Oaklands +Park, and found there one of our good people, with his wife and children, +in a tent. Hard by was the wagon and the horse, and, after the usual +initiatory amazement at being accosted in the _kalo jib_, or black +language, had been survived, we settled down into conversation. It was a +fine autumnal day, Indian-summery,--the many in one of all that is fine +in weather all the world over, put into a single glorious sense,--a sense +of bracing air and sunshine not over-bold or bright, and purple, tawny +hues in western skies, and dim, sweet feelings of the olden time. And as +we sat lounging in lowly seats, and talked about the people and their +ways, it seemed to me as if I were again in Devonshire or Surrey. Our +host--for every gypsy who is visited treats you as a guest, thus much +Oriental politeness being deeply set in him--had been in America from +boyhood, but he seemed to be perfectly acquainted with all whom I had +known over the sea. Only one thing he had not heard, the death of old +Gentilla Cooper, of the Devil's Dyke, near Brighton, for I had just +received a letter from England announcing the sad news. + +"Yes, this America is a good country for travelers. _We can go South in +winter_. Aye, the land is big enough to go to a warm side in winter, and +a cool one in summer. But I don't go South, because I don't like the +people; I don't get along with them. _Some Romanys do_. Yes, but I'm +not on that horse, I hear that the old country's getting to be a hard +place for our people. Yes, just as you say, there's no _tan to hatch_, +no place to stay in there, unless you pay as much as if you went to a +hotel. 'T isn't so here. Some places they're uncivil, but mostly we can +get wood and water, and a place for a tent, and a bite for the old _gry_ +[horse]. The country people like to see us come, in many places. +They're more high-minded and hon'rable here than they are in England. If +we can cheat them in horse-dealin' they stand it as gentlemen always +ought to do among themselves in such games. Horse-dealin' is +horse-stealin', in a way, among real gentlemen. If I can Jew you or you +do me, it's all square in gamblin', and nobody has any call to complain. +Therefore, I allow that Americans are higher up as gentlemen than what +they are in England. It is not all of one side, like a jug-handle, +either. Many of these American farmers can cheat me, and have done it, +and are proud of it. Oh, yes; they're much higher toned here. In +England, if you put off a _bavolengro_ [broken-winded horse] on a fellow +he comes after you with a _chinamangri_ [writ]. Here he goes like a man +and swindles somebody else with the _gry_, instead of sneaking off to a +magistrate. + +"Yes," he continued, "England's a little country, very little, indeed, +but it is astonishing how many Romanys come out of it over here. _Do I +notice any change in them after coming_? I do. When they first come, +they drink liquor or beer all the time. After a while they stop heavy +drinking." + +I may here observe that even in England the gypsy, although his getting +drunk is too often regulated or limited simply by his means, seldom shows +in his person the results of long-continued intemperance. Living in the +open air, taking much exercise, constantly practicing boxing, rough +riding, and other manly sports, he is "as hard as nails," and generally +lives to a hearty old age. As he very much prefers beer to spirits, it +may be a question whether excess in such drinking is really any serious +injury to him. The ancestors of the common English peasants have for a +thousand, it may be for two thousand, years or more all got drunk on +beer, whenever they could afford it, and yet a more powerful human being +than the English peasant does not exist. It may be that the weaklings +all die at an early age. This I cannot deny, nor that those who survive +are simply so tough that beer cannot kill them. What this gypsy said of +the impartial and liberal manner in which he and his kind are received by +the farmers is also true. I once conversed on this subject with a +gentleman farmer, and his remarks were much like those of the Rom. I +inferred from what he said that the coming of a party of gypsy +horse-dealers into his neighborhood was welcomed much as the passengers +on a Southern steamboat were wont of old to welcome the proprietor of a +portable faro bank. "I think," said he, "that the last time the gypsies +were here they left more than they took away." An old Rom told me once +that in some parts of New Jersey they were obliged to watch their tents +and wagons very carefully for fear of the country people. I do not +answer for the truth of this. It speaks vast volumes for the cleverness +of gypsies that they can actually make a living by trading horses in New +Spain. + +It is very true that in many parts of America the wanderers are welcomed +with _feux de joie_, or with salutes of shot-guns,--the guns, +unfortunately, being shotted and aimed at them. I have mentioned in +another chapter, on a Gypsy Magic Spell, that once in Tennessee, when an +old Romany mother had succeeded in hoaxing a farmer's wife out of all she +had in the world, the neighboring farmers took the witch, and, with a +view to preventing effectually further depredation, caused her to pass +"through flames material and temporal unto flames immaterial and +eternal;" that is to say, they burned her alive. But the gypsy would +much prefer having to deal with lynchers than with lawyers. Like the +hedge-hog, which is typically a gypsy animal, he likes better to be eaten +by those of his own kind than to be crushed into dirt by those who do not +understand him. This story of the hedge-hog was cited from my first +gypsy book by Sir Charles Dilke, in a speech in which he made an +application of it to certain conservatives who remained blindly suffering +by their own party. It will hold good forever. Gypsies never flourished +so in Europe as during the days when every man's hand was against them. +It is said that they raided and plundered about Scotland for fifty years +before they were definitely discovered to be mere marauders, for the +Scots themselves were so much given up to similar pursuits that the +gypsies passed unnoticed. + +The American gypsies do not beg, like their English brothers, and +particularly their English sisters. This fact speaks volumes for their +greater prosperity and for the influence which association with a proud +race has on the poorest people. Our friends at Oaklands always welcomed +us as guests. On another occasion when we went there, I said to my +niece, "If we find strangers who do not know us, do not speak at first in +Romany. Let us astonish them." We came to a tent, before which sat a +very dark, old-fashioned gypsy woman. I paused before her, and said in +English,-- + +"Can you tell a fortune for a young lady?" + +"She don't want her fortune told," replied the old woman, suspiciously +and cautiously, or it may be with a view of drawing us on. "No, I can't +tell fortunes." + +At this the young lady was so astonished that, without thinking of what +she was saying, or in what language, she cried,-- + +"_Dordi_! _Can't tute pen dukkerin_?" (Look! Can't you tell fortunes?) + +This unaffected outburst had a greater effect than the most deeply +studied theatrical situation could have brought about. The old dame +stared at me and at the lady as if bewildered, and cried,-- + +"In the name of God, what kind of gypsies are _you_?" + +"Oh! _mendui shom bori chovihani_!" cried L., laughing; "we are a great +witch and a wizard, and if you can't tell me my fortune, I'll tell yours. +Hold out your hand, and cross mine with a dollar, and I'll tell you as +big a lie as you ever _penned_ a _galderli Gorgio_ [a green Gentile]." + +"Well," exclaimed the gypsy, "I'll believe that you can tell fortunes or +do anything! _Dordi_! _dordi_! but this is wonderful. Yet you're not +the first Romany _rani_ [lady] I ever met. There's one in Delaware: a +_boridiri_ [very great] lady she is, and true Romany,--_flick o the jib +te rinkeni adosta_ [quick of tongue and fair of face]. Well, I am glad +to see you." "Who is that talking there?" cried a man's voice from +within the tent. He had heard Romany, and he spoke it, and came out +expecting to see familiar faces. His own was a study, as his glance +encountered mine. As soon as he understood that I came as a friend, he +gave way to infinite joy, mingled with sincerest grief that he had not at +hand the means of displaying hospitality to such distinguished Romanys as +we evidently were. He bewailed the absence of strong drink. Would we +have some tea made? Would I accompany him to the next tavern, and have +some beer? All at once a happy thought struck him. He went into the +tent and brought out a piece of tobacco, which I was compelled to accept. +Refusal would have been unkind, for it was given from the very heart. +George Borrow tells us that, in Spain, a poor gypsy once brought him a +pomegranate as a first acquaintanceship token. A gypsy is a gypsy +wherever you find him. + +These were very nice people. The old dame took a great liking to L., and +showed it in pleasant manners. The couple were both English, and liked +to talk with me of the old country and the many mutual friends whom we +had left behind. On another visit, L. brought a scarlet silk +handkerchief, which she had bound round her head and tied under her chin +in a very gypsy manner. It excited, as I anticipated, great admiration +from the old dame. + +"_Ah kenna tute dikks rinkeni_--now you look nice. That's the way a +Romany lady ought to wear it! Don't she look just as Alfi used to look?" +she cried to her husband. "Just such eyes and hair!" + +Here L. took off the _diklo_, or handkerchief, and passed it round the +gypsy woman's head, and tied it under her chin, saying,-- + +"I am sure it becomes you much more than it does me. Now you look +nice:-- + + "'Red and yellow for Romany, + And blue and pink for the Gorgiee.'" + +We rose to depart, the old dame offered back to L. her handkerchief, and, +on being told to keep it, was greatly pleased. I saw that the way in +which it was given had won her heart. + +"Did you hear what the old woman said while she was telling your +fortune?" asked L., after we had left the tent. + +"Now, I think of it, I remember that she or you had hold of my hand, +while I was talking with the old man, and he was making merry with my +whisky. I was turned away, and around so that I never noticed what you +two were saying." + +"She _penned_ your _dukkerin_, and it was wonderful. She said that she +must tell it." + +And here L. told me what the old _dye_ had insisted on reading in my +hand. It was simply very remarkable, and embraced an apparent knowledge +of the past, which would make any credulous person believe in her happy +predictions of the future. + +"Ah, well," I said, "I suppose the _dukk_ told it to her. She may be an +eye-reader. A hint dropped here and there, unconsciously, the expression +of the face, and a life's practice will make anybody a witch. And if +there ever was a witch's eye, she has it." + +"I would like to have her picture," said L., "in that _lullo diklo_ [red +handkerchief]. She looked like all the sorceresses of Thessaly and Egypt +in one, and, as Bulwer says of the Witch of Vesuvius, was all the more +terrible for having been beautiful." + +Some time after this we went, with Britannia Lee a-gypsying, not +figuratively, but literally, over the river into New Jersey. And our +first greeting, as we touched the ground, was of good omen, and from a +great man, for it was Walt Whitman. It is not often that even a poet +meets with three sincerer admirers than the venerable bard encountered on +this occasion; so, of course, we stopped and talked, and L. had the +pleasure of being the first to communicate to Bon Gualtier certain +pleasant things which had recently been printed of him by a distinguished +English author, which is always an agreeable task. Blessed upon the +mountains, or at the Camden ferryboat, or anywhere, are the feet of +anybody who bringeth glad tidings. + +"Well, are you going to see gypsies?" + +"We are. We three gypsies be. By the abattoir. _Au revoir_." + +And on we went to the place where I had first found gypsies in America. +All was at first so still that it seemed if no one could be camped in the +spot. + +"_Se kekno adoi_." (There's nobody there.) + +"_Dordi_!" cried Britannia, "_Dikkava me o tuv te tan te wardo_. [I see +a smoke, a tent, a wagon.] I declare, it is my _puro pal_, my old +friend, W." + +And we drew near the tent and greeted its owner, who was equally +astonished and delighted at seeing such distinguished Romany _tani +ranis_, or gypsy young ladies, and brought forth his wife and three +really beautiful children to do the honors. W. was a good specimen of an +American-born gypsy, strong, healthy, clean, and temperate, none the +worse for wear in out-of-dooring, through tropical summers and terrible +winters. Like all American Romanys, he was more straightforward than +most of his race in Europe. All Romanys are polite, but many of the +European kind are most uncomfortably and unconsciously naive. Strange +that the most innocent people should be those who most offend morality. +I knew a lady once--Heaven grant that I may never meet with such +another!--who had been perfectly educated in entire purity of soul. And +I never knew any _devergondee_ who could so shock, shame, and pain decent +people as this Agnes did in her sweet ignorance. + +"I shall never forget the first day you came to my camp," said W. to +Britannia. "Ah, you astonished me then. You might have knocked me down +with a feather. And I didn't know what to say. You came in a carriage +with two other ladies. And you jumped out first, and walked up to me, +and cried, '_Sa'shan_!' That stunned me, but I answered, '_Sa'shan_.' +Then I didn't speak Romanes to you, for I didn't know but what you kept +it a secret from the other two ladies, and I didn't wish to betray you. +And when you began to talk it as deep as any old Romany I ever heard, and +pronounced it so rich and beautiful, I thought I'd never heard the like. +I thought you must be a witch." + +"_Awer me shom chovihani_" (but I am a witch), cried the lady. "_Mukka +men ja adre o tan_." (Let us go into the tent.) So we entered, and sat +round the fire, and asked news of all the wanderers of the roads, and the +young ladies, having filled their pockets with sweets, produced them for +the children, and we were as much at home as we had ever been in any +salon; for it was a familiar scene to us all, though it would, perhaps, +have been a strange one to the reader, had he by chance, walking that +lonely way in the twilight, looked into the tent and asked his way, and +there found two young ladies--_bien mises_--with their escort, all very +much at their ease, and talking Romany as if they had never known any +other tongue from the cradle. + +"What is the charm of all this?" It is that if one has a soul, and does +not live entirely reflected from the little thoughts and little ways of a +thousand other little people, it is well to have at all times in his +heart some strong hold of nature. No matter how much we may be lost in +society, dinners, balls, business, we should never forget that there is +an eternal sky with stars over it all, a vast, mysterious earth with +terrible secrets beneath us, seas, mountains, rivers, and forests away +and around; and that it is from these and what is theirs, and not from +gas-lit, stifling follies, that all strength and true beauty must come. +To this life, odd as he is, the gypsy belongs, and to be sometimes at +home with him by wood and wold takes us for a time from "the world." If +I express myself vaguely and imperfectly, it is only to those who know +not the charm of nature, its ineffable soothing sympathy,--its life, its +love. Gypsies, like children, feel this enchantment as the older grown +do not. To them it is a song without words; would they be happier if the +world brought them to know it as words without song, without music or +melody? I never read a right old English ballad of sumere when the +leaves are grene or the not-broune maid, with its rustling as of sprays +quivering to the song of the wode-wale, without thinking or feeling +deeply how those who wrote them would have been bound to the Romany. It +is ridiculous to say that gypsies are not "educated" to nature and art, +when, in fact, they live it. I sometimes suspect that aesthetic culture +takes more true love of nature out of the soul than it inspires. One +would not say anything of a wild bird or deer being deficient in a sense +of that beauty of which it is a part. There are infinite grades, kinds, +or varieties of feeling of nature, and every man is perfectly satisfied +that his is the true one. For my own part, I am not sure that a rabbit, +in the dewy grass, does not feel the beauty of nature quite as much as +Mr. Ruskin, and much more than I do. + +No poet has so far set forth the charm of gypsy life better than Lenau +has done, in his highly-colored, quickly-expressive ballad of "Die drei +Zigeuner," of which I here give a translation into English and another +into Anglo-American Romany. + + THE THREE GYPSIES. + + I saw three gypsy men, one day, + Camped in a field together, + As my wagon went its weary way, + All over the sand and heather. + + And one of the three whom I saw there + Had his fiddle just before him, + And played for himself a stormy air, + While the evening-red shone o'er him. + + And the second puffed his pipe again + Serenely and undaunted, + As if he at least of earthly men + Had all the luck that he wanted. + + In sleep and comfort the last was laid, + In a tree his cymbal {238} lying, + Over its strings the breezes played, + O'er his heart a dream went flying. + + Ragged enough were all the three, + Their garments in holes and tatters; + But they seemed to defy right sturdily + The world and all worldly matters. + + Thrice to the soul they seemed to say, + When earthly trouble tries it, + How to fiddle, sleep it, and smoke it away, + And so in three ways despise it. + + And ever anon I look around, + As my wagon onward presses, + At the gypsy faces darkly browned, + And the long black flying tresses. + + TRIN ROMANI CHALIA. + + Dikdom me trin geeria + Sar yeckno a tacho Rom, + Sa miro wardo ghias adur + Apre a wafedo drom. + + O yeckto sos boshengero, + Yuv kellde pes-kokero, + O kamlo-dud te perele + Sos lullo apre lo. + + O duito sar a swagele + Dikde 'pre lestes tuv, + Ne kamde kumi, penava me + 'Dre sar o miduvels puv. + + O trinto sovade kushto-bak + Lest 'zimbel adre rukk se, + O bavol kelld' pre i tavia, + O sutto 'pre leskro zi. + + Te sar i lengheri rudaben + Shan katterdi-chingerdo + Awer me penav' i Romani chals + Ne kesserden chi pa lo. + + Trin dromia lende sikkerden kan + Sar dikela wafedo, + Ta bosher, tuver te sove-a-le + Aja sa bachtalo. + + Dikdom palal, sa ghiom adur + Talla yeckno Romani chal + 'Pre lengheri kali-brauni mui, + Te lengheri kali bal. + + + +II. THE CROCUS-PITCHER. {241} (PHILADELPHIA.) + + +It was a fine spring noon, and the corner of Fourth and Library streets +in Philadelphia was like a rock in the turn of a rapid river, so great +was the crowd of busy business men which flowed past. Just out of the +current a man paused, put down a parcel which he carried, turned it into +a table, placed on it several vials, produced a bundle of hand-bills, and +began, in the language of his tribe, to _cant_--that is, _cantare_, to +sing--the virtues of a medicine which was certainly _patent_ in being +spread out by him to extremest thinness. In an instant there were a +hundred people round him. He seemed to be well known and waited for. I +saw at a glance what he was. The dark eye and brown face indicated a +touch of the _diddikai_, or one with a little gypsy blood in his veins, +while his fluent patter and unabashed boldness showed a long familiarity +with race-grounds and the road, or with the Cheap-Jack and Dutch auction +business, and other pursuits requiring unlimited eloquence and impudence. +How many a man of learning, nay of genius, might have paused and envied +that vagabond the gifts which were worth so little to their possessor! +But what was remarkable about him was that instead of endeavoring to +conceal any gypsy indications, they were manifestly exaggerated. He wore +a broad-brimmed hat and ear-rings and a red embroidered waistcoat of the +most forcible old Romany pattern, which was soon explained by his words. + +"Sorry to keep you waiting," he said. "I am always sorry to detain a +select and genteel audience. But I was detained myself by a very +interesting incident. I was invited to lunch with a wealthy German +gentleman; a very wealthy German, I say, one of the pillars of your city +and front door-step of your council, and who would be the steeple of your +exchange, if it had one. And on arriving at his house he remarked, +'Toctor, by tam you koom yust in goot dime, for mine frau und die cook +ish bote fall sick mit some-ding in a hoory, und I kess she'll die pooty +quick-sudden.' Unfortunately I had with me, gentlemen, but a single dose +of my world-famous Gypsy's Elixir and Romany Pharmacopheionepenthe. +(That is the name, gentlemen, but as I detest quackery I term it simply +the Gypsy's Elixir.) When the German gentleman learned that in all +probability but one life could be saved he said, 'Veil, denn, doctor, +subbose you gifes dat dose to de cook. For mine frau ish so goot dat +it's all right mit her. She's reaty to tie. But de boor gook ish a +sinner, ash I knows, und not reaty for de next world. And dere ish no +vomans in town dat can gook mine sauer-kraut ash she do.' Fortunately, +gentlemen, I found in an unknown corner of a forgotten pocket an +unsuspected bottle of the Gypsy's Elixir, and both interesting lives were +saved with such promptitude, punctuality, neatness and dispatch that the +cook proceeded immediately to conclude the preparation of our +meal--(thank you sir,--one dollar, if you please, sir. You say I only +charged half a dollar yesterday! That was for a smaller bottle, sir. +Same size, as this, was it? Ah, yes, I gave you a large bottle by +mistake,--so you owe me fifty cents. Never mind, don't give it back. +I'll take the half dollar.") + +All of this had been spoken with the utmost volubility. As I listened I +almost fancied myself again in England, and at a country fair. Taking in +his audience at a glance, I saw his eye rest on me ere it flitted, and he +resumed,-- + +"We gypsies are, as you know, a remarkable race, and possessed of certain +rare secrets, which have all been formulated, concentrated, dictated, and +plenipotentiarated into this idealized Elixir. If I were a mountebank or +a charlatan I would claim that it cures a hundred diseases. Charlatan is +a French word for a quack. I speak French, gentlemen; I speak nine +languages, and can tell you the Hebrew for an old umbrella. The Gypsy's +Elixir cures colds, gout, all nervous affections, with such cutaneous +disorders as are diseases of the skin, debility, sterility, hostility, +and all the illities that flesh is heir to except what it can't, such as +small-pox and cholera. It has cured cholera, but it don't claim to do +it. Others claim to cure, but can't. I am not a charlatan, but an +Ann-Eliza. That is the difference between me and a lady, as the pig said +when he astonished his missus by blushing at her remarks to the postman. +(_Better have another bottle_, _sir_. _Haven't you the change_? _Never +mind_, _you can owe me fifty cents_. _I know a gentleman when I see +one_.) I was recently Down East in Maine, where they are so patriotic, +they all put the stars and stripes into their beds for sheets, have the +Fourth of July three hundred and sixty-five times in the year, and eat +the Declaration of Independence for breakfast. And they wouldn't buy a +bottle of my Gypsy's Elixir till they heard it was good for the +Constitution, whereupon they immediately purchased my entire stock. +Don't lose time in securing this invaluable blessing to those who feel +occasional pains in the lungs. This is not taradiddle. I am engaged to +lecture this afternoon before the Medical Association of Germantown, as +on Wednesday before the University of Baltimore; for though I sell +medicine here in the streets, it is only, upon my word of honor, that the +poor may benefit, and the lowly as well as the learned know how to prize +the philanthropic and eccentric gypsy." + +He run on with his patter for some time in this vein, and sold several +vials of his panacea, and then in due time ceased, and went into a +bar-room, which I also entered. I found him in what looked like +prospective trouble, for a policeman was insisting on purchasing his +medicine, and on having one of his hand-bills. He was remonstrating, +when I quietly said to him in Romany, "Don't trouble yourself; you were +not making any disturbance." He took no apparent notice of what I said +beyond an almost imperceptible wink, but soon left the room, and when I +had followed him into the street, and we were out of ear-shot, he +suddenly turned on me and said,-- + +"Well, you _are_ a swell, for a Romany. How do you do it up to such a +high peg?" + +"Do what?" + +"Do the whole lay,--look so gorgeous?" + +"Why, I'm no better dressed than you are,--not so well, if you come to +that _vongree_" (waistcoat). + +"'T isn't _that_,--'t isn't the clothes. It's the air and the style. +Anybody'd believe you'd had no end of an education. I could make ten +dollars a patter if I could do it as natural as you do. Perhaps you'd +like to come in on halves with me as a bonnet. _No_? Well, I suppose +you have a better line. You've been lucky. I tell you, you astonished +me when you _rakkered_, though I spotted you in the crowd for one who was +off the color of the common Gorgios,--or, as the Yahudi say, the _Goyim_. +No, I carn't _rakker_, or none to speak of, and noways as deep as you, +though I was born in a tent on Battersea Common and grew up a fly fakir. +What's the drab made of that I sell in these bottles? Why, the old fake, +of course,--you needn't say _you_ don't know that. _Italic good +English_. Yes, I know I do. A fakir is bothered out of his life and +chaffed out of half his business when he drops his _h_'s. A man can do +anything when he must, and I must talk fluently and correctly to succeed +in such a business. _Would I like a drop of something_? You paid for +the last, now you must take a drop with me. _Do I know of any Romany's +in town_? Lots of them. There is a ken in Lombard Street with a regular +fly mort,--but on second thoughts we won't go there,--_and_--oh, I say--a +very nice place in --- Street. The landlord is a Yahud; his wife can +_rakker_ you, I'm sure. _She's_ a good lot, too." + +And while on the way I will explain that my acquaintance was not to be +regarded as a real gypsy. He was one of that large nomadic class with a +tinge of gypsy blood who have grown up as waifs and strays, and who, +having some innate cleverness, do the best they can to live without +breaking the law--much. They deserve pity, for they have never been +cared for; they owe nothing to society for kindness, and yet they are +held even more strictly to account by the law than if they had been +regularly Sunday-schooled from babyhood. This man when he spoke of +Romanys did not mean real gypsies; he used the word as it occurs in +Ainsworth's song of + + "Nix my dolly, pals fake away. + And here I am both tight and free, + A regular rollicking Romany." + +For he meant _Bohemian_ in its widest and wildest sense, and to him all +that was apart from the world was _his_ world, whether it was Rom or +Yahudi, and whether it conversed in Romany or Schmussen, or any other +tongue unknown to the Gentiles. He had indeed no home, and had never +known one. + +It was not difficult to perceive that the place to which he led me was +devoted in the off hours to some other business besides the selling of +liquor. It was neat and quiet, in fact rather sleepy; but its card, +which was handed to me, stated in a large capital head-line that it was +OPEN ALL NIGHT, and that there was pool at all hours. I conjectured that +a little game might also be performed there at all hours, and that, like +the fountain of Jupiter Ammon, it became livelier as it grew later, and +that it certainly would not be on the full boil before midnight. + +"_Scheiker fur mich_, _der Isch will jain soreff shaskenen_" (Beer for me +and brandy for him), I said to the landlord, who at once shook my hand +and saluted me with _Sholem_! Even so did Ben Daoud of Jerusalem, not +long ago. Ben knew me not, and I was buying a pocket-book of him at his +open-air stand in Market Street, and talking German, while he was +endeavoring to convince me that I ought to give five cents more for it +than I had given for a similar case the day before, on the ground that it +was of a different color, or under color that the leather had a different +ground, I forget which. In talking I let fall the word _kesef_ (silver). +In an instant Ben had taken my hand, and said _Sholem aleichum_, and "Can +you talk Spanish?"--which was to show that he was superfine Sephardi, and +not common Ashkenaz. + +"Yes," resumed the crocus-fakir; "a man must be able to talk English very +fluently, pronounce it correctly, and, above all things, keep his temper, +if he would do anything that requires chanting or pattering. _How did I +learn it_? A man can learn to do anything when it's business and his +living depends on it. The people who crowd around me in the streets +cannot pronounce English decently; not one in a thousand here can say +_laugh_, except as a sheep says it. Suppose that you are a Cheap Jack +selling things from a van. About once in an hour some tipsy fellow tries +to chaff you. He hears your tongue going, and that sets his off. He +hears the people laugh at your jokes, and he wants them to laugh at his. +When you say you're selling to raise money for a burned-out widow, he +asks if she isn't your wife. Then you answer him, 'No, but the +kind-hearted old woman who found you on the door-step and brought you up +to the begging business.' If you say you are selling goods under cost, +it's very likely some yokel will cry out, 'Stolen, hey?' And you patter +as quick as lightning, 'Very likely; I thought your wife sold 'em to me +too cheap for the good of somebody's clothes-line.' If you show yourself +his superior in language awd wit, the people will buy better; they always +prefer a gentleman to a cad. Bless me! why, a swell in a dress-coat and +kid gloves, with good patter and hatter, can sell a hundred rat-traps +while a dusty cad in a flash kingsman would sell one. As for the +replies, most of them are old ones. As the men who interrupt you are +nearly all of the same kind, and have heads of very much the same make, +with an equal number of corners, it follows that they all say nearly the +same things. Why, I've heard two duffers cry out the same thing at once +to me. So you soon have answers cut and dried for them. We call 'em +_cocks_, because they're just like half-penny ballads, all ready printed, +while the pitcher always has the one you want ready at his finger-ends. +It is the same in all canting. I knew a man once who got his living by +singing of evenings in the gaffs to the piano, and making up verses on +the gentlemen and ladies as they came in; and very nice verses he made, +too,--always as smooth as butter. _How do you do it_? I asked him one +day. 'Well, you wouldn't believe it,' said he; 'but they're mostly +cocks. The best ones I buy for a tanner [sixpence] apiece. If a tall +gentleman with a big beard comes in, I strike a deep chord and sing,-- + + "'This tall and handsome party, + With such a lot of hair, + Who seems so grand and hearty, + Must be a _militaire_; + We like to see a swell come + Who looks so _distingue_, + So let us bid him welcome, + And hope he'll find us gay.' + +"The last half can be used for anybody. That's the way the improvisatory +business is managed for visitors. Why, it's the same with +fortune-telling. _You have noticed that_. Well, if the Gorgios had, it +would have been all up with the fake long ago. The old woman has the +same sort of girls come to her with the same old stories, over and over +again, and she has a hundred dodges and gets a hundred straight tips +where nobody else would see anything; and of course she has the same +replies all ready. There is nothing like being glib. And there's really +a great deal of the same in the regular doctor business, as I know, +coming close on to it and calling myself one. Why, I've been called into +a regular consultation in Chicago, where I had an office,--'pon my honor +I was, and no great honor neither. It was all patter, and I pattered 'em +dumb." + +I began to think that the fakir could talk forever and ever faster. If +he excelled in his business, he evidently practiced at all times to do +so. I intimated as much, and he at once proceeded fluently to illustrate +this point also. + +"You hear men say every day that if they only had an education they would +do great things. What it would all come to with most of them is that +they would _talk_ so as to shut other men up and astonish 'em. They have +not an idea above that. I never had any schooling but the roads and +race-grounds, but I can talk the hat off a lawyer, and that's all I can +do. Any man of them could talk well if he tried; but none of them will +try, and as they go through life, telling you how clever they'd have been +if somebody else had only done something for them, instead of doing +something for themselves. So you must be going. Well, I hope I shall +see you again. Just come up when you're going by and say that your wife +was raised from the dead by my Elixir, and that it's the best medicine +you ever had. And if you want to see some regular tent gypsies, there's +a camp of them now just four miles from here; real old style Romanys. Go +out on the road four miles, and you'll find them just off the +side,--anybody will show you the place. _Sarishan_!" + +I was sorry to read in the newspaper, a few days after, that the fakir +had been really arrested and imprisoned for selling a quack medicine. +For in this land of liberty it makes an enormous difference whether you +sell by advertisement in the newspapers or on the sidewalk, which shows +that there is one law for the rich and another for the poor, even in a +republic. + + + +III. GYPSIES IN CAMP. (NEW JERSEY.) + + +The Weather had put on his very worst clothes, and was never so hard at +work for the agricultural interests, or so little inclined to see +visitors, as on the Sunday afternoon when I started gypsying. The rain +and the wind were fighting one with another, and both with the mud, even +as the Jews in Jerusalem fought with themselves, and both with the +Romans,--which was the time when the _Shaket_, or butcher, killed the ox +who drank the water which quenched the fire which the reader has often +heard all about, yet not knowing, perhaps, that the house which Jack +built was the Holy Temple of Jerusalem. It was with such reflections +that I beguiled time on a long walk, for which I was not unfitly equipped +in corduroy trousers, with a long Ulster and a most disreputable cap +befitting a stable-boy. The rig, however, kept out the wet, and I was +too recently from England to care much that it was raining. I had seen +the sun on color about thirty times altogether during the past year, and +so had not as yet learned to miss him. It is on record that when the +Shah was in England a lady said to him, "Can it be possible, your +highness, that there are in your dominions people who worship the sun?" +"Yes," replied the monarch, musingly; "and so would you, if you could +only see him." + +The houses became fewer as I went on, till at last I reached the place +near which I knew the gypsies must be camped. As is their custom in +England, they had so established themselves as not to be seen from the +road. The instinct which they display in thus getting near people, and +yet keeping out of their sight, even as rats do, is remarkable. I +thought I knew the town of Brighton, in England, thoroughly, and had +explored all its nooks, and wondered that I had never found any gypsies +there. One day I went out with a Romany acquaintance, who, in a short +time, took me to half a dozen tenting-places, round corners in mysterious +by-ways. It often happens that the spots which they select to _hatch the +tan_, or pitch the tent, are picturesque bits, such as artists love, and +all gypsies are fully appreciative of beauty in this respect. It is not +a week, as I write, since I heard an old horse-dealing veteran of the +roads apologize to me with real feeling for the want of a view near his +tent, just as any other man might have excused the absence of pictures +from his walls. The most beautiful spot for miles around Williamsport, +in Pennsylvania, a river dell, which any artist would give a day to +visit, is the favorite camping-ground of the Romany. Woods and water, +rocks and loneliness, make it lovely by day, and when, at eventide, the +fire of the wanderers lights up the scene, it also lights up in the soul +many a memory of tents in the wilderness, of pictures in the Louvre, of +Arabs and of Wouvermanns and belated walks by the Thames, and of Salvator +Rosa. Ask me why I haunt gypsydom. It has put me into a thousand +sympathies with nature and art, which I had never known without it. The +Romany, like the red Indian, and all who dwell by wood and wold as +outlawes wont to do, are the best human links to bind us to their +home-scenery, and lead us into its inner life. What constitutes the +antithetic charm of those wonderful lines, + + "Afar in the desert, I love to ride, + With the silent bush-boy alone by my side," + +but the presence of the savage who belongs to the scene, and whose +_being_ binds the poet to it, and blends him with it as the flux causes +the fire to melt the gold? + +I left the road, turned the corner, and saw before me the low, round +tents, with smoke rising from the tops, dark at first and spreading into +light gray, like scalp-locks and feathers upon Indian heads. Near them +were the gayly-painted vans, in which I at once observed a difference +from the more substantial-looking old-country _vardo_. The whole scene +was so English that I felt a flutter at the heart: it was a bit from over +the sea; it seemed as if hedge-rows should have been round, and an old +Gothic steeple looking over the trees. I thought of the last gypsy camp +I had seen near Henley-on-Thames, and wished Plato Buckland were with me +to share the fun which one was always sure to have on such an occasion in +his eccentric company. But now Plato was, like his father in the song, + + "_Duro pardel the boro pani_," + Far away over the broad-rolling sea, + +and I must introduce myself. There was not a sign of life about, save in +a sorrowful hen, who looked as if she felt bitterly what it was to be a +Pariah among poultry and a down-pin, and who cluttered as if she might +have had a history of being borne from her bower in the dark midnight by +desperate African reivers, of a wild moonlit flitting and crossing black +roaring torrents, drawn all the while by the neck, as a Turcoman pulls a +Persian prisoner on an "alaman," with a rope, into captivity, and finally +of being sold unto the Egyptians. I drew near a tent: all was silent, as +it always is in a _tan_ when the foot-fall of the stranger is heard; but +I knew that it was packed with inhabitants. + +I called in Romany my greeting, and bade somebody come out. And there +appeared a powerfully built, dark-browed, good-looking man of thirty, who +was as gypsy as Plato himself. He greeted me very civilly, but with some +surprise, and asked me what he could do for me. + +"Ask me in out of the rain, pal," I replied. "You don't suppose I've +come four miles to see you and stop out here, do you?" + +This was, indeed, reasonable, and I was invited to enter, which I did, +and found myself in a scene which would have charmed Callot or Goya. +There was no door or window to the black tent; what light there was came +through a few rifts and rents and mingled with the dull gleam of a +smoldering fire, producing a perfect Rembrandt blending of rosy-red with +dreamy half-darkness. It was a real witch-aura, and the denizens were +worthy of it. As my eyes gradually grew to the gloom, I saw that on one +side four brown old Romany sorceresses were "_beshing apre ye pus_" +(sitting on the straw), as the song has it, with deeper masses of +darkness behind them, in which other forms were barely visible. Their +black eyes all flashed up together at me, like those of a row of eagles +in a cage; and I saw in a second that, with men and all I was in a party +who were anything but milksops; in fact, with as regularly determined a +lot of hard old Romanys as ever battered a policeman. I confess that a +feeling like a thrill of joy came over me--a memory of old days and +by-gone scenes over the sea--when I saw this, and knew they were not +_diddikais_, or half-breed mumpers. On the other side, several young +people, among them three or four good-looking girls, were eating their +four-o'clock meal from a canvas spread on the ground. There were perhaps +twenty persons in the place, including the children who swarmed about. + +Even in a gypsy tent something depends on the style of a +self-introduction by a perfect stranger. Stepping forward, I divested +myself of my Ulster, and handed it to a nice damsel, giving her special +injunction to fold it up and lay it by. My _mise en scene_ appeared to +meet with approbation, and I stood forth and remarked,-- + +"Here I am, glad to see you; and if you want to see a regular _Romany +rye_ [gypsy gentleman], just over from England, now's your chance. +_Sarishan_!" + +And I received, as I expected, a cordial welcome. I was invited to sit +down and eat, but excused myself as having just come from _habben_, or +food, and settled myself to a cigar. But while everybody was polite, I +felt that under it all there was a reserve, a chill. I was altogether +too heavy a mystery. I knew my friends, and they did not know me. +Something, however, now took place which went far to promote +conviviality. The tent-flap was lifted, and there entered an elderly +woman, who, as a gypsy, might have been the other four in one, she was so +quadruply dark, so fourfold uncanny, so too-too witch-like in her eyes. +The others had so far been reserved as to speaking Romany; she, glancing +at me keenly, began at once to talk it very fluently, without a word of +English, with the intention of testing me; but as I understood her +perfectly, and replied with a burning gush of the same language, being, +indeed, glad to have at last "got into my plate," we were friends in a +minute. I did not know then that I was talking with a celebrity whose +name has even been groomily recorded in an English book; but I found at +once that she was truly "a character." She had manifestly been sent for +to test the stranger, and I knew this, and made myself agreeable, and was +evidently found _tacho_, or all right. It being a rule, in fact, with +few exceptions, that when you really like people, in a friendly way, and +are glad to be among them, they never fail to find it out, and the jury +always comes to a favorable verdict. + +And so we sat and talked on in the monotone in which Romany is generally +spoken, like an Indian song, while, like an Indian drum, the rain +pattered an accompaniment on the tightly drawn tent. Those who live in +cities, and who are always realizing self, and thinking how they think, +and are while awake given up to introverting vanity, never _live_ in +song. To do this one must be a child, an Indian, a dweller in fields and +green forests, a brother of the rain and road-puddles and rolling +streams, and a friend of the rustling leaves and the summer orchestra of +frogs and crickets and rippling grass. Those who hear this music and +think to it never think about it; those who live only in books never sing +to it in soul. As there are dreams which _will not_ be remembered or +known to _reason_, so this music shrinks from it. It is wonderful how +beauty perishes like a shade-grown flower before the sunlight of +analysis. It is dying out all the world over in women, under the +influence of cleverness and "style;" it is perishing in poetry and art +before criticism; it is wearing away from manliness, through +priggishness; it is being crushed out of true gentleness of heart and +nobility of soul by the pessimist puppyism of miching Mallockos. But +nature is eternal and will return. When man has run one of his phases of +culture fairly to the end, and when the fruit is followed by a rattling +rococo husk, then comes a winter sleep, from which he awakens to grow +again as a child-flower. We are at the very worst of such a time; but +there is a morning redness far away, which shows that the darkness is +ending, the winter past, the rain is over and gone. Arise, and come +away! + +"Sossi kair'd tute to av'akai pardel o boro pani?" (And what made you +come here across the broad water?) said the good old dame confidentially +and kindly, in the same low monotone. "Si lesti chorin a gry?" (Was it +stealing a horse?) + +_Dum_, _dum_, _dum_, _patter_, _patter_, _dum_! played the rain. + +"Avali I dikked your romus kaliko" (I saw your husband yesterday), +remarked some one aside to a girl. + +_Dum_, _dum_, _dum_, _patter_, _patter_, _dum_! + +"No, mother deari, it was not a horse, for I am on a better, higher lay." + +_Dum_, _dum_, _dum_, _patter_, _patter_, _dum_! + +"He is a first-rate dog, but mine's as good." + +_Dum_, _dum_, _dum_, _patter_, _dum_! + +"Tacho! There's money to be made by a gentleman like you by telling +fortunes." + +_Dum_, _dum_, _dum_, _patter_, _dum_! + +"Yes, a five-hundred-dollar hit sometimes. But _dye_, I work upon a +better lay." + +_Dum_, _dum_, _dum_, _patter_, _dum_! + +"Perhaps you are _a boro drabengro_" (a great physician). + +_Dum_, _dum_, _dum_, _patter_, _dum_! + +"It was away among the rocks that he fell into the reeds, half in the +water, and kept still till they went by." + +"If any one is ill among you, I may be of use." + +_Dum_, _dum_, _dum_, _patter_, _dum_! + +"And what a wind! It blows as if the good Lord were singing! Kushti +chirus se atch a-kerri." (This is a pleasant day to be at home.) + +_Dum_, _dum_, _dum_, _patter_, _dum_! + +"I thought you were a doctor, for you were going about in the town with +the one who sells medicine. I heard of it." + +_Dum_, _dum_, _dum_, _patter_, _dum_! + +"Do not hurry away! Come again and see us. I think the Coopers are all +out in Ohio." + +_Dum_, _dum_, _dum_, _patter_, _dum_! + +The cold wind and slight rain seemed refreshing and even welcome, as I +went out into the cold air. The captain showed me his stock of fourteen +horses and mules, and we interchanged views as to the best method of +managing certain maladies in such stock. I had been most kindly +entertained; indeed, with the home kindliness which good people in the +country show to some hitherto unseen and unknown relative who descends to +them from the great world of the city. Not but that my friends did not +know cities and men as well as Ulysses, but even Ulysses sometimes met +with a marvel. In after days I became quite familiar with the several +families who made the camp, and visited them in sunshine. But they +always occur to me in memory as in a deep Rembrandt picture, a wonderful +picture, and their voices as in vocal chiaroscuro; singing to the wind +without and the rain on the tent,-- + +_Dum_, _dum_, _dum_, _patter_, _dum_! + + + +IV. HOUSE GYPSIES IN PHILADELPHIA + + +This chapter was written by my niece through marriage, Miss Elizabeth +Robins. It is a part of an article which was published in "The Century," +and it sets forth certain wanderings in seeking old houses in the city of +Philadelphia. + +All along the lower part of Race Street, saith the lady, are wholesale +stores and warehouses of every description. Some carts belonging to one +of them had just been unloaded. The stevedores who do this--all +negroes--were resting while they waited for the next load. They were +great powerful men, selected for their strength, and were of many hues, +from _cafe au lait_, or coffee much milked, up to the browned or +black-scorched berry itself, while the very _athletae_ were coal-black. +They wore blue overalls, and on their heads they had thrown old +coffee-bags, which, resting on their foreheads, passed behind their ears +and hung loosely down their backs. It was in fact the _haik_ or +bag-cloak of the East, and it made a wonderfully effective Arab costume. +One of them was half leaning, half sitting, on a pile of bags; his +Herculean arms were folded, and he had unconsciously assumed an air of +dignity and defiance. He might have passed for an African chief. When +we see such men in Egypt or other sunny countries _outre mer_, we become +artistically eloquent; but it rarely occurs to sketchers and +word-painters to do much business in the home-market. + +The mixture of races in our cities is rapidly increasing, and we hardly +notice it. Yet it is coming to pass that a large part of our population +is German and Irish, and that our streets within ten years have become +fuller of Italian fruit dealers and organ-grinders, so that _Cives sum +Romanus_ (I am a Roman citizen), when abroad, now means either "I possess +a monkey" or "I sell pea-nuts." Jews from Jerusalem peddle pocket-books +on our sidewalks, Chinamen are monoplizing our washing and ironing, while +among laboring classes are thousands of Scandinavians, Bohemians, and +other Slaves. The prim provincial element which predominated in my +younger years is yielding before this influx of foreigners, and Quaker +monotony and stern conservatism are vanishing, while Philadelphia becomes +year by year more cosmopolite. + +As we left the handsome negroes and continued our walk on Water Street an +Italian passed us. He was indeed very dirty and dilapidated; his clothes +were of the poorest, and he carried a rag-picker's bag over his shoulder; +but his face, as he turned it towards us, was really beautiful. + +"_Siete Italiano_?" (Are you an Italian?) asked my uncle. + +"_Si_, _signore_" (Yes, sir), he answered, showing all his white teeth, +and opening his big brown eyes very wide. + +"_E come lei piace questo paese_?" (And how do you like this country?) + +"Not at all. It is too cold," was his frank answer, and laughing +good-humoredly he continued his search through the gutters. He would +have made a good model for an artist, for he had what we do not always +see in Italians, the real southern beauty of face and expression. Two or +three weeks after this encounter, we were astonished at meeting on +Chestnut Street a little man, decently dressed, who at once manifested +the most extraordinary and extravagant symptoms of delighted recognition. +Never saw I mortal so grin-full, so bowing. As we went on and crossed +the street, and looked back, he was waving his hat in the air with one +hand, while he made gestures of delight with the other. It was the +little Italian rag-picker. + +Then along and afar, till we met a woman, decently enough dressed, with +jet-black eyes and hair, and looking not unlike a gypsy. "A Romany!" I +cried with delight. Her red shawl made me think of gypsies, and when I +caught her eye I saw the indescrible flash of the _kalorat_, or black +blood. It is very curious that Hindus, Persians, and gypsies have in +common an expression of the eye which distinguishes them from all other +Oriental races, and chief in this expression is the Romany. Captain +Newbold, who first investigated the gypsies of Egypt, declares that, +however disguised, he could always detect them by their glance, which is +unlike that of any other human being, though something resembling it is +often seen in the ruder type of the rural American. I believe myself +that there is something in the gypsy eye which is inexplicable, and which +enables its possessor to see farther through that strange mill-stone, the +human soul, than I can explain. Any one who has ever seen an old +fortune-teller of "the people" keeping some simple-minded maiden by the +hand, while she holds her by her glittering eye, like the Ancient +Mariner, with a basilisk stare, will agree with me. As Scheele de Vere +writes, "It must not be forgotten that the human eye has, beyond +question, often a power which far transcends the ordinary purposes of +sight, and approaches the boundaries of magic." + +But one glance, and my companion whispered, "Answer me in Romany when I +speak, and don't seem to notice her." And then, in loud tone, he +remarked, while looking across the street,-- + +"_Adovo's a kushto puro rinkeno ker adoi_." (That is a nice old pretty +house there.) + +"_Avali_, _rya_" (Yes, sir), I replied. + +There was a perceptible movement by the woman in the red shawl to keep +within ear-shot of us. Mine uncle resumed,-- + +"_Boro kushto covva se ta rakker a jib te kek Gorgio iinella_." (It's +nice to talk a language that no Gentile knows.) + +The red shawl was on the trail. "_Je crois que ca mord_," remarked my +uncle. We allowed our artist guide to pass on, when, as I expected, I +felt a twitch at my outer garment. I turned, and the witch eyes, +distended with awe and amazement, were glaring into mine, while she said, +in a hurried whisper,-- + +"Wasn't it Romanes?" + +"_Avah_," I replied, "_mendui rakker sarja adovo jib_. _Butikumi ryeskro +lis se denna Gorgines_." (Yes, we always talk that language. Much more +genteel it is than English.) + +"_Te adovo wavero rye_?" (And that _other_ gentleman?) with a glance of +suspicion at our artist friend. + +"_Sar tacho_" (He's all right), remarked mine uncle, which I greatly fear +meant, when correctly translated in a Christian sense, "He's all wrong." +But there is a natural sympathy and intelligence between Bohemians of +every grade, all the world over, and I never knew a gypsy who did not +understand an artist. One glance satisfied her that he was quite worthy +of our society. + +"And where are you _tannin kenna_?" (tenting now), I inquired. + +"We are not tenting at this time of year; we're _kairin_," _i.e._, +houseing, or home-ing. It is a good verb, and might be introduced into +English. + +"And where is your house?" + +"There, right by Mammy Sauerkraut's Row. Come in and sit down." + +I need not give the Romany which was spoken, but will simply translate. +The house was like all the others. We passed through a close, dark +passage, in which lay canvas and poles, a kettle and a _sarshta_, or the +iron which is stuck into the ground, and by which a kettle hangs. The +old-fashioned tripod, popularly supposed to be used by gypsies, in all +probability never existed, since the Roms of India to-day use the +_sarshta_, as mine uncle tells me he learned from a _ci-devant_ Indian +gypsy Dacoit, or wandering thief, who was one of his intimates in London. + +We entered an inner room, and I was at once struck by its general +indescribable unlikeness to ordinary rooms. Architects declare that the +type of the tent is to be distinctly found in all Chinese and Arab or +Turkish architecture; it is also as marked in a gypsy's house--when he +gets one. This room, which was evidently the common home of a large +family, suggested, in its arrangement of furniture and the manner in +which its occupants sat around the tent and the wagon. There was a bed, +it is true but there was a roll of sail-cloth, which evidently did duty +for sleeping on at night, but which now, rolled up, acted the part +described by Goldsmith:-- + + "A thing contrived a double part to play, + A bed by night, a sofa during day." + +There was one chair and a saddle, a stove and a chest of drawers. I +observed an engraving hanging up which I have several times seen in gypsy +tents. It represents a very dark Italian youth. It is a favorite also +with Roman Catholics, because the boy has a consecrated medal. The +gypsies, however, believe that the boy stole the medal. The Catholics +think the picture is that of a Roman boy, because the inscription says +so; and the gypsies call it a Romany, so that all are satisfied. There +were some eight or nine children in the room, and among them more than +one whose resemblance to the dark-skinned saint might have given color +enough to the theory that he was + + "One whose blood + Had rolled through gypsies ever since the flood." + +There was also a girl, of the pantherine type, and one damsel of about +ten, who had light hair and fair complexion, but whose air was gypsy and +whose youthful countenance suggested not the golden, but the brazenest, +age of life. Scarcely was I seated in the only chair, when this little +maiden, after keenly scrutinizing my appearance, and apparently taking in +the situation, came up to me and said,-- + +"Yer come here to have yer fortune told. I'll tell it to yer for five +cents." + +"_Can tute pen dukkerin aja_?" (Can you tell fortunes already?) I +inquired. And if that damsel had been lifted at that instant by the hair +into the infinite glory of the seventh sphere, her countenance could not +have manifested more amazement. She stood _bouche beante_, stock still +staring, open-mouthed wide. I believe one might have put a brandy ball +into it, or a "bull's eye," without her jaws closing on the dainty. It +was a stare of twenty-four carats, and fourth proof. + +"This here _rye_" remarked mine uncle, affably, in middle English, "is a +hartist. He puts 'is heart into all he does; _that's_ why. He ain't +Romanes, but he may be trusted. He's come here, that wot he has, to draw +this 'ere Mammy Sauerkraut's Row, because it's interestin'. He ain't a +tax-gatherer. _We_ don't approve o' payin' taxes, none of hus. We +practices heconomy, and dislike the po-lice. Who was Mammy Sauerkraut?" + +"I know!" cried the youthful would-be fortune-teller. "She was a witch." + +"_Tool yer chib_!" (Hold your tongue!) cried the parent. "Don't bother +the lady with stories about _chovihanis_" (witches). + +"But that's just what I want to hear!" I cried. "Go on, my little dear, +about Mammy Sauerkraut, and you will get your five cents yet, if you only +give me enough of it." + +"Well, then, Mammy Sauerkraut was a witch, and a little black girl who +lives next door told me so. And Mammy Sauerkraut used to change herself +into a pig of nights, and that's why they called her Sauerkraut. This +was because they had pig ketchers going about in those times, and once +they ketched a pig that belonged to her, and to be revenged on them she +used to look like a pig, and they would follow her clear out of town way +up the river, and she'd run, and they'd run after her, till by and by +fire would begin to fly out of her bristles, and she jumped into the +river and sizzed." + +This I thought worthy of the five cents. Then my uncle began to put +questions in Romany. + +"Where is Anselo W.? He that was _staruben_ for a _gry_?" (imprisoned +for a horse). + +"_Staruben apopli_." (Imprisoned again.) + +"I am sorry for it, sister Nell. He used to play the fiddle well. I wot +he was a canty chiel', and dearly lo'ed the whusky, oh!" + +"Yes, he was too fond of that. How well he could play!" + +"Yes," said my uncle, "he could. And I have sung to his fiddling when +the _tatto-pani_ [hot water, _i.e._, spirits] boiled within us, and made +us gay, oh, my golden sister! That's the way we Hungarian gypsy +gentlemen always call the ladies of our people. I sang in Romany." + +"I'd like to hear you sing now," remarked a dark, handsome young man, who +had just made a mysterious appearance out of the surrounding shadows. + +"It's a _kamaben gilli_" (a love-song), said the _rye_; "and it is +beautiful, deep old Romanes,--enough to make you cry." + +There was the long sound of a violin, clear as the note of a horn. I had +not observed that the dark young man had found one to his hand, and, as +he accompanied, my uncle sang; and I give the lyric as he afterwards gave +it to me, both in Romany and English. As he frankly admitted, it was his +own composition. + + KE TEINALI. + + Tu shan miri pireni + Me kamava tute, + Kamlidiri, rinkeni, + Kames mande buti? + + Sa o miro kushto gry + Taders miri wardi,-- + Sa o boro buno rye + Rikkers lesto stardi. + + Sa o bokro dre o char + Hawala adovo,-- + Sa i choramengeri + Lels o ryas luvoo,-- + + Sa o sasto levinor + Kairs amandy matto,-- + Sa o yag adre o tan + Kairs o geero tatto,-- + + Sa i puri Romni chai + Pens o kushto dukkrin,-- + Sa i Gorgi dinneli, + Patsers lakis pukkrin,-- + + Tute taders tiro rom, + Sims o gry, o wardi, + Tute chores o zi adrom + Rikkers sa i stardi. + + Tute haws te chores m'ri all, + Tutes dukkered buti + Tu shan miro jivaben + Me t'vel paller tute. + + Paller tute sarasa + Pardel puv te pani, + Trinali--o krallisa! + Miri chovihani! + + TO TRINALI. + + Now thou art my darling girl, + And I love thee dearly; + Oh, beloved and my fair, + Lov'st thou me sincerely? + + As my good old trusty horse + Draws his load or bears it; + As a gallant cavalier + Cocks his hat and wears it; + + As a sheep devours the grass + When the day is sunny; + As a thief who has the chance + Takes away our money; + + As strong ale when taken down + Makes the strongest tipsy; + As a fire within a tent + Warms a shivering gypsy; + + As a gypsy grandmother + Tells a fortune neatly; + As the Gentile trusts in her, + And is done completely,-- + + So you draw me here and there, + Where you like you take me; + Or you sport me like a hat,-- + What you will you make me. + + So you steal and gnaw my heart + For to that I'm fated! + And by you, my gypsy Kate, + I'm intoxicated. + + And I own you are a witch, + I am beaten hollow; + Where thou goest in this world + I am bound to follow,-- + + Follow thee, where'er it be, + Over land and water, + Trinali, my gypsy queen! + Witch and witch's daughter! + +"Well, that _is_ deep Romanes," said the woman, admiringly. "It's +beautiful." + +"_I_ should think it was," remarked the violinist. "Why, I didn't +understand more than one half of it. But what I caught I understood." +Which, I reflected, as he uttered it, is perhaps exactly the case with +far more than half the readers of all poetry. They run on in a +semi-sensuous mental condition, soothed by cadence and lulled by rhyme, +reading as they run for want of thought. Are there not poets of the +present day who mean that you shall read them thus, and who cast their +gold ornaments hollow, as jewelers do, lest they should be too heavy? + +"My children," said Meister Karl, "I could go on all day with Romany +songs; and I can count up to a hundred in the black language. I know +three words for a mouse, three for a monkey, and three for the shadow +which falleth at noonday. And I know how to _pen dukkerin_, _lel +dudikabin te chiv o manzin apre latti_." {270} + +"Well, the man who knows _that_ is up to _drab_ [medicine], and hasn't +much more to learn," said the young man. "When a _rye's_ a Rom he's +anywhere at home." + +"So _kushto bak_!" (Good luck!) I said, rising to go. "We will come +again!" + +"Yes, we will come again," said Meister Karl. "Look for me with the +roses at the races, and tell me the horse to bet on. You'll find my +_patteran_ [a mark or sign to show which way a gypsy has traveled] at the +next church-door, or may be on the public-house step. Child of the old +Egyptians, mother of all the witches, sister of the stars, daughter of +darkness, farewell!" + +This bewildering speech was received with admiring awe, and we departed. +I should have liked to hear the comments on us which passed that evening +among the gypsy denizens of Mammy Sauerkraut's Row. + + + +V. A GYPSY LETTER. + + +All the gypsies in the country are not upon the roads. Many of them live +in houses, and that very respectably, nay, even aristocratically. Yea, +and it may be, O reader, that thou hast met them and knowest them not, +any more than thou knowest many other deep secrets of the hearts and +lives of those who live around thee. Dark are the ways of the Romany, +strange his paths, even when reclaimed from the tent and the van. It is, +however, intelligible enough that the Rom converted to the true faith of +broadcloth garments by Poole, or dresses by Worth, as well as to the holy +gospel of daily baths and _savon au violet_, should say as little as +possible of his origin. For the majority of the world being snobs, they +continually insist that all blood unlike their own is base, and the child +of the _kalorat_, knowing this, sayeth naught, and ever carefully keeps +the lid of silence on the pot of his birth. And as no being that ever +was, is, or will be ever enjoyed holding a secret, playing a part, or +otherwise entering into the deepest mystery of life--which is to make a +joke of it--so thoroughly as a gypsy, it follows that the being +respectable has to him a raciness and drollery and pungency and point +which passeth faith. It has often occurred to me, and the older I grow +the more I find it true, that the _real_ pleasure which bank presidents, +moral politicians, not a few clergymen, and most other highly +representative good men take in having a high character is the exquisite +secret consciousness of its being utterly undeserved. They love acting. +Let no man say that the love of the drama is founded on the artificial or +sham. I have heard the Reverend Histriomastix war and batter this on the +pulpit; but the utterance _per se_ was an actual, living lie. He was +acting while he preached. Love or hunger is not more an innate passion +than acting. The child in the nursery, the savage by the Nyanza or in +Alaska, the multitude of great cities, all love to bemask and seem what +they are not. Crush out carnivals and masked balls and theatres, and lo, +you! the disguising and acting and masking show themselves in the whole +community. Mawworm and Aminidab Sleek then play a role in every +household, and every child becomes a wretched little Roscius. Verily I +say unto you, the fewer actors the more acting; the fewer theatres the +more stages, and the worse. Lay it to heart, study it deeply, you who +believe that the stage is an open door to hell, for the chances are +ninety and nine to one that if this be true _you_ will end by consciously +or unconsciously keeping a private little gate thereunto. Beloved, put +this in thy pipe and fumigate it, that acting in some form is a human +instinct which cannot be extinguished, which never has been and never +will be; and this being so, is it not better, with Dr. Bellows, to try to +put it into proper form than to crush it? Truly it has been proved that +with this, as with a certain other unquenchable penchant of humanity, +when you suppress a score of professionals you create a thousand zealous +amateurs. There was never in this world a stage on which mere acting was +more skillfully carried out than in all England under Cromwell, or in +Philadelphia under the Quakers. Eccentric dresses, artificial forms of +language, separate and "peculiar" expressions of character unlike those +of "the world," were all only giving a form to that craving for being odd +and queer which forms the soul of masking and acting. Of course people +who act all the time object to the stage. _Le diable ne veut pas de +miroir_. + +The gypsy of society not always, but yet frequently, retains a keen +interest in his wild ancestry. He keeps up the language; it is a +delightful secret; he loves now and then to take a look at "the old +thing." Closely allied to the converted sinners are the _aficionados_, +or the ladies and gentlemen born with unconquerable Bohemian tastes, +which may be accounted for by their having been themselves gypsies in +preexistent lives. No one can explain how or why it is that the +_aficion_ comes upon them. It is _in_ them. I know a very learned man +in England, a gentleman of high position, one whose name is familiar to +my readers. He could never explain or understand why from early +childhood he had felt himself drawn towards the wanderers. When he was +only ten years old he saved up all his little store of pence wherewith to +pay a tinker to give him lessons in Romany, in which tongue he is now a +Past Grand. I know ladies in England and in America, both of the blood +and otherwise, who would give up a ball of the highest flight in society, +to sit an hour in a gypsy tent, and on whom a whispered word of Romany +acts like wild-fire. Great as my experience has been I can really no +more explain the intensity of this yearning, this _rapport_, than I can +fly. My own fancy for gypsydom is faint and feeble compared to what I +have found in many others. It is in them like the love for opium, for +music, for love itself, or for acting. I confess that there is to me a +nameless charm in the strangely, softly flowing language, which gives a +sweeter sound to every foreign word which it adopts, just as the melody +of a forest stream is said to make more musical the songs of the birds +who dwell beside it. Thus Wentzel becomes Wenselo and Anselo; Arthur, +Artaros; London, Lundra; Sylvester, Westaros. Such a phrase as "_Dordi_! +_dovelo adoi_?" (See! what is that there?) could not be surpassed for +mere beauty of sound. + +It is apropos of living double lives, and playing parts, and the charm of +stealing away unseen, like naughty children, to romp with the tabooed +offspring of outlawed neighbors, that I write this, to introduce a letter +from a lady, who has kindly permitted me to publish it. It tells its own +story of two existences, two souls in one. I give it as it was written, +first in Romany, and then in English:-- + + _Febmunti_ 1_st_. + + MIRO KAMLO PAL,--Tu tevel mishto ta shun te latcherdum me akovo + kurikus tacho Romany tan akai adre o gav. Buti kamaben lis sas ta + dikk mori foki apopli; buti kushti ta shun moro jib. Mi-duvel atch + apa mande, si ne shomas pash naflo o Gorginess, vonk' akovo vias. O + waver divvus sa me viom fon a swell saleskro haben, dikdom me dui + Romani chia beshin alay apre a longo skamin adre --- Square. Kalor + yakkor, kalor balyor, lullo diklas apre i sherria, te lender trushnia + aglal lender piria. Mi-duvel, shomas pash divio sar kamaben ta dikav + lender! Avo! kairdum o wardomengro hatch i graia te sheldom avri, + "_Come here_!" Yon penden te me sos a rani ta dukker te vian sig + adosta. Awer me saldom te pendom adre Romanis: "Sarishan miri + dearis! Tute don't jin mandy's a Romany!" Yon nastis patser lende + kania nera yakkor. "Mi-duvel! Sa se tiro nav? putchde yeck. "Miro + nav se Britannia Lee." Kenna-sig yon diktas te me sos tachi, te + penden amengi lender navia shanas M. te D. Lis sos duro pa lende ta + jin sa a Romani rani astis jiv amen Gorgios, te dikk sa Gorgious, + awer te vel kushti Romani aja, te tevel buoino lakis kaloratt. Buti + rakkerdem apre mori foki, buti nevvi, buti savo sos rumado, te beeno, + te puredo, savo sos vino fon o puro tem, te butikumi aja kekkeno sos + rakkerben sa gudli. M. pende amengi, "Mandy don't jin how tute can + jiv among dem Gorgies." Pukerdom anpali: "Mandy dont jiv, mandy mers + kairin amen lender." Yon mangades mande ta well ta dikk a len, adre + lendes ker apre o chumba kai atchena pa o wen. Pende M., "Av miri + pen ta ha a bitti sar mendi. Tute jins the chais are only kerri + aratti te Kurrkus." + + Sunday sala miri pen te me ghion adoi te latchedon o ker. O tan sos + bitto, awer sa i Romanis pende, dikde boro adosta paller jivin adre o + wardo. M. sos adoi te lakis roms dye, a kushti puri chai. A. sar + shtor chavia. M. kerde haben sa mendui viom adoi. I puri dye sos + mishto ta dikk mande, yoi kamde ta jin sar trustal mande. Rakkerdem + buti aja, te yoi pende te yoi ne kekker latchde a Romani rani denna + mande. Pendom me ke laki shan adre society kumi Romani rania, awer i + galderli Gorgios ne jinena lis. + + Yoi pende sa miri pen dikde simlo Lusha Cooper, te siggerde lakis + kaloratt butider denna me. "Tute don't favor the Coopers, miri + dearie! Tute pens tiri dye rummerd a mush navvered Smith. Was adovo + the Smith as lelled kellin te kurin booths pasher Lundra Bridge? Sos + tute beeno adre Anglaterra?" Pukkerdom me ke puri dye sar jinav me + trustal miri kokeri te simensi. Tu jinsa shan kek Gorgies sa + longi-bavoli apre genealogies, sa i puri Romani dyia. Vonka foki + nastis chin lende adre lilia, rikkerena lende aduro adre lendros + sherria. _Que la main droit perd recueille la gauche_. + + "Does tute jin any of the ---'s?" pende M. "Tute dikks sim ta ---'s + juva." "Ne kekker, yois too pauno,' pens A. "It's chomani adre the + look of her," pende M. + + Dikkpali miro pal. Tu jinsa te --- sos i chi savo dudikabinde + manush, navdo --- buti wongur. Vanka yoi sos lino apre, o + Beshomengro pende ta ker laki chiv apre a shuba sims Gorgios te + adenne lelled laki adre a tan sar desh te dui gorgi chaia. --- + astissa pen i chai savo chorde lestis lovvo. Vanka yoi vias adre o + tan, yoi ghias sig keti laki, te pende: "Jinava me laki talla lakis + longi vangusti, te rinkeni mui. Yoi sos stardi dui beshya, awer o + Gorgio kekker las leski vongur pali." + + Savo-chirus mendi rakkerden o wuder pirido, te trin manushia vian + adre. . . . Pali lenders sarishans, M. shelde avri: "Av ta misali, + rikker yer skammins longo tute! Mrs. Lee, why didn't tute bring yer + rom?" "Adenna me shom kek rumadi." "Mi-duvel, Britannia!" pende --- + "M. pende amengy te tu sos rumado." "M. didn't dukker tacho vonka + yoi dukkerd adovo. Yois a dinneli," pendom me. Te adenne sar mendi + saden atut M. Haben sos kushto, loim a kani, ballovas te puvengros, + te kushto curro levina. Liom mendi kushto paiass dre moro puro + Romany dromus. Rinkenodiro sos, kerde mande pash ta ruv, shomas sa + kushto-bakno ta atch yecker apopli men mori foki. Sos "Britannia!" + akai, te "Britannia!" doi, te sar sa adre o puro cheirus, vonka chavi + shomas. Ne patserava me ta Dante chinde:-- + + "Nessun maggior dolore + Che ricordarsi dei tempi felici." + + Talla me shomas kushto-bakno ta pen apre o puro chirus. Sar lende + piden miro kamaben Romaneskaes, sar gudlo; talla H. Yov pende nastis + ker lis, pa yuv kenna lias tabuti. Kushto dikin Romnichal yuv. Tu + tevel jin lesti sarakai pa Romani, yuv se sa kalo. Te _avec l'air + indefinnissable du vrai Bohemien_. Yuv patserde me ta piav miro + sastopen wavescro chirus. Kana shomas pa misali, geero vias keti + ian; dukkeriben kamde yov. Hunali sos i puri dye te pendes amergi, + "Beng lel o puro jukel for wellin vanka mendi shom hain, te kenna tu + shan akai, miri Britannia Yov ne tevel lel kek kushto bak. Mandy'll + pen leste a wafedo dukkerin." Adoi A. putcherde mengy, "Does tute + dukker or sa does tute ker." "Miri pen, mandy'll pen tute tacho. + Mandy dukkers te dudikabins te kers buti covvas. Shom a tachi Romani + chovihani." "Tacho! tacho!" saden butider. Miri pen te me rikkerdem + a boro matto-morricley pa i chavis. Yon beshden alay apre o purj, + hais lis. Rinkeno _picture_ sas, pendom dikkav mande te miri penia + te pralia kenna shomas bitti. Latcherdom me a tani kali chavi of + panj besh chorin levina avri miro curro. Dikde, sar lakis bori kali + yakka te kali balia simno tikno Bacchante, sa yoi prasterde adrom. + + Pendom parako pa moro kushto-bakeno chirus--"kushto bak" te "kushto + divvus." Mendi diom moro tachopen ta well apopli, te kan viom kerri. + Patserava dikk tute akai talla o prasterin o ye graia. Kushto bak te + kushto ratti. + + Sarja tiro pen, + + BRITANNIA LEE. + + TRANSLATION. + + _February_ 1_st_. + + MY DEAR FRIEND,--You will be glad to learn that I, within the week, + found a real Romany family (place) here in this town. Charming it + was to find our folk again; pleasant it was to listen to our tongue. + The Lord be on me! but I was half sick of Gentiles and their ways + till this occurred. The other day, as I was returning from a highly + aristocratic breakfast, where we had winter strawberries with the + _creme de la creme_, I saw two gypsy women sitting on a bench in --- + Square. Black eyes, black hair, red kerchiefs on their heads, their + baskets on the ground before their feet. Dear Lord! but I was half + wild with delight at seeing them. Aye, I made the coachman stop the + horses, and cried aloud, "Come here!" They thought I was a lady to + fortune-tell, and came quickly. But I laughed, and said in Romany, + "How are you, my dears? You don't know that I am a gypsy." They + could not trust their very ears or eyes! At length one said, "My + God! what _is_ your name?" "My name's Britannia Lee," and, at a + glance, they saw that I was to be trusted, and a Romany. Their + names, they said, were M. and D. It was hard (far) for them to + understand how a Romany lady _could_ live among Gentiles, and look so + Gorgious, and yet be a true gypsy withal, and proud of her dark + blood. Much they talked about our people; much news I heard,--much + as to who was married and born and buried, who was come from the old + country, and much more. Oh, _never_ was such news so sweet to me! + M. said, "I don't know how you _can_ live among the Gentiles." I + answered, "I don't live; I _die_, living in their houses with them." + They begged me then to come and see them in their home, upon the + hill, where they are wintering. M. said, "Come, my sister, and eat a + little with us. You know that the women are only at home at night + and on Sunday." + + Sunday morning, sister and I went there, and found the house. It was + a little place, but, as they said, after the life in wagons it seemed + large. M. was there, and her husband's mother, a nice old woman; + also A., with four children. M. was cooking as we entered. The old + mother was glad to see us; she wished to know all about us. All + talked, indeed, and that quite rapidly, and she said that I was the + first Romany lady {279} she had ever seen. I said to her that in + society are many gypsy ladies to be found, but that the wretched + Gentiles do not know it. + + She said that my sister looked like Lusha Cooper, and showed her dark + blood more than I do. "You don't favor the Coopers, my dearie. You + say your mother married a Smith. Was that the Smith who kept a + dancing and boxing place near London Bridge? Were you born in + England?" I told the old mother all I knew about myself and my + relations. You know that no Gorgios are so long-winded on + genealogies as old mothers in Rom. When people don't write them down + in their family Bibles, they carry them, extended, in their heads. + _Que la main droit perd recueille la gauche_. + + "Do you know any of the ---'s?" said M. "You look like ---'s wife." + "No; she's too pale," said A. "It's something in the look of her," + said M. + + Reflect, my brother. You know that --- was the woman who "cleaned + out" a man named --- of a very large sum {280} by "dukkeripen" and + "dudikabin." "When she was arrested, the justice made her dress like + any Gorgio, and placed her among twelve Gentile women. The man who + had been robbed was to point out who among them had stolen his money. + When she came into the room, he went at once to her, and said, 'I + know her by her long skinny fingers and handsome face.' She was + imprisoned for two years, but the Gorgio never recovered his money." + + What time we reasoned thus, the door undid, and three men entered. + After their greetings, M. cried, "Come to table; bring your chairs + with you!" "Mrs. Lee, why didn't you bring your husband?" "Because + I am not married." "Lord! Britannia! Why, M. told me that you + were." "Ah, M. didn't fortune right when she fortuned that. She's a + fool," quoth I. And then we all laughed like children. The food was + good: chickens and ham and fried potatoes, with a glass of sound ale. + We were gay as flies in summer, in the real old Romany way. 'T was + "Britannia" here, "Britannia" there, as in the merry days when we + were young. Little do I believe in Dante's words,-- + + "Nessun maggior dolore, + Che ricordarsi dei tempi felici." + + "There is no greater grief + Than to remember by-gone happy days." + + For it is always happiness to me to think of good old times when I + was glad. All drank my health, _Romaneskaes_, together, with a + shout,--all save H., who said he had already had too much. + Good-looking gypsy, that! You'd know him anywhere for Romany, he is + so dark,--_avec l'air indefinissable du vrai Bohemien_. He promised + to drink my health another time. + + As we sat, a gentleman came in below, wishing to have his fortune + told. I remember to have read that the Pythoness of Delphian oracle + prepared herself for _dukkerin_, or presaging, by taking a few drops + of cherry-laurel water. (I have had it prescribed for my eyes as R + _aq. laur. cerasi. fiat lotio_,--possibly to enable me to see into + the future.) Perhaps it was the cherry-brandy beloved of British + matrons and Brighton school-girls, taken at Mutton's. _Mais revenons + a nos moutons_. The old mother had taken, not cherry-laurel water, + nor even cherry-brandy, but joly good ale, and olde, which, far from + fitting her to reveal the darksome lore of futurity, had rendered her + loath to leave the festive board of the present. Wrathful was the + sybil, furious as the Vala when waked by Odin, angry as Thor when he + missed his hammer, to miss her merriment. "May the devil take the + old dog for coming when we are eating, and when thou art here, my + Britannia! Little good fortune will he hear this day. Evil shall be + the best I'll promise him." Thus spake the sorceress, and out she + went to keep her word. Truly it was a splendid picture this of "The + Enraged Witch," as painted by Hexenmeister von Teufel, of + Hollenstadt,--her viper eyes flashing infernal light and most + unchristian fire, shaking _les noirs serpents de ses cheveux_, as she + went forth. I know how, in an instant, her face was beautiful with + welcome, smiling like a Neapolitan at a cent; but the poor believer + caught it hot, all the same, and had a sleepless night over his + future fate. I wonder if the Pythoness of old, when summoned from a + _petit souper_, or a holy prophet called out of bed of a cold night, + to decide by royal command on the fate of Israel, ever "took it out" + on the untimely king by promising him a lively, unhappy time of it. + Truly it is fine to be behind the scenes and see how they work the + oracle. For the gentleman who came to consult my witch was a man of + might in the secrets of state, and one whom I have met in high + society. And, oh! _if_ he had known who it was that was up-stairs, + laughing at him for a fool! + + While she was forth, A. asked me, "Do you tell fortunes, or _what_?" + "My sister," I replied, "I'll tell thee the truth. I do tell + fortunes. I keep a house for the purchase of stolen goods. I am + largely engaged in making counterfeit money and all kinds of forgery. + I am interested in burglary. I lie, swear, cheat, and steal, and get + drunk on Sunday. And I do many other things. I am a real Romany + witch." This little confession of faith brought down the house. + "Bravo! bravo!" they cried, laughing. + + Sister and I had brought a great tipsy-cake for the children, and + they were all sitting under a table, eating it. It was a pretty + picture. I thought I saw in it myself and all my sisters and + brothers as we were once. Just such little gypsies and duckling + Romanys! And now! And then! What a comedy some lives are,--yea, + such lives as mine! And now it is _you_ who are behind the scenes; + anon, I shall change with you. _Va Pierre_, _vient Pierette_. Then + I surprised a little brown maiden imp of five summers stealing my + beer, and as she was caught in the act, and tore away shrieking with + laughter, she looked, with her great black eyes and flowing jetty + curling locks, like a perfect little Bacchante. + + Then we said, "Thank you for the happy time!" "Good luck!" and "Good + day!" giving our promises to come again. So we went home all well. + I hope to see you at the races here. Good luck and good-night also + to you. + + Always your friend, + + BRITANNIA LEE + +I have somewhat abbreviated the Romany text of this letter, and Miss Lee +herself has somewhat polished and enlarged the translation, which is +strictly fit and proper, she being a very different person in English +from what she is in gypsy, as are most of her kind. This letter may be, +to many, a strange lesson, a quaint essay, a social problem, a fable, an +epigram, or a frolic,--just as they choose to take it. To me it is a +poem. Thou, my friend, canst easily understand why all that is wild and +strange, out-of-doors, far away by night, is worthy of being Tennysoned +or Whitmanned. If there be given unto thee stupendous blasted trees, +looking in the moonlight like the pillars of a vast and ghostly temple; +the fall of cataracts down awful rocks; the wind wailing in wondrous +language or whistling Indian melody all night on heath, rocks, and hills, +over ancient graves and through lonely caves, bearing with it the hoot of +the night-owl; while over all the stars look down in eternal mystery, +like eyes reading the great riddle of the night which thou knowest +not,--this is to thee like Ariel's song. To me and to us there are men +and women who are in life as the wild river and the night-owl, as the +blasted tree and the wind over ancient graves. No man is educated until +he has arrived at that state of thought when a picture is quite the same +as a book, an old gray-beard jug as a manuscript, men, women, and +children as libraries. It was but yester morn that I read a cuneiform +inscription printed by doves' feet in the snow, finding a meaning where +in by-gone years I should have seen only a quaint resemblance. For in +this by the _ornithomanteia_ known of old to the Chaldean sages I saw +that it was neither from arrow-heads or wedges which gave the letters to +the old Assyrians. When thou art at this point, then Nature is equal in +all her types, and the city, as the forest, full of endless beauty and +piquancy,--_in saecula saeculorum_. + +I had written the foregoing, and had enveloped and directed it to be +mailed, when I met in a lady-book entitled "Magyarland" with the +following passages:-- + + "The gypsy girl in this family was a pretty young woman, with masses + of raven hair and a clear skin, but, notwithstanding her neat dress + and civilized surroundings, we recognized her immediately. It is, in + truth, not until one sees the Romany translated to an entirely new + form of existence, and under circumstances inconsistent with their + ordinary lives, that one realizes how completely different they are + from the rest of mankind in form and feature. Instead of disguising, + the garb of civilization only enhances the type, and renders it the + more apparent. No matter what dress they may assume, no matter what + may be their calling, no matter whether they are dwellers in tents or + houses, it is impossible for gypsies to disguise their origin. Taken + from their customary surroundings, they become at once an anomaly and + an anachronism, and present such an instance of the absurdity of + attempting to invert the order of nature that we feel more than ever + how utterly different they are from the human race; that there is a + key to their strange life which we do not possess,--a secret free + masonry that renders them more isolated than the veriest savages + dwelling in the African wilds,--and a hidden mystery hanging over + them and their origin that we shall never comprehend. They are + indeed a people so entirely separate and distinct that, in whatever + clime or quarter of the globe they may be met with, they are + instantly recognized; for with them forty centuries of association + with civilized races have not succeeded in obliterating one single + sign." + + * * * * * + + "Alas!" cried the princess; "I can never, never find the door of the + enchanted cavern, nor enter the golden cavern, nor solve its + wonderful mystery. It has been closed for thousands of years, and it + will remain closed forever." + + "What flowers are those which thou holdest?" asked the hermit. + + "Only primroses or Mary's-keys, {285} and tulips," replied the + princess. + + "Touch the rock with them," said the hermit, "and the door will + open." + + * * * * * + +The lady writer of "Magyarland" held in her hand all the while, and knew +it not, a beautiful primrose, which might have opened for her the +mysterious Romany cavern. On a Danube steamboat she saw a little blind +boy sitting all day all alone: only a little Slavonian peasant boy, "an +odd, quaint little specimen of humanity, with loose brown garments, cut +precisely like those of a grown-up man, and his bits of feet in little +raw-hide moccasins." However, with a tender, gentle heart she began to +pet the little waif. And the captain told her what the boy was. "He is +a _guslar_, or minstrel, as they call them in Croatia. The Yougo-Slavs +dedicate all male children who are born blind, from infancy, to the +Muses. As soon as they are old enough to handle anything, a small +mandolin is given them, which they are taught to play; after which they +are taken every day into the woods, where they are left till evening to +commune in their little hearts with nature. In due time they become +poets, or at any rate rhapsodists, singing of the things they never saw, +and when grown up are sent forth to earn their livelihood, like the +troubadours of old, by singing from place to place, and asking alms by +the wayside. + +"It is not difficult for a Slav to become a poet; he takes in poetic +sentiment as a river does water from its source. The first sounds he is +conscious of are the words of his mother singing to him as she rocks his +cradle. Then, as she watches the dawning of intelligence in his infant +face, her mother language is that of poetry, which she improvises at the +moment, and though he never saw the flowers nor the snow-capped +mountains, nor the flowing streams and rivers, he describes them out of +his inner consciousness, and the influence which the varied sounds of +nature have upon his mind." + +Rock and river and greenwood tree, sweet-spiced spring flower, rustling +grass, and bird-singing nature and freedom,--this is the secret of the +poets' song and of the Romany, and there is no other mystery in either. +He who sleeps on graves rises mad or a poet; all who lie on the earth, +which is the grave and cradle of nature, and who live _al fresco_, +understand gypsies as well as my lady Britannia Lee. Nay, when some +natures take to the Romany they become like the Norman knights of the +Pale, who were more Paddyfied than the Paddies themselves. These become +leaders among the gypsies, who recognize the fact that one renegade is +more zealous than ten Turks. As for the "mystery" of the history of the +gypsies, it is time, sweet friends, that 't were ended. When we know +that there is to-day, in India, a sect and set of Vauriens, who are there +considered Gipsissimae, and who call themselves, with their wives and +language and being, Rom, Romni, and Romnipana, even as they do in +England; and when we know, moreover, that their faces proclaim them to be +Indian, and that they have been a wandering caste since the dawn of Hindu +history, we have, I trow, little more to seek. As for the rest, you may +read it in the great book of Out-of Doors, _capitulo nullo folio nigro_, +or wherever you choose to open it, written as distinctly, plainly, and +sweetly as the imprint of a school-boy's knife and fork on a mince-pie, +or in the uprolled rapture of the eyes of Britannia when she inhaleth the +perfume of a fresh bunch of Florentine violets. _Ite missa est_. + + + + +GYPSIES IN THE EAST. + + +Noon in Cairo. + +A silent old court-yard, half sun and half shadow in which quaintly +graceful, strangely curving columns seem to have taken from long +companionship with trees something of their inner life, while the palms, +their neighbors, from long in-door existence, look as if they had in turn +acquired household or animal instincts, if not human sympathies. And as +the younger the race the more it seeks for poets and orators to express +in thought what it only feels, so these dumb pillars and plants found +their poet and orator in the fountain which sang or spoke for them +strangely and sweetly all night and day, uttering for them not only their +waking thoughts, but their dreams. It gave a voice, too, to the ancient +Persian tiles and the Cufic inscriptions which had seen the caliphs, and +it told endless stories of Zobeide and Mesrour and Haroun al Raschid. + +Beyond the door which, when opened, gave this sight was a dark ancient +archway twenty yards long, which opened on the glaring, dusty street, +where camels with their drivers and screaming _sais_, or carriage-runners +and donkey-boys and crying venders, kept up the wonted Oriental din. But +just within the archway, in its duskiest corner, there sat all day a +living picture, a dark and handsome woman, apparently thirty years old, +who was unveiled. She had before her a cloth and a few shells; sometimes +an Egyptian of the lower class stopped, and there would be a grave +consultation, and the shells would be thrown, and then further solemn +conference and a payment of money and a departure. And it was world-old +Egyptian, or Chaldean, as to custom, for the woman was a Rhagarin, or +gypsy, and she was one of the diviners who sit by the wayside, casting +shells for auspices, even as shells and arrows were cast of old, to be +cursed by Israel. + +It is not remarkable that among the myriad _manteias_ of olden days there +should have been one by shells. The sound of the sea as heard in the +nautilus or conch, when + + "It remembers its august abode + And murmurs as the ocean murmurs there," + +is very strange to children, and I can remember how in childhood I +listened with perfect faith to the distant roaring, and marveled at the +mystery of the ocean song being thus forever kept alive, inland. Shells +seem so much like work of human hands, and are often so marked as with +letters, that it is not strange that faith soon found the supernatural in +them. The magic shell of all others is the cowrie. Why the Roman ladies +called it _porcella_, or little pig, because it has a pig's back, is the +objective explanation of its name, and how from its gloss that name, or +porcellana, was transferred to porcelain, is in books. But there is +another side to the shell, and another or esoteric meaning to "piggy," +which was also known to the _dames du temps jadis_, to Archipiada and +Thais, _qui fut la belle Romaine_,--and this inner meaning makes of it a +type of birth or creation. Now all that symbolizes fertility, birth, +pleasure, warmth, light, and love is opposed to barrenness, cold, death, +and evil; whence it follows that the very sight of a shell, and +especially of a cowrie, frightens away the devils as well as a +horse-shoe, which by the way has also its cryptic meaning. Hence it was +selected to cast for luck, a world-old custom, which still lingers in the +game of props; and for the same reason it is hung on donkeys, the devil +being still scared away by the sight of a cowrie, even as he was scared +away of old by its prototype, as told by Rabelais. + +As the sibyls sat in caves, so the sorceress sat in the dark archway, +immovable when not sought, mysterious as are all her kind, and something +to wonder at. It was after passing her, and feeling by quick intuition +what she was, that the court-yard became a fairy-land, and the fountain +its poet, and the palm-trees Tamar maids. There are people who believe +there is no mystery, that an analysis of the gypsy sorceress would have +shown an ignorant outcast; but while nature gives chiaro-oscuro and +beauty, and while God is the Unknown, I believe that the more light there +is cast by science the more stupendous will be the new abysses of +darkness revealed. These natures must be taken with the _life_ in them, +not dead,--and their life is mystery. The Hungarian gypsy lives in an +intense mystery, yes, in true magic in his singing. You may say that he +cannot, like Orpheus, move rocks or tame beasts with his music. If he +could he could do no more than astonish and move us, and he does that +now, and the _why_ is as deep a mystery as that would be. + +So far is it from being only a degrading superstition in those who +believe that mortals like themselves can predict the future, that it +seems, on the contrary ennobling. It is precisely because man feels a +mystery within himself that he admits it may be higher in others; if +spirits whisper to him in dreams and airy passages of trembling light, or +in the music never heard but ever felt below, what may not be revealed to +others? You may tell me if you will that prophecies are all rubbish and +magic a lie, and it may be so,--nay, _is_ so, but the awful mystery of +the Unknown without a name and the yearning to penetrate it _is_, and is +all the more, because I have found all prophecies and jugglings and +thaumaturgy fail to bridge over the abyss. It is since I have read with +love and faith the evolutionists and physiologists of the most advanced +type that the Unknown has become to me most wonderful, and that I have +seen the light which never shone on sea or land as I never saw it before. +And therefore to me the gypsy and all the races who live in freedom and +near to nature are more poetic than ever. For which reason, after the +laws of acoustics have fully explained to me why the nautilus sounds like +a far off-ocean dirge, the unutterable longing _to know more_ seizes upon +me, + + "Till my heart is full of longing + For the secret of the sea, + And the heart of the great ocean + Sends a thrilling pulse through me." + +That gypsy fortune-teller, sitting in the shadow, is, moreover, +interesting as a living manifestation of a dead past. As in one of her +own shells when petrified we should have the ancient form without its +color, all the old elements being displaced by new ones, so we have the +old magic shape, though every atom in it is different; the same, yet not +the same Life in the future, and the divination thereof, was a +stupendous, ever-present reality to the ancient Egyptian, and the sole +inspiration of humanity when it produced few but tremendous results. It +is when we see it in such living forms that it is most interesting. As +in Western wilds we can tell exactly by the outline of the forests where +the borders of ancient inland seas once ran, so in the great greenwood of +history we can trace by the richness or absence of foliage and flower the +vanished landmarks of poetry, or perceive where the enchantment whose +charm has now flown like the snow of the foregone year once reigned in +beauty. So a line of lilies has shown me where the sea-foam once fell, +and pine-trees sang of masts preceding them. + + "I sometimes think that never blows so red + The rose as where some buried Caesar bled; + That every hyacinth the garden wears + Dropt in her lap from some once lovely head." {292} + +The memory of that court-yard reminds me that I possess two Persian +tiles, each with a story. There is a house in Cairo which is said to be +more or less contemporary with the prophet, and it is inhabited by an old +white-bearded emir, more or less a descendant of the prophet. This old +gentleman once gave as a precious souvenir to an American lady two of the +beautiful old tiles from his house, whereof I had one. In the eyes of a +Muslim there is a degree of sanctity attached to this tile, as one on +which the eyes of the prophet may have rested,--or at least the eyes of +those who were nearer to him than we are. Long after I returned from +Cairo I wrote and published a fairy-book called Johnnykin, {292} in which +occurred the following lines:-- + + Trust not the Ghoul, love, + Heed not his smile; + _Out of the Mosque_, _love_, + _He stole the tile_. + +One day my friend the Palmer from over the sea came to me with a present. +It was a beautiful Persian tile. + +"Where did you get it?" I asked. + +"I stole it out of a mosque in Syria." + +"Did you ever read my Johnnykin?" + +"Of course not." + +"I know you never did." Here I repeated the verse. "But you remember +what the Persian poet says:-- + + "'And never since the vine-clad earth was young + Was some great crime committed on the earth, + But that some poet prophesied the deed.'" + +"True, and also what the great Tsigane poet sang:-- + + "'O manush te lela sossi choredo, + Wafodiro se te choramengro.' + + "He who takes the stolen ring, + Is worse than he who stole the thing." + +"And it would have been better for you, while you were _dukkerin_ or +prophesying, to have prophesied about something more valuable than a +tile." + +And so it came to pass that the two Persian tiles, one given by a +descendant of the Prophet, and the other the subject of a prophecy, rest +in my cabinet side by side. + +In Egypt, as in Austria, or Syria, or Persia, or India, the gypsies are +the popular musicians. I had long sought for the derivation of the word +_banjo_, and one day I found that the Oriental gypsies called a gourd by +that name. Walking one day with the Palmer in Cambridge, we saw in a +window a very fine Hindu lute, or in fact a real banjo made of a gourd. +We inquired, and found that it belonged to a mutual friend, Mr. Charles +Brookfield, one of the best fellows living, and who, on being forthwith +"requisitioned" by the unanimous voice of all who sympathized with me in +my need, sent me the instrument. "He did not think it right," he said, +"to keep it, when Philology wanted it. If it had been any other +party,--but he always had a particular respect and awe of her." I do not +assert that this discovery settles the origin of the word _banjo_, but +the coincidence is, to say the least, remarkable. + +I saw many gypsies in Egypt, but learned little from them. What I found +I stated in a work called the "Egyptian Sketch Book." It was to this +effect: My first information was derived from the late Khedive Ismael, +who during an interview with me said, "There are in Egypt many people +known as Rhagarin, or Ghagarin, who are probably the same as the gypsies +of Europe. They are wanderers, who live in tents, and are regarded with +contempt even by the peasantry. Their women tell fortunes, tattoo, and +sell small wares; the men work in iron. They are all adroit thieves, and +noted as such. The men may sometimes be seen going round the country +with monkeys. In fact, they appear to be in all respects the same people +as the gypsies of Europe." + +I habitually employed, while in Cairo, the same donkey-driver, an +intelligent and well-behaved man named Mahomet, who spoke English fairly. +On asking him if he could show me any Rhagarin, he replied that there was +a fair or market held every Saturday at Boulac, where I would be sure to +meet with women of the tribe. The men, he said, seldom ventured into the +city, because they were subject to much insult and ill-treatment from the +common people. + +On the day appointed I rode to Boulac. The market was very interesting. +I saw no European or Frangi there, except my companion, Baron de Cosson, +who afterwards traveled far into the White Nile country, and who had with +his brother Edward many remarkable adventures in Abyssinia, which were +well recorded by the latter in a book. All around were thousands of +blue-skirted and red-tarbouched or white-turbaned Egyptians, buying or +selling, or else amusing themselves, but with an excess of outcry and +hallo which indicates their grown child character. There were dealers in +donkeys and horses roaring aloud, "He is for ten napoleons! Had I asked +twenty you would have gladly given me fifteen!" "O true believers, here +is a Syrian steed which will give renown to the purchaser!" Strolling +loosely about were dealers in sugar-cane and pea-nuts, which are called +gooba in Africa as in America, pipe peddlers and venders of rosaries, +jugglers and minstrels. At last we came to a middle-aged woman seated on +the ground behind a basket containing beads, glass armlets, and such +trinkets. She was dressed like any Arab-woman of the lower class, but +was not veiled, and on her chin blue lines were tattooed. Her features +and expression were, however, gypsy, and not Egyptian. And as she sat +there quietly I wondered how a woman could feel in her heart who was +looked down upon with infinite scorn by an Egyptian, who might justly be +looked down on in his turn with sublime contempt by an average American +Methodist colored whitewasher who "took de 'Ledger.'" Yet there was in +the woman the quiet expression which associates itself with +respectability, and it is worth remarking that whenever a race is greatly +looked down on by another from the stand-point of mere color, as in +America, or mere religion, as in Mahometan lands, it always contains +proportionally a larger number of _decent_ people than are to be found +among those who immediately oppress it. An average Chinese is as a human +being far superior to a hoodlum, and a man of color to the white man who +cannot speak of him or to him except as a "naygur" or a "nigger." It is +when a man realizes that he is superior in _nothing_ else save race, +color, religion, family, inherited fortune, and their contingent +advantages that he develops most readily into the prig and snob. + +I spoke to the woman in Romany, using such words as would have been +intelligible to any of her race in any other country; but she did not +understand me, and declared that she could speak nothing but Arabic. At +my request Mahomet explained to her that I had come from a distant +country in Orobba, or Europe, where there were many Rhagarin, who said +that their fathers came from Egypt, and that I wished to know if any in +the old country could speak the old language. She replied that the +Rhagarin of Montesinos could still speak it; but that her people in Egypt +had lost the tongue. Mahomet, in translating, here remarked that +Montesinos meant Mount Sinai or Syria. I then asked her if the Rhagarin +had no peculiar name for themselves, and she answered, "Yes; we call +ourselves Tataren." + +This at least was satisfactory. All over Southern Germany and in Norway +the gypsies are called Tartaren, and though the word means Tartars, and +is misapplied, it indicates the race. The woman seemed to be much +gratified at the interest I manifested in her people. I gave her a +double piaster, and asked for its value in blue glass armlets. She gave +me four, and as I turned to depart called me back, and with a +good-natured smile handed me four more as a present. This generosity was +very gypsy-like, and very unlike the habitual meanness of the ordinary +Egyptian. + +After this Mahomet took me to a number of Rhagarin. They all resembled +the one whom I had seen, and all were sellers of small articles and +fortune-tellers. They all differed slightly from common Egyptians in +appearance, and were more unlike them in not being importunate for money, +nor disagreeable in their manners. But though they were as certainly +gypsies as old Charlotte Cooper herself, none of them could speak Romany. +I used to amuse myself by imagining what some of my English gypsy friends +would have done if turned loose in Cairo among their cousins. How +naturally old Charlotte would have waylaid and "dukkered" and amazed the +English ladies in the Muskee, and how easily that reprobate old amiable +cosmopolite, the Windsor Frog, would have mingled with the motley mob of +donkey-boys and tourists before Shepherd's Hotel, and appointed himself +an _attache_ to their excursions to the Pyramids, and drunk their pale +ale or anything else to their healths, and then at the end of the day +have claimed a wage for his politeness! And how well the climate would +have agreed with them, and how they would have agreed that it was of all +lands the best for _tannin_, or tenting out, in the world! + +The gypsiest-looking gypsy in Cairo, with whom I became somewhat +familiar, was a boy of sixteen, a snake-charmer; a dark and even handsome +youth, but with eyes of such wild wickedness that no one who had ever +seen him excited could hope that he would ever become as other human +beings. I believe that he had come, as do all of his calling, from a +snake-catching line of ancestors, and that he had taken in from them, as +did Elsie Venner, the serpent nature. They had gone snaking, generation +after generation, from the days of the serpent worship of old, it may be +back to the old Serpent himself; and this tawny, sinuous, active thing of +evil, this boy, without the least sense of sympathy for any pain, who +devoured a cobra alive with as much indifference as he had just shown in +petting it, was the result. He was a human snake. I had long before +reading the wonderfully original work of Doctor Holmes reflected deeply +on the moral and immoral influences which serpent worship of old, in +Syria and other lands, must have had upon its followers. But Elsie +Venner sets forth the serpent nature as benumbed or suspended by cold New +England winters and New England religions, moral and social influences; +the Ophites of old and the Cairene gypsy showed the boy as warmed to life +in lands whose winters are as burning summers. Elsie Venner is not +sensual, and sensuality is the leading trait of the human-serpent nature. +Herein lies an error, just as a sculptor would err who should present +Lady Godiva as fully draped, or Sappho merely as a sweet singer of +Lesbos, or Antinous only as a fine young man. He who would harrow hell +and rake out the devil, and then exhibit to us an ordinary sinner, or an +_opera bouffe_ "Mefistofele," as the result, reminds one of the seven +Suabians who went to hunt a monster,--"_a Ungeheuer_,"--and returned with +a hare. Elsie Venner is not a hare; she is a wonderful creation; but she +is a winter-snake. I confess that I have no patience, however, with +those who pretend to show us summer-snakes, and would fain dabble with +vice; who are amateurs in the diabolical, and drawing-room dilettanti in +damnation. Such, as I have said before, are the aesthetic adorers of +Villon, whom the old _roue_ himself would have most despised, and the +admirers of "Faustine," whom Faustina would have picked up between her +thumb and finger, and eyed with serene contempt before throwing them out +of the window. A future age will have for these would-be wickeds, who +are only monks half turned inside out, more laughter than we now indulge +in at Chloe and Strephon. + +I always regarded my young friend Abdullah as a natural child of the +devil and a serpent-souled young sinner, and he never disappointed me in +my opinion of him. I never in my life felt any antipathy to serpents, +and he evidently regarded me as a _sapengro_, or snake-master. The first +day I met him he put into my hands a cobra which had the fangs extracted, +and then handled an asp which still had its poison teeth. On his asking +me if I was afraid of it, and my telling him "No," he gave it to me, and +after I had petted it, he always manifested an understanding,--I cannot +say sympathy. I should have liked to see that boy's sister, if he ever +had one, and was not hatched out from some egg found in the desert by an +Egyptian incubus or incubator. She must have been a charming young lady, +and his mother must have been a beauty, especially when in +court-dress,--with her broom _et praeterea nihil_. But neither, alas, +could be ever seen by me, for it is written in the "Gittin" that there +are three hundred species of male demons, but what the female herself is +like is known to no one. + +Abdullah first made his appearance before me at Shepherd's Hotel, and +despite his amazing natural impudence, which appeared to such splendid +advantage in the street that I always thought he must be a lineal +descendant of the brazen serpent himself, he evinced a certain timidity +which was to me inexplicable, until I recalled that the big snake of +Irish legends had shown the same modesty when Saint Patrick wanted him to +enter the chest which he had prepared for his prison. "Sure, it's a nate +little house I've made for yees," said the saint, "wid an iligant +parlor." "I don't like the look av it at all, at all," says the sarpent, +as he squinted at it suspiciously, "and I'm loath to _inter_ it." + +Abdullah looked at the parlor as if he too were loath to "inter" it; but +he was in charge of one in whom his race instinctively trust, so I led +him in. His apparel was simple: it consisted of a coarse shirt, very +short, with a belt around the waist, and an old tarbouch on his head. +Between the shirt and his bare skin, as in a bag, was about a half peck +of cobras, asps, vipers, and similar squirming property; while between +his cap and his hair were generally stowed one or two enormous living +scorpions, and any small serpents that he could not trust to dwell with +the larger ones. When I asked Abdullah where he contrived to get such +vast scorpions and such lively serpents, he replied, "Out in the desert." +I arranged, in fact, to go out with him some day a-snaking and scorp'ing, +and have ever since regretted that I did not avail myself of the +opportunity. He showed off his snakes to the ladies, and concluded by +offering to eat the largest one alive before our eyes for a dollar, which +price he speedily reduced to a half. There was a young New England lady +present who was very anxious to witness this performance; but as I +informed Abdullah that if he attempted anything of the kind I would kick +him out-of-doors, snakes and all, he ceased to offer to show himself a +cannibal. Perhaps he had learned what Rabbi Simon ben Yochai taught, +that it is a good deed to smash the heads of the best of serpents, even +as it is a duty to kill the best of Goyim. And if by Goyim he meant +Philistines, I agree with him. + +I often met Abdullah after that, and helped him to several very good +exhibitions. Two or three things I learned from him. One was that the +cobra, when wide awake, yet not too violently excited, lifts its head and +maintains a curious swaying motion, which, when accompanied by music, may +readily be mistaken for dancing acquired from a teacher. The Hindu +_sappa-wallahs_ make people believe that this "dancing" is really the +result of tuition, and that it is influenced by music. Later, I found +that the common people in Egypt continue to believe that the snakes which +Abdullah and his tribe exhibit are as dangerous and deadly as can be, and +that they are managed by magic. Whether they believe, as it was held of +old by the Rabbis, that serpents are to be tamed by sorcery only on the +Sabbath, I never learned. + +Abdullah was crafty enough for a whole generation of snakes, but in the +wisdom attributed to serpents he was woefully wanting. He would run by +my side in the street as I rode, expecting that I would pause to accept a +large wiggling scorpion as a gift, or purchase a viper, I suppose for a +riding-whip or a necktie. One day when I was in a jam of about a hundred +donkey-boys, trying to outride the roaring mob, and all of a fever with +heat and dust, Abdullah spied me, and, joining the mob, kept running by +my side, crying in maddening monotony, "Snake, sah! Scorpion, sah! Very +fine snake to-day, sah!"--just as if his serpents were edible delicacies, +which were for that day particularly fresh and nice. + +There are three kinds of gypsies in Egypt,--the Rhagarin, the Helebis, +and the Nauar. They have secret jargons among themselves; but as I +ascertained subsequently from specimens given by Captain Newboldt {302a} +and Seetzen, as quoted by Pott, {302b} their language is made up of +Arabic "back-slang," Turkish and Greek, with a very little Romany,--so +little that it is not wonderful that I could not converse with them in +it. The Syrian gypsies, or Nuri, who are seen with bears and monkeys in +Cairo, are strangers in the land. With them a conversation is not +difficult. It is remarkable that while English, German, and Turkish or +Syrian gypsy look so different and difficult as printed in books, it is +on the whole an easy matter to get on with them in conversation. The +roots being the same, a little management soon supplies the rest. + +Abdullah was a Helebi. The last time I saw him I was sitting on the +balcony of Shepherd's Hotel, in the early evening, with an American, who +had never seen a snake-charmer. I called the boy, and inadvertently gave +him his pay in advance, telling him to show all his stock in trade. But +the temptation to swindle was too great, and seizing the coin he rushed +back into the darkness. From that hour I beheld him no more. I think I +can see that last gleam of his demon eyes as he turned and fled. I met +in after-days with other snake-boys, but for an eye which indicated an +unadulterated child of the devil, and for general blackguardly behavior +to match, I never found anybody like my young friend Abdullah. + +The last snake-masters whom I came across were two sailors at the +Oriental Seamen's Home in London. And strangely enough, on the day of my +visit they had obtained in London, of all places, a very large and +profitable job; for they had been employed to draw the teeth of all the +poisonous serpents in the Zoological Garden. Whether these practitioners +ever applied for or received positions as members of the Dental College I +do not know, any more than if they were entitled to practice as surgeons +without licenses. Like all the Hindu _sappa-wallahs_, or snake-men, they +are what in Europe would be called gypsies. + + + + +GYPSY NAMES AND FAMILY CHARACTERISTICS. + + +The following list gives the names of the principal gypsy families in +England, with their characteristics. It was prepared for me by an old, +well-known Romany, of full blood. Those which have (A) appended to them +are known to have representatives in America. For myself, I believe that +gypsies bearing all these names are to be found in both countries. I +would also state that the personal characteristics attributed to certain +families are by no means very strictly applicable, neither do any of them +confine themselves rigidly to any particular part of England. I have +met, for instance, with Bosvilles, Lees, Coopers, Smiths, Bucklands, +etc., in every part of England as well as Wales. I am aware that the +list is imperfect in all respects. + +AYRES. + +BAILEY (A). Half-bloods. Also called rich. Roam in Sussex. + +BARTON. Lower Wiltshire. + +BLACK. Hampshire. + +BOSVILLE (A). Generally spread, but are specially to be found in +Devonshire. I have found several fine specimens of real Romanys among +the American Bosvilles. In Romany, _Chumomishto_, that is, Buss (or +Kiss) well. + +BROADWAY (A). Somerset. + +BUCKLAND. In Gloucestershire, but abounding over England. Sometimes +called _Chokamengro_, that is Tailor. + +BURTON (A). Wiltshire. + +CHAPMAN (A). Half-blood, and are commonly spoken of as a rich clan. +Travel all over England. + +CHILCOTT (vul. CHILCOCK). + +CLARKE. Half-blood. Portsmouth. + +COOPER (A). Chiefly found in Berkshire and Windsor. In Romany, _Vardo +mescro_. + +DAVIES. + +DICKENS. Half-blood. + +DIGHTON. Blackheath. + +DRAPER. Hertfordshire. + +FINCH. + +FULLER. Hardly half-blood, but talk Romany. + +GRAY. Essex. In Romany, _Gry_, or horse. + +HARE (A). Chiefly in Hampshire. + +HAZARD. Half-blood. Windsor. + +HERNE. Oxfordshire and London. "Of this name there are," says Borrow +(Romano Lavo-Lil), "two gypsy renderings: (1.) Rosar-mescro or +Ratzie-mescro, that is, _duck_-fellow; the duck being substituted for the +_heron_, for which there is no word in Romany, this being done because +there is a resemblance in the sound of Heron and Herne. (2.) +Balor-engre, or Hairy People, the translator having confounded Herne with +Haaren, Old English for hairs." + +HICKS. Half-blood. Berkshire. + +HUGHES. Wiltshire. + +INGRAHAM (A). Wales and Birmingham, or in the Kalo tem or Black Country. + +JAMES. Half-blood. + +JENKINS. Wiltshire. + +JONES. Half-blood. Headquarters at Battersea, near London. + +LEE (A). The same in most respects as the Smiths, but are even more +widely extended. I have met with several of the most decided type of +pure-blooded, old-fashioned gypsies among Lees in America. They are +sometimes among themselves called _purum_, a _lee-k_, from the fancied +resemblance of the words. + +LEWIS. Hampshire. + +LOCKE. Somerset and Gloucestershire. + +LOVEL. Known in Romany as Kamlo, or Kamescro, that is, lover. London, +but are found everywhere. + +LOVERIDGE. Travel in Oxfordshire; are in London at Shepherd's Bush. + +MARSHALL. As much Scotch as English, especially in Dumfriesshire and +Galloway, in which latter region, in Saint Cuthbert's church-yard, lies +buried the "old man" of the race, who died at the age of one hundred and +seven. In Romany Makkado-tan-engree, that is, Fellows of the Marshes. +Also known as Bungoror, cork-fellows and Chikkenemengree, china or +earthenware (lit. dirt or clay) men, from their cutting corks, and +peddling pottery, or mending china. + +MATTHEWS. Half-blood. Surrey. + +NORTH. + +PETULENGRO, or SMITH. The Romany name Petulengro means Master of the +Horseshoe; that is, Smith. The gypsy who made this list declared that he +had been acquainted with Jasper Petulengro, of Borrow's Lavengro, and +that he died near Norwich about sixty years ago. The Smiths are general +as travelers, but are chiefly to be found in the East of England. + +PIKE. Berkshire. + +PINFOLD, or PENFOLD. Half and quarter blood. Widely extended, but most +at home in London. + +ROLLIN (ROLAND?). Half-blood. Chiefly about London. + +SCAMP. Chiefly in Kent. A small clan. Mr. Borrow derives this name +from the Sanskrit Ksump, to go. I trust that it has not a more recent +and purely English derivation. + +SHAW. + +SMALL (A). Found in West England, chiefly in Somerset and Devonshire. + +STANLEY (A). One of the most extended clans, but said to be chiefly +found in Devonshire. They sometimes call themselves in joke Beshalay, +that is, Sit-Down, from the word _stan_, suggesting standing up in +connection with lay. Also Bangor, or Baromescre, that is, Stone (stan) +people. Thus "Stony-lea" was probably their first name. Also called +Kashtengrees, Woodmen, from the New Forest. + +TAYLOR. A clan described as _diddikai_, or half-bloods. Chiefly in +London. This clan should be the only one known as _Chokamengro_. + +TURNER. + +WALKER. Half-blood. Travel about Surrey. + +WELLS (A). Half-blood. Somerset. + +WHARTON. WORTON. I have only met the Whartons in America. + +WHEELER. Pure and half-blood. Battersea. + +WHITE. + +"Adre o Lavines tem o Romanies see WOODS, ROBERTS, WILLIAMS, and JONES. +In Wales the gypsies are Woods, Roberts, Williams, and Jones." {307a} + + + +CHARACTERISTICS. {307b} + + +Of these gypsies the BAILIES are fair. + +The BIRDS are in Norfolk and Suffolk. + +The BLACKS are dark, stout, and strong. + +The BOSVILLES are rather short, fair, stout, and heavy. + +The BROADWAYS are fair, of medium height and good figures. + +The BUCKLANDS are thin, dark, and tallish. + +The BUNCES travel in the South of England. + +The BURTONS are short, dark, and very active. + +The CHAPMANS are fair. + +The CLARKES are fair and well-sized men. + +The COOPERS are short, dark, and very active. + +The DIGHTONS are very dark and stout. + +The DRAPERS are very tall and large and dark. + +The FAAS are at Kirk Yetholm, in Scotland. + +The GRAYS are very large and fair. + +The GREENES are small and dark. + +The GREGORIES range from Surrey to Suffolk. + +The HARES are large, stout, and dark. + +The HAZARDS are tall and fair. + +The HERNES (Herons) are very large and dark. + +The HICKS are very large, strong, and fair. + +The HUGHES are short, stubby, and dark. + +The INGRAHAMS are fair and all of medium height. + +The JENKINS are dark, not large, and active. + +The JONES are fair and of middling height. + +The LANES are fair and of medium height. + +The LEES are dark, tall, and stout. + +The LEWIS are dark and of medium height. + +The LIGHTS are half-bloods, and travel in Middlesex. + +The LOCKES are shortish, dark, and large. + +The LOVELLS are dark and large. + +The MACES are about Norwich. + +The MATTHEWS are thick, short, and stout, fair, and good fighters. + +The MILLERS are at Battersea. + +NORTH. Are to be found at Shepherd's Bush. + +The OLIVERS are in Kent. + +The PIKES are light and very tall. + +The PINFOLDS are light, rather tall, not heavy. (Are really a Norfolk +family. F. Groome.) + +The ROLANDS are rather large and dark. + +The SCAMPS are very dark and stout. + +The SHAWS travel in Middlesex. + +The SMALLS are tall, stout, and fair. + +The SMITHS are dark, rather tall, slender, and active. + +The STANLEYS are tall, dark, and handsome. + +The TAYLORS are short, stout, and dark. + +The TURNERS are also in Norfolk and Suffolk. + +The WALKERS are stout and fair. + +The WELLS are very light and tall. + +The WHEELERS are thin and fair. + +The WHITES are short and light. + +The YOUNGS are very dark. They travel in the northern counties, and +belong both to Scotland and England. + + * * * * * + +The following is a collection of the more remarkable "fore" or Christian +names of Romanys:-- + + + +MASCULINE NAMES. + + +Opi Boswell. + +Wanselo, or Anselo. I was once of the opinion that this name was +originally Lancelot, but as Mr. Borrow has found Wentzlow, _i.e._, +Wenceslas, in England, the latter is probably the original. I have found +it changed to Onslow, as the name painted on a Romany van in Aberystwith, +but it was pronounced Anselo. + +Pastor-rumis. + +Spico. + +Jineral, _i.e._, General Cooper. + +Horferus and Horfer. Either Arthur or Orpheus. His name was then +changed to Wacker-doll, and finally settled into Wacker. + +Plato or Platos Buckland. + +Wine-Vinegar Cooper. The original name of the child bearing this +extraordinary name was Owen. He died soon after birth, and was in +consequence always spoken of as Wine-Vinegar,--Wine for the joy which his +parents had at his birth, and Vinegar to signify their grief at his loss. + +Gilderoy Buckland. Silvanus Boswell. + +Lancelot Cooper. Sylvester, Vester, Wester, Westarus and 'Starus. + +Oscar Buckland. + +Dimiti Buckland. Liberty. + +Piramus Boswell. Goliath. + +Reconcile. Octavius. + +Justerinus. Render Smith. + +Faunio. + +Shek-esu. I am assured on good authority that a gypsy had a child +baptized by this name. + +Artaros. Sacki. + +Culvato (Claude). Spysell. + +Divervus. Spico. + +Lasho, _i.e._, Louis. + +Vesuvius. I do not know whether any child was actually called by this +burning cognomen, but I remember that a gypsy, hearing two gentlemen +talking about Mount Vesuvius, was greatly impressed by the name, and +consulted with them as to the propriety of giving it to his little boy. + +Wisdom. Loverin. + +Inverto. Mantis. + +Studaveres Lovel. Happy Boswell. + + + +FEMININE NAMES. + + +Selinda, Slinda, Linda, Slindi. Delilah. + +Mia. Prudence. + +Mizelia, Mizelli, Mizela. Providence. + +Lina. Eve. + +Pendivella. Athaliah. + +Jewranum, _i.e._, Geranium. Gentilla, Gentie. + +Virginia. Synfie. Probably Cynthia. + +Suby, Azuba. Sybie. Probably from Sibyl. + +Isaia. + +Richenda. Canairis. + +Kiomi. Fenella. + +Liberina. Floure, Flower, Flora. + +Malindi. Kisaiya. + +Otchame. Orlenda. + +Renee. Reyora, Regina. + +Sinaminta. Syeira. Probably Cyra. + +Y-yra or Yeira. Truffeni. + +Delira, Deleera. Ocean Solis. + +Marili Stanley. Penelli. Possibly from Fenella. + +Britannia. + +Glani. Segel Buckland. + +Zuba. Morella Knightly. + +Sybarini Cooper. Eza. + +Esmeralda Locke. Lenda. + +Penti. Collia. + +Reservi. This extraordinary name was derived from a reservoir, by which +some gypsies were camped, and where a child was born. + +Lementina. Casello (Celia). + +Rodi. Catseye. + +Alabina. Trainette. + +Dosia. Perpinia. + +Lavi. Dora. + +Silvina. Starlina. + +Richenda. Bazena. + +Marbelenni. Bena. + +Ashena. Ewri. + +Vashti. Koket. + +Youregh. Lusho. + + + + +GYPSY STORIES IN ROMANY, WITH TRANSLATION. + + +MERLINOS TE TRINALI. + + +"Miro koko, pen mandy a rinkeno gudlo?" + +Avali miri chavi. Me 'tvel pen tute dui te shyan trin, vonka tute +'atches sar pukeno. Shun amengi. Yeckorus adre o Lavines tem sos a boro +chovihan, navdo Merlinos. Gusvero mush sos Merlinos, buti seeri covva +yuv asti kair. Jindas yuv ta pur yeck jivnipen adre o waver, saster adre +o rupp, te o rupp adre sonakai. Fino covva sos adovo te sos miro. Te +longoduro fon leste jivdes a bori chovihani, Trinali sos lakis nav. +Boridiri chovihani sos Trinali, buti manushe seerdas yoi, buti ryor +purdas yoi adre mylia te balor, te ne kesserdas yeck haura pa sar lender +dush. + +Yeck divvus Merlinos lias lester chovihaneskro ran te jas aduro ta +latcher i chovihani te pessur laki drovan pa sar lakis wafropen. Te pa +adovo tacho divvus i rani Trinali shundas sa Merlinos boro ruslo sorelo +chovihan se, te pendas, "Sossi ajafra mush? Me dukkerava leste or yuv +tevel mer mande, s'up mi o beng! me shom te seer leste. Mukkamen dikk +savo lela kumi shunaben, te savo se o jinescrodiro?" Te adoi o Merlinos +jas apre o dromus, sarodivvus akonyo, sarja adre o kamescro dud, te +Trinali jas adre o wesh sarja adre o ratinus, o tam, o kalopen, o shure, +denne yoi sos chovihani. Kennasig, yan latcherde yeckawaver, awer +Merlinos ne jindas yoi sos Trinali, te Trinali ne jindas adovo manush se +Merlinos. Te yuv sos buti kamelo ke laki, te yoi apopli; kennasig yandui +ankairde ta kam yeckawaver butidiro. Vonka yeck jinella adovo te o waver +jinella lis, kek boro chirus tvel i dui sosti jinavit. Merlinos te +Trinali pende "me kamava tute," sig ketenes, te chumerde yeckawaver, te +beshde alay rikkerend adre o simno pelashta te rakkerde kushto bak. + +Te adenna Merlinos pukkerdas laki, yuv jas ta dusher a buti wafodi +chovihani, te Trinali pendas lesko o simno covva, sa yoi sos ruzno ta +kair o simno keti a boro chovihano. Te i dui ankairede ta manger +yeckawaver ta mukk o covva ja, te yoi te yuv shomas atrash o nasherin +lende pireno te pireni. Awer Merlinos pendas, "Mandy sovahalldom pa o +kam ta pur laki pa sar lakis jivaben adre o waves truppo." Te yoi +ruvvedas te pendas, "Sovahalldas me pa o chone ta pur adovo chovihano +adre a wavero, sim's tute." Denna Merlinos putcherdas, "Sasi lesters +nav?" Yoi pendas, "Merlinos." Yuv rakkeredas palall, "Me shom leste, +sasi tiro nav?" Yoi shelledas avri, "Trinali!" + +Kenna vanka chovihanis sovahallan chumeny apre o kam te i choni, yan +sosti keravit or mer. Te denna Merlinos pendas, "Jinesa tu sa ta kair +akovo pennis sar kushto te tacho?" "Kekker miro kamlo pireno," pendas i +chori chovihani sa yoi ruvdas." "Denna me shom kumi jinescro, ne tute," +pendas Merlinos. "Shukar te kushto covva se akovo, miri romni. Me bevel +pur tute adre mande, te mande adre tute. Te vonka mendui shom romadi +mendui tevel yeck." + +Sa yeck mush ta divvus kenna penella yoi siggerdas leste, te awavero pens +yuv siggerdas laki. Ne jinava me miri kameli. Ne dikkdas tu kekker a +dui sherescro haura? Avail! Wusser lis uppar, te vanka lis pellalay +pukk amengy savo rikk se alay. Welsher pendas man adovo. Welsheri +pennena sarja tachopen. + + + +MERLIN AND TRINALI. + + +"My uncle, tell me a pretty story!" + +Yes, my child. I will tell you two, and perhaps three, if you keep very +quiet. Listen to me. Once in Wales there was a great wizard named +Merlin. Many magic things he could do. He knew how to change one living +being into another, iron into silver, and silver into gold. A fine thing +that would be if it were mine. And afar from him lived a great witch. +Trinali was her name. A great witch was Trinali. Many men did she +enchant, many gentlemen did she change into asses and pigs, and never +cared a copper for all their sufferings. + +One day Merlin took his magic rod, and went afar to find the witch, and +pay her severely for all her wickedness. And on that very [true] day the +lady Trinali heard how Merlin was [is] a great, powerful wizard, and +said, "What sort of a man is this? I will punish him or he shall kill +me, deuce help me! I will bewitch him. Let us see who has the most +cleverness and who is the most knowing." And then Merlin went on the +road all day alone, always in sunshine; and Trinali went in the forest, +always in the shade, the darkness, the gloom, for she was a black witch. +Soon they found one another, but Merlin did not know [that] she was +Trinali, and Trinal, did not know that man was [is to be] Merlin. And he +was very pleasant to her, and she to him again. Very soon the two began +to love one another very much. When one knows that and the other knows +it, both will soon know it. Merlin and Trinali said "I love thee" both +together, and kissed one another, and sat down wrapped in the same cloak, +and conversed happily. + +Then Merlin told her he was going to punish a very wicked witch; and +Trinali told him the same thing, how she was bold [daring] to do the same +thing to a great wizard. And the two began to beg one another to let the +thing go, and she and he were afraid of losing lover and sweetheart. But +Merlin said, "I swore by the sun to change her for her whole life into +another form" [body]; and she wept and said, "I swore by the moon to +change that wizard into another [person] even as you did." Then Merlin +inquired, "What is his name?" She said, "Merlin." He replied, "I am he; +what is your name?" She cried aloud, "Trinali." + +Now when witches swear anything on the sun or the moon, they must do it +or die. Then Merlin said, "Do you know how to make this business all +nice and right?" "Not at all, my dear love," said the poor witch, as she +wept. "Then I am cleverer than you," said Merlin. "An easy and nice +thing it is, my bride. For I will change you into me, and myself into +you. And when we are married we two will be one." + +So one man says nowadays that she conquered him, and another that he +conquered her. I do not know [which it was], my dear. Did you ever see +a two-headed halfpenny? _Yes_? Throw it up, and when it falls down ask +me which side is under. A Welsher told me that story. Welshers always +tell the truth. + + + +O PUV-SUVER. + + +Yeckorus sims buti kedivvus, sos rakli, te yoi sos kushti partanengri, te +yoi astis kair a rinkeno plachta, yeck sar divvus. Te covakai chi kamdas +rye butidiro, awer yeck divvus lakis pireno sos stardo adre staruben. Te +vonka yoi shundas lis, yoi hushtiedas apre te jas keti krallis te +mangerdas leste choruknes ta mukk lakis pireno ja piro. Te krallis +patserdas laki tevel yoi kairdas leste a rinkeno plachta, yeck sar divvus +pa kurikus, hafta plachta pa hafta divvus, yuv tvel ferdel leste, te de +leste tachaben ta ja 'vri. I tani rani siggerdas ta keravit, te pa shov +divvus yoi taderedas adrom, kushti zi, pa lis te sarkon chirus adre o +shab yoi bitcherdas plachta keta krallis. Awer avella yeck divvus yoi +sos kinlo, te pendes yoi nei kamdas kair butsi 'dovo divvus si sos +brishnu te yoi nestis shiri a sappa dre o kamlo dud. Adenn' o krallis +pendas te yoi nestis kair butsi hafta divvus lava lakis pireno, o rye +sosti hatch staramescro te yoi ne mukkdas kamaben adosta pa leste. Te i +rakli sos sa hunnalo te tukno dre lakis zi yoi merdas o ruvvin te lias +puraben adre o puv-suver. Te keti divvus kenna yoi pandella apre lakris +tavia, vonka kam peshella, te i cuttor pani tu dikess' apre lende shan o +panni fon lakis yakka yoi ruvdas pa lakris pireno. + +Te tu vel hatch kaulo yeck lilieskro divvus tu astis nasher sar o +kairoben fon o chollo kurikus, miri chavi. Tu peness' tu kamess' to shun +waveri gudli. Sar tacho. Me tevel puker tute rinkno gudlo apre kali +foki. Repper tute sarkon me penava sa me repper das lis fon miro babus. + + + +THE SPIDER. {317} + + +Once there was a girl, as there are many to-day, and she was a good +needle-worker, and could make a beautiful cloak in one day. And that +[there] girl loved a gentleman very much; but one day her sweetheart was +shut up in prison, and when she heard it she hastened and went to the +king, and begged him humbly to let her love go free. And the king +promised her if she would make him a fine cloak,--one every day for a +week, seven cloaks for seven days,--he would forgive him, and give him +leave to go free. The young lady hastened to do it, and for six days she +worked hard [lit. pulled away] cheerfully at it, and always in the +evening she sent a cloak to the king. But it came [happened] one day +that she was tired, and said [that] she did not wish to work because it +was rainy, and she could not dry or bleach the cloth [?] in the sunlight. +Then the king said that if she could not work seven days to get her lover +the gentleman must remain imprisoned, for she did not love him as she +should [did not let love enough on him]. And the maid was so angry and +vexed in her heart [or soul] that she died of grief, and was changed into +a spider. And to this day she spreads out her threads when the sun +shines, and the dew-drops which you see on them are the tears which she +has wept for her lover. + +If you remain idle one summer day you may lose a whole week's work, my +dear. You say that you would like to hear more stories! All right. I +will tell you a nice story about lazy people. {317b} Remember all I tell +you, as I remembered it from my grandfather. + + + +GORGIO, KALO-MANUSH, TE ROM. + + +Yeckorus pa ankairoben, kon i manushia nanei lavia, o boro Duvel jas +pirian. Sa si asar? Shun miri chavi, me givellis tute:-- + + Buti beshia kedivrus kenna + Adre o tem ankairoben, + O boro Duvel jas 'vri aja, + Ta dikk i mushia miraben. + +Sa yuv pirridas, dikkdas trin mushia pash o dromescro rikk, hatchin keti +chomano mush te vel de lendis navia, te len putcherde o boro Duvel ta +navver lende. Dordi, o yeckto mush sos pano, te o boro Duvel pukkerdas +kavodoi, "Gorgio." Te yuv sikkerdas leste kokero keti dovo, te suderdas +leste buti kameli sa jewries, te rinkeni rudaben, te jas _gorgeous_. Te +o wavescro geero sos kalo sa skunya, te o boro Duvel pendas, "Nigger!" te +yuv _nikkeredas_ adrom, sa sujery te muzhili, te yuv se _nikkerin_ sarja +keti kenna, adre o kamescro dud, te yuv's kalo-kalo ta kair butsi, nanei +tu serbers leste keti lis, te tazzers lis. Te o trinto mush sos brauuo, +te yuv beshdas pukeno, tuvin leste's swagler, keti o boro Duvel +rakkerdas, "Rom!" te adenna o mush hatchedas apre, te pendas buti kamelo, +"Parraco Rya tiro kushtaben; me te vel mishto piav tiro sastopen!" Te +jas romeli a _roamin_ langs i lescro romni, te kekker dukkerdas lester +kokerus, ne kesserdas pa chichi fon adennadoi keti kenna, te jas adral o +sweti, te kekker hatchedas pukenus, te nanei hudder ta keravit ket' o +boro Duvel penell' o lav. Tacho adovo se sa tiri yakka, miri kamli. + + + +GORGIO, {319a} BLACK MAN, AND GYPSY. + + +Once in the creation, when men had no names, the Lord went walking. How +was that? Listen, my child, I will sing it to you:-- + + Many a year has passed away + Since the world was first begun, + That the great Lord went out one day + To see how men's lives went on. + +As he walked along he saw three men by the roadside, waiting till some +man would give them names; and they asked the Lord to name them. See! +the first man was white, and the Lord called him Gorgio. Then he adapted +himself to that name, and adorned himself with jewelry and fine clothes, +and went _gorgeous_. And the other man was black and the Lord called him +Nigger, and he lounged away [_nikker_, to lounge, loiter; an attempted +pun], so idle and foul; and he is always lounging till now in the +sunshine, and he is too lazy [_kalo-kalo_, black-black, or lazy-lazy, +that is, too black or too lazy] to work unless you compel and punish him. +And the third man was brown, and he sat quiet, smoking his pipe, till the +Lord said, Rom! [gypsy, or "roam"]; and then that man arose and said, +very politely, "Thank you, Lord, for your kindness. I'd be glad to drink +your health." And he went, Romany fashion, a-roaming {319b} with his +romni [wife], and never troubled himself about anything from that time +till to-day, and went through the world, and never rested and never +wished to until the Lord speaks the word. That is all as true as your +eyes, my dear! + + + +YAG-BAR TE SASTER. +SA O KAM SOS ANKERDO. + + +"Pen mandy a waver gudlo trustal o ankairoben!" + +Ne shomas adoi, awer shundom buti apa lis fon miro babus. Foki pende +mengy sa o chollo-tem {320} sos kerdo fon o kam, awer i Romany chalia +savo keren sar chingernes, pen o kam sos kerdo fon o boro tem. Wafedo +gry se adovo te nestis ja sigan te anpali o kushto drom. Yeckorus 'dre o +puro chirus, te kenna, sos a bori pureni chovihani te kerdas sirini +covvas, te jivdas sar akonyo adre o heb adre o ratti. Yeck divvus yoi +latchedas yag-bar adre o puv, te tilldas es apre te pukkeredas lestes nav +pale, "Yag-bar." Te pash a bittus yoi latchedas a bitto kushto-saster, +te haderdas lis apre te putchedas lestis nav, te lis rakkerdas apopli, +"Saster." Chivdasi dui 'dre lakis putsi, te pendas Yag-bar, "Tu sosti +rummer o rye, Saster!" Te yan kerdavit, awer yeck divvus i dui ankairede +ta chinger, te Saster des lestis juva Yag-bar a tatto-yek adre o yakk, te +kairedas i chingari ta mukker avri, te hotcher i puri juva's putsi. Sa +yoi wusserdas hotcherni putsi adre o hev, te pendas lis ta kessur adrom +keti avenna o mush sari juva kun kekker chingerd chichi. I chingari shan +staria, te dovo yag se o kam, te lis nanei jillo avri keti kenna, te lis +tevel hotcher anduro buti beshia pa sar jinova me keti chingerben. Tacho +si? Ne shomas adoi. + + + +FLINT AND STEEL. +OR HOW THE SUN WAS CREATED. + + +"Tell me another story about the creation!" + +I was not there at the time, but I heard a great deal about it from my +grandfather. All he did there was to turn the wheel. People tell me +that the world was made from the sun, but gypsies, who do everything all +contrary, say that the sun was made from the earth. A bad horse is that +which will not travel either way on a road. Once in the old time, as +[there may be] now, was a great old witch, who made enchantments, and +lived all alone in the sky in the night. One day she found a flint in a +field, and picked her up, and the stone told her that her name was Flint. +And after a bit she found a small piece of steel, and picked him up, and +asked his name, and he replied, "Steel" [iron]. She put the two in her +pocket, and said to Flint, "You must marry Master Steel." So they did, +but one day the two began to quarrel, and Steel gave his wife Flint a hot +one [a severe blow] in the eye, and made sparks fly, and set fire to the +old woman's pocket. So she threw the burning pocket up into the sky, and +told it to stay there until a man and his wife who had never quarreled +should come there. The sparks [from Flint's eye] are the stars, and the +fire is the sun, and it has not gone out as yet, and it will burn on many +a year, for all I know to the contrary. Is it true? I was not there. + + + +O MANUSH KON JIVDAS ADRE O CHONE (SHONE). + + +"Pen mandy a waver gudlo apa o chone?" + +Avail miri deari. Adre o puro chirus butidosta manushia jivvede +kushti-bakeno 'dre o chone, sar chichi ta kair awer ta rikker ap o yag so +kerela o dud. Awer, amen i foki jivdas buti wafodo muleno manush, kon +dusherdas te lias witchaben atut sar i waveri deari manushia, te yuv +kairedas lis sa's ta shikker lende sar adrom, te chivdas len avri o +chone. Te kenna o sig o i foki shan jillo, yuv pendas: "Kenna akovi +dinneli juckalis shan jillo, me te vel jiv mashni te kushto, sar +akonyus." Awer pash o bitto, o yag ankairdas ta hatch alay, te akovo +geero latchdas se yuv ne kamdas ta hatch adre o ratti te merav shillino, +yuv sosti ja sarja pa kosht. Te kanna i waveri foki shanas adoi, yan ne +kerden o rikkaben te wadderin i kashta adre o divvusko chirus, awer kenna +asti lel lis sar apre sustis pikkia, sar i ratti, te sar o divvus. Sa i +foki akai apre o chollo-tem dikena adovo manush keti divvus kenna, sar +pordo o koshter te bittered, te muserd te gumeri, te guberin keti leskro +noko kokero, te kunerin akonyus pash lestis yag. Te i chori mushia te +yuv badderedas adrom, yul [yan] jassed sar atut te trustal o hev akai, te +adoi, te hatchede up buti pa lender kokeros; te adovi shan i starya, te +chirkia, te bitti dudapen tu dikessa sarakai. + +"Se adovo sar tacho?" Akovi se kumi te me jinova. Awer kanna sa tu +penessa me astis dikk o manush dre o chone savo rikkela kasht apre lestes +dumo, yuv sosti keravit ta chiv adre o yag, te yuv ne tevel dukker lestes +kokero ta kair adovo te yuv sus rumado or lias palyor, sa lis se kammaben +adosta o mush chingerd lestis palya te nassered lende sar anduro. Tacho. + + + +THE MAN WHO LIVED IN THE MOON. + + +"Tell me another story about the moon." + +Yes, my dear. In the old time many men lived happily in the moon, with +nothing to do but keep up the fire which makes the light. But among the +folk lived a very wicked, obstinate man, who troubled and hated all the +other nice [dear] people, and he managed it so as to drive them all away, +and put them out of the moon. And when the mass of the folk were gone, +he said, "Now those stupid dogs have gone, I will live comfortably and +well, all alone." But after a bit the fire began to burn down, and that +man found that if he did not want to be in the darkness [night] and die +of cold he must go all the time for wood. And when the other people were +there, they never did any carrying or splitting wood in the day-time, but +now he had to take it all on his shoulders, all night and all day. So +the people here on our earth see that man to this day all burdened [full] +of wood, and bitter and grumbling to himself, and lurking alone by his +fire. And the poor people whom he had driven away went all across and +around heaven, here and there, and set up in business for themselves, and +they are the stars and planets and lesser lights which you see all about. + + + +ROMANY TACHIPEN. + + +Taken down accurately from an old gypsy. Common dialect, or +"half-and-half" language. + +"Rya, tute kams mandy to pukker tute the tachopen--awo? Se's a boro or a +kusi covva, mandy'll rakker tacho, s'up mi-duvel, apre mi meriben, bengis +adre man'nys see if mandy pens a bitto huckaben! An' sa se adduvvel? +Did mandy ever chore a kani adre mi jiv? and what do the Romany chals +kair o' the poris, 'cause kekker ever dikked chichi pash of a Romany tan? +Kek rya,--mandy _never_ chored a kani an' adre sixty beshes kenna 'at +mandy's been apre the drumyors, an' sar dovo chirus mandy never dikked or +shuned or jinned of a Romany chal's chorin yeck. What's adduvel tute +pens?--that Petulengro kaliko divvus penned tute yuv rikkered a +yagengeree to muller kanis! Avail rya--tacho se aja--the mush penned +adre his kokero see _weshni_ kanis. But kek _kairescro_ kanis. Romanis +kekker chores lendy." + + + +GYPSY TRUTH. + + +"Master, you want me to tell you all the truth,--yes? If it's a big or a +little thing, I'll tell the truth, so help me God, upon my life! The +devil be in my soul if I tell the least lie! And what is it? Did I ever +in all my life steal a chicken? and what do the gypsies do with the +feathers, because nobody ever saw any near a gypsy tent? Never, sir,--I +_never_ stole a chicken; and in all the sixty years that I've been on the +roads, in all that time I never saw or heard or knew of a gypsy's +stealing one. What's that you say?--that Petulengro told you yesterday +that he carried a gun to kill _chickens_! Ah yes, sir,--that is true, +too. The man meant in his heart wood chickens [that is, pheasants]. But +not _domestic_ chickens. Gypsies never steal _them_." {324} + + + +CHOVIHANIPEN. + + +"Miri diri bibi, me kamava butidiro tevel chovihani. Kamava ta dukker +geeris te ta jin kunjerni cola. Tu sosti sikker mengi sarakovi." + +"Oh miri kamli! vonka tu vissa te vel chovihani, te i Gorgie jinena lis, +tu lesa buti tugnus. Sar i chavi tevel shellavri, te kair a gudli te +wusser baria kanna dikena tute, te shyan i bori foki merena tute. Awer +kushti se ta jin garini covva, kushti se vonka chori churkni juva te sar +i sweti chungen' apre, jinela sa ta kair lende wafodopen ta pessur sar +lenghis dush. Te man tevel sikker tute chomany chovihaneskes. Shun! +Vonka tu kamesa pen o dukkerin, lesa tu sar tiro man {325} ta latcher +ajafera a manush te manushi lis se. De lende o yack, chiv lis drovan opa +lakis yakka tevel se rakli. Vonka se pash trasherdo yoi tevel pen buti +talla jinaben. Kanna tu sos kedo lis sorkon cherus tu astis risser buti +dinneli chaia sa tav trustal tiro angushtri. Kenna-sig tiri yakka dikena +pensa sappa, te vonka tu shan hoini tu tevel dikk pens' o puro beng. O +pashno covva miri deari se ta jin sa ta plasser, te kamer, te masher +foki. Vanka rakli lela chumeni kek-siglo adre lakis mui, tu sastis pen +laki adovo sikerela buti bak. Kanna lela lulli te safrani balia, pen +laki adovo se tatcho sigaben yoi sasti lel buti sonakei. Kanna lakis +koria wena ketenes, dovo sikerela yoi tevel ketni buti barveli rya. Pen +sarja vonka tu dikesa o latch apre lakis cham, talla lakis kor, te +vaniso, adovos sigaben yoi tevel a bori rani. Ma kessur tu ki lo se, +'pre o truppo te pre o bull, pen laki sarja o latch adoi se sigaben o +boridirines. Hammer laki apre. Te dikessa tu yoi lela bitti wastia te +bitti piria, pen laki trustal a rye ko se divius pa rinkeni piria, te sa +o rinkeno wast anela kumi bacht te rinkno mui. Hammerin te kamerin te +masherin te shorin shan o pash o dukkerin. Se kek rakli te kekno mush +adre mi duvel's chollo-tem savo ne se boino te hunkari pa chomani, te si +tu astis latcher sa se tu susti lel lender wongur. Stastis, latcher sar +o rakkerben apre foki. + +"Awer miri bibi, adovos sar hokkanipen. Me kamava buti ta sikker tachni +chovihanipen. Pen mandy si nanei tachi chovahanis, te sa yol dikena." + +"O tachi chovihani miri chavi, lela yakka pensa chiriclo, o kunsus se +rikkeredo apre pensa bongo chiv. Buti Yahudi, te nebollongeri lena jafri +yakka. Te cho'hani balia shan rikkerdi pa lakis ankairoben te surri, te +adenna risserdi. Vonka Gorgikani cho'hani lena shelni yakka, adulli shan +i trasheni. + +"Me penava tuki chomani sirines. Vonka tu latchesa o pori te o sasterni +krafni, te anpali tu latchesa cuttor fon papiros, tu sastis chin apre lis +sar o pori savo tu kamesa, te ha lis te tu lesa lis. Awer tu sasti chin +sar tiro noko ratt. Si tu latchessa pash o lon-doeyav o boro +matcheskro-bar, te o puro curro, chiv lis keti kan, shunesa godli. Tevel +tastis kana pordo chone peshela, besh sar nangi adre lakis dud hefta +ratti, te shundes adre lis, sarrati o gudli te vel tachodiro, te anpale +tu shunesa i feris rakerena sig adosta. Vonka tu keresa hev sar o bar +adre o mulleskri-tan, jasa tu adoi yeck ratti pash a waver te kenna-sig +tu shunesa sa i mulia rakerena. Sorkon-chirus penena ki lovo se garrido. +Sastis lel o bar te risser lis apre o mulleskri-tan, talla hev si kedo. + +"Me penava tuki apopli chomani cho'haunes. Le vini o sar covva te +suverena apre o pani, pa lenia, pa doeyav. Te asar i paneskri mullos kon +jivena adre o pani rakkerena keti puveskri chovihanis. Si manush dikela +pano panna, te partan te diklo apre o pani te lela lis, adovo sikela +astis lel a pireni, o yuzhior te o kushtidir o partan se, o kushtidir i +rakli. Si latchesa ran apre o pani, dovo sikela sastis kur tiro wafedo +geero. Chokka or curro apre o pani penela tu tevel sig atch kamelo sar +tiri pireni, te pireno. Te safrani ruzhia pa pani dukerena sonaki, te +pauni, rupp, te loli, kammaben." + +"Kana latchesa klisin, dovo se buti bacht. Vonka haderesa lis apre, pen +o manusheskro te rakleskri nav, te yan wena kamlo o tute. Butidir bacht +si lullo dori te tav. Rikker lis, sikela kushti kamaben. Man nasher lis +avri tiro zi miri chavi." + +"Nanei, bibi, kekker." + + + +WITCHCRAFT. {327} + + +"My dear aunt, I wish very much to be a witch. I would like to enchant +people and to know secret things. You can teach me all that." + +"Oh, my darling! if you come to be a witch, and the Gentiles know it, you +will have much trouble. All the children will cry aloud, and make a +noise and throw stones at you when they see you, and perhaps the grown-up +people will kill you. But it is nice to know secret things; pleasant for +a poor old humble woman whom all the world spits upon to know how to do +them evil and pay them for their cruelty. And I _will_ teach you +something of witchcraft. Listen! When thou wilt tell a fortune, put all +thy heart into finding out what kind of a man or woman thou hast to deal +with. Look [keenly], fix thy glance sharply, especially if it be a girl. +When she is half-frightened, she will tell you much without knowing it. +When thou shalt have often done this thou wilt be able to twist many a +silly girl like twine around thy fingers. Soon thy eyes will look like a +snake's, and when thou art angry thou wilt look like the old devil. Half +the business, my dear, is to know how to please and flatter and allure +people. When a girl has anything unusual in her face, you must tell her +that it signifies extraordinary luck. If she have red or yellow hair, +tell her that is a true sign that she will have much gold. When her +eyebrows meet, that shows she will be united to many rich gentlemen. +Tell her always, when you see a mole on her cheek or her forehead or +anything, that is a sign she will become a great lady. Never mind where +it is, on her body,--tell her always that a mole or fleck is a sign of +greatness. _Praise her up_. And if you see that she has small hands or +feet, tell her about a gentleman who is wild about pretty feet, and how a +pretty hand brings more luck than a pretty face. Praising and petting +and alluring and crying-up are half of fortune-telling. There is no girl +and no man in all the Lord's earth who is not proud and vain about +something, and if you can find it out you can get their money. If you +can, pick up all the gossip about people." + +"But, my aunt, that is all humbug. I wish much to learn real witchcraft. +Tell me if there are no real witches, and how they look." + +"A real witch, my child, has eyes like a bird, the corner turned up like +the point of a curved pointed knife. Many Jews and un-Christians have +such eyes. And witches' hairs are drawn out from the beginning [roots] +and straight, and then curled [at the ends]. When Gentile witches have +green eyes they are the most [to be] dreaded. + +"I will tell you something magical. When you find a pen or an iron nail, +and then a piece of paper, you should write on it with the pen all thou +wishest, and eat it, and thou wilt get thy wish. But thou must write all +in thy own blood. If thou findest by the sea a great shell or an old +pitcher [cup, etc.], put it to your ear: you will hear a noise. If you +can, when the full moon shines sit quite naked in her light and listen to +it; every night the noise will become more distinct, and then thou wilt +hear the fairies talking plainly enough. When you make a hole with a +stone in a tomb go there night after night, and erelong thou wilt hear +what the dead are saying. Often they tell where money is buried. You +must take a stone and turn it around in the tomb till a hole is there. + +"I will tell you something more witchly. Observe [take care] of +everything that swims on water, on rivers or the sea. For so the +water-spirits who live in the water speak to the earth's witches. If a +man sees cloth on the water and gets it, that shows he will get a +sweetheart; the cleaner and nicer the cloth, the better the maid. If you +find a staff [stick or rod] on the water, that shows you will beat your +enemy. A shoe or cup floating on the water means that you will soon be +loved by your sweetheart. And yellow flowers [floating] on the water +foretell gold, and white, silver, and red, love. + +"When you find a key, that is much luck. When you pick [lift it] up, +utter a male or female name, and the person will become your own. Very +lucky is a red string or ribbon. Keep it. It foretells happy love. Do +not let this run away from thy soul, my child." + +"No, aunt, never." + + + + +THE ORIGIN OF THE GYPSIES. + + +This chapter contains in abridged form the substance of papers on the +origin of the gypsies and their language, read before the London +Philological Society; also of another paper read before the Oriental +Congress at Florence in 1878; and a _resume_ of these published in the +London _Saturday Review_. + +It has been repeated until the remark has become accepted as a sort of +truism, that the gypsies are a mysterious race, and that nothing is known +of their origin. And a few years ago this was true; but within those +years so much has been discovered that at present there is really no more +mystery attached to the beginning of these nomads than is peculiar to +many other peoples. What these discoveries or grounds of belief are I +shall proceed to give briefly, my limits not permitting the detailed +citation of authorities. First, then, there appears to be every reason +for believing with Captain Richard Burton that the Jats of Northwestern +India furnished so large a proportion of the emigrants or exiles who, +from the tenth century, went out of India westward, that there is very +little risk in assuming it as an hypothesis, at least, that they formed +the _Hauptstamm_ of the gypsies of Europe. What other elements entered +into these, with whom we are all familiar, will be considered presently. +These gypsies came from India, where caste is established and callings +are hereditary even among out-castes. It is not assuming too much to +suppose that, as they evinced a marked aptitude for certain pursuits and +an inveterate attachment to certain habits, their ancestors had in these +respects resembled them for ages. These pursuits and habits were that + +They were tinkers, smiths, and farriers. + +They dealt in horses, and were naturally familiar with them. + +They were without religion. + +They were unscrupulous thieves. + +Their women were fortune-tellers, especially by chiromancy. + +They ate without scruple animals which had died a natural death, being +especially fond of the pig, which, when it has thus been "butchered by +God," is still regarded even by prosperous gypsies in England as a +delicacy. + +They flayed animals, carried corpses, and showed such aptness for these +and similar detested callings that in several European countries they +long monopolized them. + +They made and sold mats, baskets, and small articles of wood. + +They have shown great skill as dancers, musicians, singers, acrobats; and +it is a rule almost without exception that there is hardly a traveling +company of such performers or a theatre, in Europe or America, in which +there is not at least one person with some Romany blood. + +Their hair remains black to advanced age, and they retain it longer than +do Europeans or ordinary Orientals. + +They speak an Aryan tongue, which agrees in the main with that of the +Jats, but which contains words gathered from other Indian sources. This +is a consideration of the utmost importance, as by it alone can we +determine what was the agglomeration of tribes in India which formed the +Western gypsy. + +Admitting these as the peculiar pursuits of the race, the next step +should be to consider what are the principal nomadic tribes of gypsies in +India and Persia, and how far their occupations agree with those of the +Romany of Europe. That the Jats probably supplied the main stock has +been admitted. This was a bold race of Northwestern India, which at one +time had such power as to obtain important victories over the caliphs. +They were broken and dispersed in the eleventh century by Mahmoud, many +thousands of them wandering to the West. They were without religion, "of +the horse, horsey," and notorious thieves. In this they agree with the +European gypsy. But they are not habitual eaters of _mullo balor_, or +"dead pork;" they do not devour everything like dogs. We cannot +ascertain that the Jat is specially a musician, a dancer, a mat and +basket maker, a rope-dancer, a bear-leader, or a peddler. We do not know +whether they are peculiar in India among the Indians for keeping their +hair unchanged to old age, as do pure-blood English gypsies. All of +these things are, however, markedly characteristic of certain different +kinds of wanderers, or gypsies, in India. From this we conclude, +hypothetically, that the Jat warriors were supplemented by other +tribes,--chief among these may have been the Dom,--and that the Jat +element has at present disappeared, and been supplanted by the lower +type. + +The Doms are a race of gypsies found from Central India to the far +northern frontier, where a portion of their early ancestry appears as the +Domarr, and are supposed to be pre-Aryan. In "The People of India," +edited by J. Forbes Watson and J. W. Kaye (India Museum, 1868), we are +told that the appearance and modes of life of the Doms indicate a marked +difference from those of the people who surround them (in Behar). The +Hindus admit their claim to antiquity. Their designation in the Shastras +is Sopuckh, meaning dog-eater. They are wanderers; they make baskets and +mats, and are inveterate drinkers of spirits, spending all their earnings +on it. They have almost a monopoly as to burning corpses and handling +all dead bodies. They eat all animals which have died a natural death, +and are particularly fond of pork of this description. "Notwithstanding +profligate habits, many of them attain the age of eighty or ninety; and +it is not till sixty or sixty-five that their hair begins to get white." +The Domarr are a mountain race, nomads, shepherds, and robbers. +Travelers speak of them as "gypsies." A specimen which we have of their +language would, with the exception of one word, which is probably an +error of the transcriber, be intelligible to any English gypsy, and be +called pure Romany. Finally, the ordinary Dom calls himself a Dom, his +wife a Domni, and the being a Dom, or the collective gypsydom, Domnipana. +_D_ in Hindustani is found as _r_ in English gypsy speech,--_e.g._, +_doi_, a wooden spoon, is known in Europe as _roi_. Now in common Romany +we have, even in London,-- + +Rom . . . A gypsy. + +Romni . . . A gypsy wife. + +Romnipen . . . Gypsydom. + +Of this word _rom_ I shall have more to say. It may be observed that +there are in the Indian _Dom_ certain distinctly-marked and degrading +features, characteristic of the European gypsy, which are out of keeping +with the habits of warriors, and of a daring Aryan race which withstood +the caliphs. Grubbing in filth as if by instinct, handling corpses, +making baskets, eating carrion, being given to drunkenness, does not +agree with anything we can learn of the Jats. Yet the European gypsies +are all this, and at the same time "horsey" like the Jats. Is it not +extremely probable that during the "out-wandering" the Dom communicated +his name and habits to his fellow-emigrants? + +The marked musical talent characteristic of the Slavonian and other +European gypsies appears to link them with the Luri of Persia. These are +distinctly gypsies; that is to say, they are wanderers, thieves, +fortune-tellers, and minstrels. The Shah-Nameh of Firdusi tells us that +about the year 420 A.D. Shankal, the Maharajah of India, sent to Behram +Gour, a ruler of the Sassanian dynasty in Persia, ten thousand minstrels, +male and female, called _Luri_. Though lands were allotted to them, with +corn and cattle, they became from the beginning irreclaimable vagabonds. +Of their descendants, as they now exist, Sir Henry Pottinger says:-- + + "They bear a marked affinity to the gypsies of Europe. {335} They + speak a dialect peculiar to themselves, have a king to each troupe, + and are notorious for kidnapping and pilfering. Their principal + pastimes are drinking, dancing, and music. . . . They are invariably + attended by half a dozen of bears and monkeys that are broke in to + perform all manner of grotesque tricks. In each company there are + always two or three members who profess . . . modes of divining, + which procure them a ready admission into every society." + +This account, especially with the mention of trained bears and monkeys, +identifies them with the Ricinari, or bear-leading gypsies of Syria (also +called Nuri), Turkey, and Roumania. A party of these lately came to +England. We have seen these Syrian Ricinari in Egypt. They are +unquestionably gypsies, and it is probable that many of them accompanied +the early migration of Jats and Doms. + +The Nats or Nuts are Indian wanderers, who, as Dr. J. Forbes Watson +declares, in "The People of India," "correspond to the European gypsy +tribes," and were in their origin probably identical with the Luri. They +are musicians, dancers, conjurers, acrobats, fortune-tellers, +blacksmiths, robbers, and dwellers in tents. They eat everything, except +garlic. There are also in India the Banjari, who are spoken of by +travelers as "gypsies." They are traveling merchants or peddlers. Among +all these wanderers there is a current slang of the roads, as in England. +This slang extends even into Persia. Each tribe has its own, but the +name for the generally spoken _lingua franca_ is _Rom_. + +It has never been pointed out, however, by any writer, that there is in +Northern and Central India a distinct tribe, which is regarded, even by +the Nats and Doms and Jats themselves, as peculiarly and distinctly +gypsy. There are, however, such wanderers, and the manner in which I +became aware of their existence was, to say the least, remarkable. I was +going one day along the Marylebone Road when I met a very dark man, +poorly clad, whom I took for a gypsy; and no wonder, as his eyes had the +very expression of the purest blood of the oldest families. To him I +said,-- + +"_Rakessa tu Romanes_?" (Can you talk gypsy?) + +"I know what you mean," he answered in English. "You ask me if I can +talk gypsy. I know what those people are. But I'm a Mahometan Hindu +from Calcutta. I get my living by making curry powder. Here is my +card." Saying this he handed me a piece of paper, with his name written +on it: _John Nano_. + +"When I say to you, '_Rakessa tu Romanes_?' what does it mean?" + +"It means, 'Can you talk Rom?' But _rakessa_ is not a Hindu word. It's +Panjabi." + +I met John Nano several times afterwards and visited him in his lodgings, +and had him carefully examined and cross-questioned and pumped by +Professor Palmer of Cambridge, who is proficient in Eastern tongues. He +conversed with John in Hindustani, and the result of our examination was +that John declared he had in his youth lived a very loose life, and +belonged to a tribe of wanderers who were to all the other wanderers on +the roads in India what regular gypsies are to the English Gorgio hawkers +and tramps. These people were, he declared, "the _real_ gypsies of +India, and just like the gypsies here. People in India called them +Trablus, which means Syrians, but they were full-blood Hindus, and not +Syrians." And here I may observe that this word Trablus which is thus +applied to Syria, is derived from Tripoli. John was very sure that his +gypsies were Indian. They had a peculiar language, consisting of words +which were not generally intelligible. "Could he remember any of these +words?" Yes. One of them was _manro_, which meant bread. Now _manro_ +is all over Europe the gypsy word for bread. John Nano, who spoke +several tongues, said that he did not know it in any Indian dialect +except in that of his gypsies. These gypsies called themselves and their +language _Rom_. Rom meant in India a real gypsy. And Rom was the +general slang of the road, and it came from the Roms or Trablus. Once he +had written all his autobiography in a book. This is generally done by +intelligent Mahometans. This manuscript had unfortunately been burned by +his English wife, who told us that she had done so "because she was tired +of seeing a book lying about which she could not read." + +Reader, think of losing such a life! The autobiography of an Indian +gypsy,--an abyss of adventure and darksome mysteries, illuminated, it may +be, with vivid flashes of Dacoitee, while in the distance rumbled the +thunder of Thuggism! Lost, lost, irreparably lost forever! And in this +book John had embodied a vocabulary of the real Indian Romany dialect. +Nothing was wanting to complete our woe. John thought at first that he +had lent it to a friend who had never returned it. But his wife +remembered burning it. Of one thing John was positive: Rom was as +distinctively gypsy talk in India as in England, and the Trablus are the +true Romanys of India. + +What here suggests itself is, how these Indian gypsies came to be called +_Syrian_. The gypsies which roam over Syria are evidently of Indian +origin; their language and physiognomy both declare it plainly. I offer +as an hypothesis that bands of gypsies who have roamed from India to +Syria have, after returning, been called Trablus, or Syrians, just as I +have known Germans, after returning from the father-land to America, to +be called Americans. One thing, however, is at least certain. The Rom +are the very gypsies of gypsies in India. They are thieves, +fortune-tellers, and vagrants. But whether they have or had any +connection with the migration to the West we cannot establish. Their +language and their name would seem to indicate it; but then it must be +borne in mind that the word _rom_, like _dom_, is one of wide +dissemination, _dum_ being a Syrian gypsy word for the race. And the +very great majority of even English gypsy words are Hindi, with an +admixture of Persian, and do not belong to a slang of any kind. As in +India, _churi_ is a knife, _nak_ the nose, _balia_ hairs, and so on, with +others which would be among the first to be furnished with slang +equivalents. And yet these very gypsies are _Rom_, and the wife is a +_Romni_, and they use words which are not Hindu in common with European +gypsies. It is therefore not improbable that in these Trablus, so called +through popular ignorance, as they are called Tartars in Egypt and +Germany, we have a portion at least of the real stock. It is to be +desired that some resident in India would investigate the Trablus. It +will probably be found that they are Hindus who have roamed from India to +Syria and back again, here and there, until they are regarded as +foreigners in both countries. + +Next to the word _rom_ itself, the most interesting in Romany is +_zingan_, or _tchenkan_, which is used in twenty or thirty different +forms by the people of every country, except England, to indicate the +gypsy. An incredible amount of far-fetched erudition has been wasted in +pursuing this philological _ignis fatuus_. That there are +leather-working and saddle-working gypsies in Persia who call themselves +Zingan is a fair basis for an origin of the word; but then there are +Tchangar gypsies of Jat affinity in the Punjab. Wonderful it is that in +this war of words no philologist has paid any attention to what the +gypsies themselves say about it. What they do say is sufficiently +interesting, as it is told in the form of a legend which is intrinsically +curious and probably ancient. It is given as follows in "The People of +Turkey," by a Consul's Daughter and Wife, edited by Mr. Stanley Lane +Poole, London, 1878: "Although the gypsies are not persecuted in Turkey, +the antipathy and disdain felt for them evinces itself in many ways, and +appears to be founded upon a strange legend current in the country. This +legend says that when the gypsy nation were driven out of their country +(India), and arrived at Mekran, they constructed a wonderful machine to +which a wheel was attached." From the context of this imperfectly told +story, it would appear as if the gypsies could not travel farther until +this wheel should revolve:-- + +"Nobody appeared to be able to turn it, till in the midst of their vain +efforts some evil spirit presented himself under the disguise of a sage, +and informed the chief, whose name was Chen, that the wheel would be made +to turn only when he had married his sister Guin. The chief accepted the +advice, the wheel turned round, and the name of the tribe after this +incident became that of the combined names of the brother and sister, +Chenguin, the appellation of all the gypsies of Turkey at the present +day." + +The legend goes on to state that in consequence of this unnatural +marriage the gypsies were cursed and condemned by a Mahometan saint to +wander forever on the face of the earth. The real meaning of the +myth--for myth it is--is very apparent. _Chen_ is a Romany word, +generally pronounced _chone_, meaning the moon; {341a} while _guin_ is +almost universally given as _gan_ or _kan_. That is to say, Chen-gan or +-kan, or Zin-kan, is much commoner than Chen-guin. Now _kan_ is a common +gypsy word for the sun. George Borrow gives it as such, and I myself +have heard Romanys call the sun _kan_, though _kam_ is commoner, and is +usually assumed to be right. Chen-kan means, therefore, moon-sun. And +it may be remarked in this connection, that the neighboring Roumanian +gypsies, who are nearly allied to the Turkish, have a wild legend stating +that the sun was a youth who, having fallen in love with his own sister, +was condemned as the sun to wander forever in pursuit of her, after she +was turned into the moon. A similar legend exists in Greenland {341b} +and in the island of Borneo, and it was known to the old Irish. It is in +fact a spontaneous myth, or one of the kind which grow up from causes +common to all races. It would be natural, to any imaginative savage, to +regard the sun and moon as brother and sister. The next step would be to +think of the one as regularly pursuing the other over the heavens, and to +this chase an erotic cause would naturally be assigned. And as the +pursuit is interminable, the pursuer never attaining his aim, it would be +in time regarded as a penance. Hence it comes that in the most distant +and different lands we have the same old story of the brother and the +sister, just as the Wild Hunter pursues his bride. + +It was very natural that the gypsies, observing that the sun and moon +were always apparently wandering, should have identified their own +nomadic life with that of these luminaries. That they have a tendency to +assimilate the idea of a wanderer and pilgrim to that of the Romany, or +to _Romanipen_, is shown by the assertion once made to me by an English +gypsy that his people regarded Christ as one of themselves, because he +was always poor, and went wandering about on a donkey, and was persecuted +by the Gorgios. It may be very rationally objected by those to whom the +term "solar myth" is as a red rag, that the story, to prove anything, +must first be proved itself. This will probably not be far to seek. +Everything about it indicates an Indian origin, and if it can be found +among any of the wanderers in India, it may well be accepted as the +possible origin of the greatly disputed word _zingan_. It is quite as +plausible as Dr. Miklosich's very far-fetched derivation from the +Acingani,--[Greek text],--an unclean, heretical Christian sect, who dwelt +in Phrygia and Lycaonia from the seventh till the eleventh century. The +mention of Mekran indicates clearly that the moon story came from India +before the Romany could have obtained any Greek name. And if gypsies +call themselves or are called Jen-gan, or Chenkan, or Zingan, in the +East, especially if they were so called by Persian poets, it is extremely +unlikely that they ever received such a name from the Gorgios of Europe. +It is really extraordinary that all the philologists who have toiled to +derive the word _zingan_ from a Greek or Western source have never +reflected that if it was applied to the race at an early time in India or +Persia all their speculations must fall to the ground. + +One last word of John Nano, who was so called from two similar Indian +words, meaning "the pet of his grandfather." I have in my possession a +strange Hindu knife, with an enormously broad blade, perhaps five or six +inches broad towards the end, with a long handle richly mounted in the +purest bronze with a little silver. I never could ascertain till 1 knew +him what it had been used for. Even the old ex-king of Oude, when he +examined it, went wrong on it. Not so John Nano. + +"I know well enough what that knife is. I have seen it before,--years +ago. It is very old, and it was long in use; it was the knife used by +the public executioner in Bhotan. It is Bhotani." + +By the knife hangs the ivory-handled court-dagger which belonged to +Francis II. of France, the first husband of Mary Queen of Scots. I +wonder which could tell the strangest story of the past! + +"It has cut off many a head," said John Nano, "and I have seen it +before!" + +I do not think that I have gone too far in attaching importance to the +gypsy legend of the origin of the word _chen-kan_ or _zingan_. It is +their own, and therefore entitled to preference over the theories of mere +scholars; it is Indian and ancient, and there is much to confirm it. +When I read the substance of this chapter before the Philological Society +of London, Prince Lucien Bonaparte,--who is beyond question a great +philologist, and one distinguished for vast research,--who was in the +chair, seemed, in his comments on my paper, to consider this sun and moon +legend as frivolous. And it is true enough that German symbolizers have +given us the sun myth to such an extent that the mere mention of it in +philology causes a recoil. Then, again, there is the law of humanity +that the pioneer, the gatherer of raw material, who is seldom collector +and critic together, is always assailed. Columbus always gets the chains +and Amerigo Vespucci the glory. But the legend itself is undeniably of +the gypsies and Indian. + +It is remarkable that there are certain catch-words, or test-words, among +old gypsies with which they try new acquaintances. One of these is +_kekkavi_, a kettle; another, _chinamangri_, a bill-hook, or chopper +(also a letter), for which there is also another word. But I have found +several very deep mothers in sorcery who have given me the word for sun, +_kam_, as a precious secret, but little known. Now the word really is +very well known, but the mystery attached to it, as to _chone_ or +_shule_, the moon, would seem to indicate that at one time these words +had a peculiar significance. Once the darkest-colored English gypsy I +ever met, wishing to sound the depth of my Romany, asked me for the words +for sun and moon, making more account of my knowledge of them than of +many more far less known. + +As it will interest the reader, I will here give the ballad of the sun +and the moon, which exists both in Romany and Roumani, or Roumanian, in +the translation which I take from "A Winter in the City of Pleasure" +(that is Bucharest), by Florence K. Berger,--a most agreeable book, and +one containing two Chapters on the Tzigane, or gypsies. + + + +THE SUN AND THE MOON. + + +Brother, one day the Sun resolved to marry. During nine years, drawn by +nine fiery horses, he had rolled by heaven and earth as fast as the wind +or a flying arrow. + +But it was in vain that he fatigued his horses. Nowhere could he find a +love worthy of him. Nowhere in the universe was one who equaled in +beauty his sister Helen, the beautiful Helen with silver tresses. + +The Sun went to meet her, and thus addressed her: "My dear little sister +Helen, Helen of the silver tresses, let us be betrothed, for we are made +for one another. + +"We are alike not only in our hair and our features, but also in our +beauty. I have locks of gold, and thou hast locks of silver. My face is +shining and splendid, and thine is soft and radiant." + +"O my brother, light of the world, thou who art pure of all stain, one +has never seen a brother and sister married together, because it would be +a shameful sin." + +At this rebuke the Sun hid himself, and mounted up higher to the throne +of God, bent before Him, and spoke:-- + +"Lord our Father, the time has arrived for me to wed. But, alas! I +cannot find a love in the world worthy of me except the beautiful Helen, +Helen of the silver hair!" + +God heard him, and, taking him by the hand, led him into hell to affright +his heart, and then into paradise to enchant his soul. + +Then He spake to him, and while He was speaking the Sun began to shine +brightly and the clouds passed over:-- + +"Radiant Sun! Thou who art free from all stain, thou hast been through +hell and hast entered paradise. Choose between the two." + +The Sun replied, recklessly, "I choose hell, if I may have, for a life, +Helen, Helen of the shining silver hair." + +The Sun descended from the high heaven to his sister Helen, and ordered +preparation for his wedding. He put on her forehead the waving gold +chaplet of the bride, he put on her head a royal crown, he put on her +body a transparent robe all embroidered with fine pearls, and they all +went into the church together. + +But woe to him, and woe to her! During the service the lights were +extinguished, the bells cracked while ringing, the seats turned +themselves upside down, the tower shook to its base, the priests lost +their voices, and the sacred robes were torn off their backs. + +The bride was convulsed with fear. For suddenly, woe to her! an +invisible hand grasped her up, and, having borne her on high, threw her +into the sea, where she was at once changed into a beautiful silver fish. + +The Sun grew pale and rose into the heaven. Then descending to the west, +he plunged into the sea to search for his sister Helen, Helen of the +shining silver hair. + +However, the Lord God (sanctified in heaven and upon the earth) took the +fish in his hand, cast it forth into the sky, and changed it anew into +the moon. + +Then He spoke. And while God was speaking the entire universe trembled, +the peaks of the mountains bowed down, and men shivered with fear. + +"Thou, Helen of the long silver tresses, and thou resplendent Sun, who +are both free from all stain, I condemn you for eternity to follow each +other with your eyes through space, without being ever able to meet or to +reach each other upon the road of heaven. Pursue one another for all +time in traveling around the skies and lighting up the world." + + * * * * * + +Fallen from a high estate by sin, wicked, and therefore wandering: it was +with such a story of being penitent pilgrims, doomed for a certain space +to walk the earth, that the gypsies entered Europe from India, into Islam +and into Christendom, each time modifying the story to suit the religion +of the country which they invaded. Now I think that this sun and moon +legend is far from being frivolous, and that it conforms wonderfully well +with the famous story which they told to the Emperor Sigismund and the +Pope and all Europe, that they were destined to wander because they had +sinned. When they first entered Europe, the gypsies were full of these +legends; they told them to everybody; but they had previously told them +to themselves in the form of the Indian sun and moon story. This was the +root whence other stories grew. As the tale of the Wandering Jew +typifies the Hebrew, so does this of the sun and moon the Romany. + + + + +A GYPSY MAGIC SPELL. + + +There is a meaningless rhyme, very common among children. It is repeated +while counting off those who are taking part in a game, and allotting to +each a place. It is as follows:-- + + "Ekkeri akkery u-kery an + Fillisi', follasy, Nicolas John + Queebee-quabee--Irishman. + Stingle 'em--stangle 'em--buck!" + +With a very little alteration in sounds, and not more than children make +of these verses in different places, this may be read as follows:-- + + "'Ekkeri, akai-ri, you kair--an. + Filissin follasy. Nakelas ja'n. + Kivi, kavi. Irishman. + Stini--stani--buck!" + +This is nonsense, of course, but it is Romany, or gypsy, and may be +translated:-- + + "First--here--you begin. + Castle--gloves. You don't play. Go on! + _Kivi_--kettle. How are you? + _Stini_--buck--buck." + +The common version of the rhyme begins with:-- + + "_One_ 'eri--two-ery, ekkeri--an." + +But one-ry is the _exact_ translation of ekkeri; ek or yek being one. +And it is remarkable that in + + "_Hickory_ dickory dock, + The rat ran up the clock; + The clock struck _one_, + And down he run, + _Hickory_ dickory dock." + +We have hickory or ekkeri again, followed by a significant _one_. It may +be observed that while, the first verses abound in Romany words, I can +find no trace of any in other child-rhymes of the kind. It is also clear +that if we take from the fourth line the _ingle 'em_, _angle 'em_, +evidently added for mere jingle, there remains _stan_ or _stani_, "a +buck," followed by the very same word in English. + +With the mournful examples of Mr. Bellenden Kerr's efforts to show that +all our old proverbs and tavern signs are Dutch, and Sir William Betham's +Etruscan-Irish, I should be justly regarded as one of the too frequent +seekers for mystery in moonshine if I declared that I positively believed +this to be Romany. Yet it is possible that it contains gypsy words, +especially "fillissi,' follasy," which mean exactly _chateau_ and gloves, +and I think it not improbable that it was once a sham charm used by some +Romany fortune-teller to bewilder Gorgios. Let the reader imagine the +burnt-sienna wild-cat eyed old sorceress performing before a credulous +farm-wife and her children the great ceremony of _hakk'ni panki_, which +Mr. Borrow calls _hokkani boro_, but for which there is a far deeper +name,--that of _the great secret_,--which even my best friends among the +Romany tried to conceal from me. This feat is performed by inducing some +woman of largely magnified faith to believe that there is hidden in her +house a magic treasure, which can only be made to come to hand by +depositing in the cellar another treasure, to which it will come by +natural affinity and attraction. "For gold, as you sees, my deari, draws +gold, and so if you ties up all your money in a pocket-handkercher and +leaves it, you'll find it doubled. An' wasn't there the Squire's lady, +and didn't she draw two hundred old gold guineas out of the ground where +they'd laid in a old grave,--and only one guinea she gave me for all my +trouble; an' I hope you'll do better by the poor old gypsy, my deari --- +---." + +The gold and all the spoons are tied up,--for, as the enchantress +observes, there may be silver too,--and she solemnly repeats over it +magical rhymes, while the children, standing around in awe, listen to +every word. It is a good subject for a picture. Sometimes the windows +are closed, and candles give the only light. The next day the gypsy +comes and sees how the charm is working. Could any one look under her +cloak he might find another bundle precisely resembling the one +containing the treasure. She looks at the precious deposit, repeats her +rhyme again, and departs, after carefully charging the housewife that the +bundle must not be touched or spoken of for three weeks. "Every word you +tell about it, my-deari will be a guinea gone away." Sometimes she +exacts an oath on the Bible that nothing shall be said. + +Back to the farmer's wife never again. After three weeks another +Extraordinary instance of gross credulity appears in the country paper, +and is perhaps repeated in a colossal London daily, with a reference to +the absence of the school-master. There is wailing and shame in the +house,--perhaps great suffering, for it may be that the savings of years +have beer swept away. The charm has worked. + +But the little sharp-eared children remember it and sing it, and the more +meaningless it is in their ears the more mysterious does it sound. And +they never talk about the bundle, which when opened was found to contain +only sticks, stones, and rags, without repeating it. So it goes from +mouth to mouth, until, all mutilated, it passes current for even worse +nonsense than it was at first. It may be observed, however,--and the +remark will be fully substantiated by any one who knows the +language,--that there is a Romany _turn_ to even the roughest corners of +these rhymes. _Kivi_, _stingli_, _stangli_, are all gypsyish. But, as I +have already intimated, this does not appear in any other nonsense verses +of the kind. There is nothing of it in + + "Intery, mintery, cutery corn"-- + +or in anything else in Mother Goose. It is alone in its sounds and +sense,--or nonsense. But there is not a wanderer of the roads who on +hearing it would not explain, "Rya, there's a great deal of Romanes in +that ere." + +I should also say that the word _na-kelas_ or _ne-kelas_, which I here +translate differently, was once explained to me at some length by a gypsy +as signifying "not speaking," or "keeping quiet." + +Now the mystery of mysteries of which I have spoken in the Romany tongue +is this. The _hokkani boro_, or great trick, consists of three parts. +Firstly, the telling of a fortune, and this is to _pen dukkerin_ or _pen +durkerin_. The second part is the conveying away of the property, which +is to _lel dudikabin_, or to take lightning, possibly connected with the +very old English slang term of _bien lightment_. There is evidently a +great confusion of words here. And the third is to "_chiv o manzin apre +lati_," or to put the oath upon her, which explains itself. When all the +deceived are under oath not to utter a word about the trick, the gypsy +mother has "a safe thing of it." + +The _hokkani boro_, or great trick, was brought by the gypsies from the +East. It has been practiced by them all over the world, it is still +played every day somewhere. This chapter was written long ago in +England. I am now in Philadelphia, and here I read in the "Press" of +this city that a Mrs. Brown, whom I sadly and reluctantly believe is the +wife of an acquaintance of mine, who walks before the world in other +names, was arrested for the same old game of fortune-telling and +persuading a simple dame that there was treasure in the house, and all +the rest of the grand deception. And Mrs. Brown, good old Mrs. Brown, +went to prison, where she will linger until a bribed alderman, or a +purchased pardon, or some one of the numerous devices by which justice is +evaded in Pennsylvania, delivers her. + +Yet it is not a good country, on the whole, for _hokkani boro_, since the +people here, especially in the rural districts, have a rough-and-ready +way of inflicting justice which interferes sadly with the profits of +aldermen and other politicians. Some years ago, in Tennessee, a gypsy +woman robbed a farmer by the great trick of all he was worth. Now it is +no slander to say that the rural folk of Tennessee greatly resemble +Indians in certain respects, and when I saw thousands of them, during the +war, mustered out in Nashville, I often thought, as I studied their dark +brown faces, high cheek bones, and long straight black hair, that the +American is indeed reverting to the aboriginal type. The Tennessee +farmer and his neighbors, at any rate, reverted very strongly indeed to +the original type when robbed by the gypsies, for they turned out all +together, hunted them down, and, having secured the sorceress, burned her +alive at the stake. And thus in a single crime and its punishment we +have curiously combined a world-old Oriental offense, an European +Middle-Age penalty for witchcraft, and the fierce torture of the red +Indians. + + + + +SHELTA, THE TINKERS' TALK. + + + "So good a proficient in one quarter of an hour that I can drink with + any tinker in his own language during my life."--_King Henry the + Fourth_. + +One summer day, in the year 1876, I was returning from a long walk in the +beautiful country which lies around Bath, when, on the road near the +town, I met with a man who had evidently grown up from childhood into +middle age as a beggar and a tramp. I have learned by long experience +that there is not a so-called "traveler" of England or of the world, be +he beggar, tinker, gypsy, or hawker, from whom something cannot be +learned, if one only knows how to use the test-glasses and proper +reagents. Most inquirers are chiefly interested in the morals--or +immorals--of these nomads. My own researches as regards them are chiefly +philological. Therefore, after I had invested twopence in his +prospective beer, I addressed him in Romany. Of course he knew a little +of it; was there ever an old "traveler" who did not? + +"But we are givin' Romanes up very fast,--all of us is," he remarked. +"It is a gettin' to be too blown. Everybody knows some Romanes now. But +there _is_ a jib that ain't blown," he remarked reflectively. "Back +slang an' cantin' an' rhymin' is grown vulgar, and Italian always _was_ +the lowest of the lot; thieves _kennick_ is genteel alongside of +organ-grinder's lingo, you know. Do _you_ know anythin' of Italian, +sir?" + +"I can _rakker_ it pretty _flick_" (talk it tolerably), was my reply. + +"Well I should never a _penned_ [thought] sitch a swell gent as you had +been down so low in the slums. Now _Romanes_ is genteel. I heard +there's actilly a book about Romanes to learn it out of. But as for this +other jib, its wery hard to talk. It is most all Old Irish, and they +calls it Shelter." + +This was all that I could learn at that time. It did not impress me +much, as I supposed that the man merely meant Old Irish. A year went by, +and I found myself at Aberystwith, the beautiful sea-town in Wales, with +my friend Professor Palmer--a palmer who has truly been a pilgrim +_outre-mer_, even by Galilee's wave, and dwelt as an Arab in the desert. +One afternoon we were walking together on that end of the beach which is +the antithesis of the old Norman castle; that is, at the other extremity +of the town, and by the rocks. And here there was a little crowd, +chiefly of young ladies, knitting and novel-reading in the sun, or +watching children playing on the sand. All at once there was an alarm, +and the whole party fled like partridges, skurrying along and hiding +under the lee of the rocks. For a great rock right over our heads was +about to be blasted. So the professor and I went on and away, but as we +went we observed an eccentric and most miserable figure crouching in a +hollow like a little cave to avoid the anticipated falling stones. + +"_Dikk o dovo mush adoi a gavverin lester kokero_!" (Look at that man +there, hiding himself!) said the professor in Romanes. He wished to call +attention to the grotesque figure without hurting the poor fellow's +feelings. + +"_Yuv's atrash o' ye baryia_" (He is afraid of the stones), I replied. + +The man looked up. "I know what you're saying, gentlemen. That's +Romany." + +"Jump up, then, and come along with us." + +He followed. We walked from rock to rock, and over the sand by the sea, +to a secluded nook under a cliff. Then, seated around a stone table, we +began our conversation, while the ocean, like an importunate beggar, +surfed and foamed away, filling up the intervals with its mighty roaring +language, which poets only understand or translate:-- + + "Thus far, and then no more:" + Such language speaks the sounding sea + To the waves upon the shore. + +Our new acquaintance was ragged and disreputable. Yet he held in his +hand a shilling copy of "Helen's Babies," in which were pressed some fern +leaves. + +"What do you do for a living?" I asked. + +"_Shelkin gallopas_ just now," he replied. + +"And what is that?" + +"Selling ferns. Don't you understand? That's what we call it in +_Minklers Thari_. That's tinkers' language. I thought as you knew +Romanes you might understand it. The right name for it is _Shelter_ or +_Shelta_." + +Out came our note-books and pencils. So this was the _Shelter_ of which +I had heard. He was promptly asked to explain what sort of a language it +was. + +"Well, gentlemen, you must know that I have no great gift for languages. +I never could learn even French properly. I can conjugate the verb +_etre_,--that is all. I'm an ignorant fellow, and very low. I've been +kicked out of the lowest slums in Whitechapel because I was too much of a +blackguard for 'em. But I know rhyming slang. Do you know Lord John +Russell?" + +"Well, I know a little of rhyming, but not that." + +"Why, it rhymes to _bustle_." + +"I see. _Bustle_ is to pick pockets." + +"Yes, or anything like it, such as ringing the changes." + +Here the professor was "in his plate." He knows perfectly how to ring +the changes. It is effected by going into a shop, asking for change for +a sovereign, purchasing some trifling article, then, by ostensibly +changing your mind as to having the change, so bewilder the shopman as to +cheat him out of ten shillings. It is easily done by one who understands +it. The professor does not practice this art for the lucre of gain, but +he understands it in detail. And of this he gave such proofs to the +tramp that the latter was astonished. + +"A tinker would like to have a wife who knows as much of that as you do," +he remarked. "No woman is fit to be a tinker's wife who can't make ten +shillings a day by _glantherin_. _Glantherin_ or _glad'herin_ is the +correct word in Shelter for ringing the changes. As for the language, I +believe it's mostly Gaelic, but it's mixed up with Romanes and canting or +thieves' slang. Once it was the common language of all the old tinkers. +But of late years the old tinkers' families are mostly broken up, and the +language is perishing." + +Then he proceeded to give us the words in Shelta, or Minklers Thari. +They were as follows:-- + +Shelkin gallopas Selling ferns. +Soobli, Soobri Brother, friend--a man. +Bewr Woman. +Gothlin or goch'thlin Child. +Young bewr Girl. +Durra, or derra Bread. +Pani Water (Romany). +Stiff A warrant (common cant). +Yack A watch (cant, _i.e._ bull's eye, + _Yack_, an eye in Romany). +Mush-faker Umbrella mender. +Mithani (mithni) Policeman. +Ghesterman (ghesti) Magistrate. +Needi-mizzler A tramp. +Dinnessy Cat. +Stall Go, travel. +Biyeghin Stealing. +Biyeg To steal. +Biyeg th'eenik To steal the thing. +Crack A stick. +Monkery Country. +Prat Stop, stay, lodge. +Ned askan Lodging. +Glantherin (glad'herin) Money, swindling. + +This word has a very peculiar pronunciation. + +Sauni or sonni See. +Strepuck (reepuck) A harlot. +Strepuck lusk, Luthrum's gothlin Son of a harlot. +Kurrb yer pee Punch your head or face. +Pee Face. +Borers and jumpers Tinkers' tools. +Borers Gimlets. +Jumpers Cranks. +Ogles Eyes (common slang). +Nyock Head. +Nyock A penny. +Odd Two. +Midgic A shilling. +Nyo(d)ghee A pound. +Sai, sy Sixpence. +Charrshom, Cherrshom, Tusheroon A crown. +Tre-nyock Threepence. +Tripo-rauniel A pot of beer. +Thari, Bug Talk. + +Can you thari Shelter? Can you bug Shelta? Can you talk tinkers' +language? + +Shelter, shelta Tinker's slang. +Larkin Girl. + +Curious as perhaps indicating an affinity between the Hindustani _larki_, +a girl, and the gypsy _rakli_. + +Snips Scissors (slang). +Dingle fakir A bell-hanger. +Dunnovans Potatoes. +Fay (_vulgarly_ fee) Meat. + +Our informant declared that there are vulgar forms of certain words. + +Gladdher Ring the changes (cheat in change). + +"No minkler would have a bewr who couldn't gladdher." + +Reesbin Prison. +Tre-moon Three months, a 'drag.' +Rauniel, Runniel Beer. +Max Spirits (slang). +Chiv Knife. (Romany, a pointed knife, _i.e. tongue_.) +Thari To speak or tell. + +"I tharied the soobri I sonnied him." (I told the man I saw him.) + +Mushgraw. + +Our informant did not know whether this word, of Romany origin, meant, in +Shelta, policeman or magistrate. + +Scri, scree To write. + +Our informant suggested _scribe_ as the origin of this word. + +Reader A writ. + +"You're readered soobri." (You are put in the "Police Gazette," friend.) + +Our informant could give only a single specimen of the Shelta literature. +It was as follows:-- + + "My name is Barney Mucafee, + With my borers and jumpers down to my thee (thigh). + An' it's forty miles I've come to kerrb yer pee." + +This vocabulary is, as he declared, an extremely imperfect specimen of +the language. He did not claim to speak it well. In its purity it is +not mingled with Romany or thieves' slang. Perhaps some student of +English dialects may yet succeed in recovering it all. The pronunciation +of many of the words is singular, and very different from English or +Romany. + +Just as the last word was written down, there came up a woman, a female +tramp of the most hardened kind. It seldom happens that gentlemen sit +down in familiar friendly converse with vagabonds. When they do they are +almost always religious people, anxious to talk with the poor for the +good of their souls. The talk generally ends with a charitable gift. +Such was the view (as the vagabond afterwards told us) which she took of +our party. I also infer that she thought we must be very verdant and an +easy prey. Almost without preliminary greeting she told us that she was +in great straits,--suffering terribly,--and appealed to the man for +confirmation, adding that if we would kindly lend her a sovereign it +should be faithfully repaid in the morning. + +The professor burst out laughing. But the fern-collector gazed at her in +wrath and amazement. + +"I say, old woman," he cried; "do you know who you're _rakkerin_ +[speaking] to? This here gentleman is one of the deepest Romany ryes +[gypsy gentlemen] a-going. And that there one could _gladdher_ you out +of your eye-teeth." + +She gave one look of dismay,--I shall never forget that look,--and ran +away. The witch had chanced upon Arbaces. I think that the tramp had +been in his time a man in better position. He was possibly a lawyer's +clerk who had fallen into evil ways. He spoke English correctly when not +addressing the beggar woman. There was in Aberystwith at the same time +another fern-seller, an elderly man, as wretched and as ragged a creature +as I ever met. Yet he also spoke English purely, and could give in Latin +the names of all the plants which he sold. I have always supposed that +the tinkers' language spoken of by Shakespeare was Romany; but I now +incline to think it may have been Shelta. + +Time passed, and "the levis grene" had fallen thrice from the trees, and +I had crossed the sea and was in my native city of Philadelphia. It was +a great change after eleven years of Europe, during ten of which I had +"homed," as gypsies say, in England. The houses and the roads were +old-new to me; there was something familiar-foreign in the voices and +ways of those who had been my earliest friends; the very air as it blew +hummed tunes which had lost tones in them that made me marvel. Yet even +here I soon found traces of something which is the same all the world +over, which goes ever on "as of ever," and that was the wanderer of the +road. Near the city are three distinct gypsyries, where in summer-time +the wagon and the tent may be found; and ever and anon, in my walks about +town, I found interesting varieties of vagabonds from every part of +Europe. Italians of the most Bohemian type, who once had been like +angels,--and truly only in this, that their visits of old were few and +far between,--now swarmed as fruit dealers and boot-blacks in every lane; +Germans were of course at home; Czechs, or Slavs, supposed to be Germans, +gave unlimited facilities for Slavonian practice; while tinkers, almost +unknown in 1860, had in 1880 become marvelously common, and strange to +say were nearly all Austrians of different kinds. And yet not quite all, +and it was lucky for me they were not. For one morning, as I went into +the large garden which lies around the house wherein I wone, I heard by +the honeysuckle and grape-vine a familiar sound,--suggestive of the road +and Romanys and London, and all that is most traveler-esque. It was the +tap, tap, tap of a hammer and the clang of tin, and I knew by the smoke +that so gracefully curled at the end of the garden a tinker was near. +And I advanced to him, and as he glanced up and greeted, I read in his +Irish face long rambles on the roads. + +"Good-morning!" + +"Good-mornin', sorr!" + +"You're an old traveler?" + +"I am, sorr." + +"Can you rakker Romanes?" + +"I can, sorr!" + +"_Pen yer nav_." (Tell your name.) + +"Owen ---, sorr." + +A brief conversation ensued, during which we ascertained that we had many +friends in common in the _puro tem_ or Ould Country. All at once a +thought struck me, and I exclaimed,-- + +"Do you know any other languages?" + +"Yes, sorr: Ould Irish an' Welsh, an' a little Gaelic." + +"That's all?" + +"Yes, sorr, all av thim." + +"All but one?" + +"An' what's that wan, sorr?" + +"Can you _thari shelta_, _subli_?" + +No tinker was ever yet astonished at anything. If he could be he would +not be a tinker. If the coals in his stove were to turn to lumps of gold +in a twinkle, he would proceed with leisurely action to rake them out and +prepare them for sale, and never indicate by a word or a wink that +anything remarkable had occurred. But Owen the tinker looked steadily at +me for an instant, as if to see what manner of man I might be, and then +said,-- + +"_Shelta_, is it? An' I can talk it. An' there's not six min livin' as +can talk it as I do." + +"Do you know, I think it's very remarkable that you can talk Shelta." + +"An' begorra, I think it's very remarkable, sorr, that ye should know +there is such a language." + +"Will you give me a lesson?" + +"Troth I will." + +I went into the house and brought out a note-book. One of the servants +brought me a chair. Owen went on soldering a tin dish, and I proceeded +to take down from him the following list of words in _Shelta_: + +Theddy Fire (_theinne_. Irish). +Strawn Tin. +Blyhunka Horse. +Leicheen Girl. +Soobli Male, man. +Binny soobli Boy. +Binny Small. +Chimmel Stick. +Gh'ratha, grata Hat. +Griffin, or gruffin Coat. +Respes Trousers. +Gullemnocks Shoes. +Grascot Waistcoat. +Skoich, or skoi Button. +Numpa Sovereign, one pound. +Gorhead, or godhed Money. +Merrih Nose (?). +Nyock Head. +Graigh Hair. +Kaine, or kyni Ears (Romany, _kan_). +Melthog Inner shirt. +Medthel Black. +Cunnels Potatoes. +Faihe, or feye Meat (_feoil_. Gaelic). +Muogh Pig (_muck_. Irish). +Miesli, misli To go (origin of "mizzle"?) +Mailyas, or moillhas Fingers (_meirleach_, stealers + Gaelic). +Shaidyog Policeman. +Respun To steal. +Shoich Water, blood, liquid. +Alemnoch Milk. +Raglan, or reglan Hammer. +Goppa Furnace, smith (_gobha_, a smith. + Gaelic). +Terry A heating-iron. +Khoi Pincers. +Chimmes (compare _chimmel_) Wood or stick. +Mailyas Arms. +Koras Legs (_cos_, leg. Gaelic). +Skoihopa Whisky. +Bulla (_ull_ as in _gull_) A letter. +Thari Word, language. +Mush Umbrella (slang). +Lyesken cherps Telling fortunes. +Loshools Flowers (_lus_, erb or flower? + Gaelic). +Dainoch To lose. +Chaldroch Knife (_caldock_, sharply pointed. + Gaelic). +Bog To get. +Masheen Cat. +Cambra Dog. +Laprogh Goose, duck. +Kaldthog Hen. +Rumogh Egg. +Kiena House (_ken_, old gypsy and modern + cant). +Rawg Wagon. +Gullemnoch Shoes. +Analt To sweep, to broom. +Analken To wash. +D'erri Bread. +R'ghoglin (gogh'leen) To laugh. +Kradyin To stop, stay, sit, lodge, remain. +Oura Town. +Lashool Nice (_lachool_. Irish). +Moinni, or moryeni Good (_min_, pleasant. Gaelic). +Moryenni yook Good man. +Gyami Bad (_cam_. Gaelic). Probably the + origin of the common canting term + _gammy_, bad. +Ishkimmisk Drunk (_misgeach_. Gaelic) +Roglan A four-wheeled vehicle. +Lorch A two-wheeled vehicle. +Smuggle Anvil. +Granya Nail. +Riaglon Iron. +Gushuk Vessel of any kind. +Tedhi, thedi Coal; fuel of any kind. +Grawder Solder. +Tanyok Halfpenny. + (Query _tani_, little, Romany, and + _nyok_, a head.) +Chlorhin To hear. +Sunain To see. +Salkaneoch To taste, take. +Mailyen To feel (_cumail_, to hold. Gaelic). +Crowder String. +Sobye (?) +Mislain Raining (mizzle?). +Goo-ope, guop Cold. +Skoichen Rain. +Thomyok Magistrate. +Shadyog Police. +Bladhunk Prison. +Bogh To get. +Salt Arrested, taken. +Straihmed A year. +Gotherna, guttema Policeman. +[A very rare old word.] +Dyukas, or Jukas Gorgio, Gentile; one not of the + class. +Misli Coming, to come, to send. +To my-deal To me. +Lychyen People. +Grannis Know. +Skolaia To write. +Skolaiyami A good scholar. +Nyok Head. +Lurk Eye. +Menoch Nose. +Glorhoch Ear. +Koris Feet. +Tashi shingomai To read the newspaper. +Gorheid Money. +Tomgarheid (_i.e._ big money) Gold. +Skawfer, skawper Silver. +Tomnumpa Bank-note. +Terri Coal. +Ghoi Put. +Nyadas Table. +Kradyin Being, lying. +Tarryin Rope. +Kor'heh Box. +Miseli Quick. +Krad'hyi Slow. +Th-mddusk Door. +Khaihed Chair (_khahir_. Irish). +Bord Table. +Grainyog Window. +Rumog Egg. +Aidh Butter. +Okonneh A priest. Thus explained in a very + Irish manner: "_Okonneh_, or _Koony_, + _is_ a _sacred_ man, and _kuni_ in + Romany means secret. An' sacret and + sacred, sure, are all the same." +Shliema Smoke, pipe. +Munches Tobacco. +Khadyogs Stones. +Yiesk Fish (_iasg_. Gaelic). +Cab Cabbage. +Cherpin Book. This appears to be vulgar. + _Llyower_ was on second thought + declared to be the right word. + (_Leabhar_, Gaelic.) +Misli dainoch To write a letter; to write; that is, + send or go. +Misli to my bewr Write to my woman. +Gritche Dinner. +Gruppa Supper. +Goihed To leave, lay down. +Lurks Eyes. +Ainoch Thing. +Clisp To fall, let fall. +Clishpen To break by letting fall. +Guth, gut Black. +Gothni, gachlin Child. +Styemon Rat. +Krepoch Cat. +Grannien With child. +Loshub Sweet. +Shum To own. +L'yogh To lose. +Crimum Sheep. +Khadyog Stone. +Nglou Nail. +Gial Yellow, red. +Talosk Weather. +Laprogh Bird. +Madel Tail. +Carob To cut. +Lubran, luber To hit. +Thom Violently. +Mish it thom Hit it hard. +Subli, or soobli Man (_siublach_, a vagrant. Gaelic). + +There you are, readers! Make good cheer of it, as Panurge said of what +was beyond him. For what this language really is passeth me and mine. +Of Celtic origin it surely is, for Owen gave me every syllable so +garnished with gutturals that I, being even less of one of the Celtes +than a Chinaman, have not succeeded in writing a single word according to +his pronunciation of it. Thus even Minklers sounds more like _minkias_, +or _pikias_, as he gave it. + +To the foregoing I add the numerals and a few phrases:-- + +Hain, or heen One. +Do Two. +Tri Three. +Ch'air, or k'hair Four. +Cood Five. +She, or shay Six. +Schaacht, or schach' Seven. +Ocht Eight. +Ayen, or nai Nine. +Dy'ai, djai, or dai Ten. +Hinniadh Eleven. +Do yed'h Twelve. +Trin yedh Thirteen. +K'hair yedh, etc. Fourteen, etc. +Tat 'th chesin ogomsa That belongs to me. +Grannis to my deal It belongs to me. +Dioch maa krady in in this nadas I am staying here. +Tash emilesh He is staying there. +Boghin the brass Cooking the food. +My deal is mislin I am going. +The nidias of the kiena don't The people of the house don't know +granny what we're a tharyin what we're saying. + +This was said within hearing of and in reference to a bevy of servants, +of every hue save white, who were in full view in the kitchen, and who +were manifestly deeply interested and delighted in our interview, as well +as in the constant use of my note-book, and our conference in an unknown +tongue, since Owen and I spoke frequently in Romany. + +That bhoghd out yer mailya You let that fall from your hand. + +I also obtained a verse of a ballad, which I may not literally render +into pure English:-- + + "Cosson kailyah corrum me morro sari, + Me gul ogalyach mir; + Rahet manent trasha moroch + Me tu sosti mo diele." + + "Coming from Galway, tired and weary, + I met a woman; + I'll go bail by this time to-morrow, + You'll have had enough of me." + +_Me tu sosti_, "Thou shalt be (of) me," is Romany, which is freely used +in Shelta. + +The question which I cannot solve is, On which of the Celtic languages is +this jargon based? My informant declares that it is quite independent of +Old Irish, Welsh, or Gaelic. In pronunciation it appears to be almost +identical with the latter; but while there are Gaelic words in it, it is +certain that much examination and inquiry have failed to show that it is +contained in that language. That it is "the talk of the ould Picts--thim +that built the stone houses like beehives"--is, I confess, too +conjectural for a philologist. I have no doubt that when the Picts were +suppressed thousands of them must have become wandering outlaws, like the +Romany, and that their language in time became a secret tongue of +vagabonds on the roads. This is the history of many such lingoes; but +unfortunately Owen's opinion, even if it be legendary, will not prove +that the Painted People spoke the Shelta tongue. I must call attention, +however, to one or two curious points. I have spoken of Shelta as a +jargon; but it is, in fact, a language, for it can be spoken +grammatically and without using English or Romany. And again, there is a +corrupt method of pronouncing it, according to English, while correctly +enunciated it is purely Celtic in sound. More than this I have naught to +say. + +Shelta is perhaps the last Old British dialect as yet existing which has +thus far remained undiscovered. There is no hint of it in John Camden +Hotten's Slang Dictionary, nor has it been recognized by the Dialect +Society. Mr. Simson, had he known the "Tinklers" better, would have +found that not Romany, but Shelta, was the really secret language which +they employed, although Romany is also more or less familiar to them all. +To me there is in it something very weird and strange. I cannot well say +why; it seems as if it might be spoken by witches and talking toads, and +uttered by the Druid stones, which are fabled to come down by moonlight +to the water-side to drink, and who will, if surprised during their walk, +answer any questions. Anent which I would fain ask my Spiritualist +friends one which I have long yearned to put. Since you, my dear +ghost-raisers, can call spirits from the vasty deep of the outside-most +beyond, will you not--having many millions from which to call--raise up +one of the Pictish race, and, having brought it in from the _Ewigkeit_, +take down a vocabulary of the language? Let it be a lady _par +preference_,--the fair being by far the more fluent in words. Moreover, +it is probable that as the Picts were a painted race, woman among them +must have been very much to the fore, and that Madame Rachels occupied a +high position with rouge, enamels, and other appliances to make them +young and beautiful forever. According to Southey, the British +blue-stocking is descended from these woad-stained ancestresses, which +assertion dimly hints at their having been literary. In which case, +_voila notre affaire_! for then the business would be promptly done. +Wizards of the secret spells, I adjure ye, raise me a Pictess for the +sake of philology--and the picturesque! + + + + +Footnotes: + + +{19} From the observations of Frederic Drew (_The Northern Barrier of +India_, London, 1877) there can be little doubt that the Dom, or Dum, +belong to the pre-Aryan race or races of India. "They are described in +the Shastras as Sopukh, or Dog-Eaters" (_Types of India_). I have +somewhere met with the statement that the Dom was pre-Aryan, but allowed +to rank as Hindoo on account of services rendered to the early +conquerors. + +{22} Up-stairs in this gentleman's dialect signified up or upon, like +_top_ Pidgin-English. + +{23} _Puccasa_, Sanskrit. Low, inferior. Given by Pliny E. Chase in +his _Sanskrit Analogues_ as the root-word for several inferior animals. + +{26} _A Trip up the Volga to the Fair of Nijni-Novgovod_. By H. A. +Munro Butler Johnstone. 1875. + +{42} _Seven Years in the Deserts of America_. + +{61} In Old English Romany this is called _dorrikin_; in common parade, +_dukkerin_. Both forms are really old. + +{68} Flower-flag-nation man; that is, American. + +{69a} _Leadee_, reads. + +{69b} _Dly_, dry. + +{69c} _Lun_, run. + +{82} Diamonds true. _O latcho bar_ (in England, _tatcho bar_), "the +true or real stone," is the gypsy for a diamond. + +{97} Within a mile, Maginn lies buried, without a monument. + +{108} _Mashing_, a word of gypsy origin (_mashdva_), meaning fascination +by the eye, or taking in. + +{125} Goerres, _Christliche Mystik_, i. 296. 1. 23. + +{134} _The Saxons in England_, i. 3. + +{159} _Peru urphu_! "Increase and multiply!" _Vide_ Bodenschatz +_Kirchliche Verfassung der Juden_, part IV. ch. 4, sect. 2. + +{209} _The Past in the Present_, part 2, lect. 3 + +{222} _Yoma_, fol. 21, col. 2. + +{238} _Zimbel_. The cymbal of the Austrian gypsies is a stringed +instrument, like the zitter. + +{241} _Crocus_, in common slang an itinerant quack, mountebank, or +seller of medicine; _Pitcher_, a street dealer. + +{270} A brief _resume_ of the most characteristic gypsy mode of +obtaining property. + +{279} Lady, in gypsy _rani_. The process of degradation is curiously +marked in this language. _Rani_ (_rawnee_), in Hindi, is a queen. +_Rye_, or _rae_, a gentleman, in its native land, is applicable to a +nobleman, while _rashai_, a clergyman, even of the smallest dissenting +type, rises in the original _rishi_ to a saint of the highest order. + +{280} This was the very same affair and the same gypsies described and +mentioned on page 383 of _In Gypsy Tents_, by Francis Hindes Groome, +Edinburgh, 1880. I am well acquainted with them. + +{285} _Primulaveris_: in German _Schlussel blume_, that is, key flowers; +also Mary's-keys and keys of heaven. Both the primrose and tulip are +believed in South Germany to be an Open Sesame to hidden treasure. + +{292} Omar Khayyam, _Rubaiyat_. + +{293} _Johnnykin and the Goblins_. London: Macmillan. + +{302a} Vide _Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_, vol. xvi. part 2, +1856 p. 285. + +{302b} _Die Zigeuner_. + +{307a} _The Dialect of the English Gypsies_. + +{307b} I beg the reader to bear it in mind that all this is literally as +it was given by an old gypsy, and that I am not responsible for its +accuracy or inaccuracy. + +{317a} Literally, the earth-sewer. + +{317b} _Kali foki_. _Kalo_ means, as in Hindustani, not only black, but +also lazy. Pronounced _kaw-lo_. + +{319a} _Gorgio_. Gentile; any man not a gypsy. Possibly from _ghora +aji_ "Master white man," Hindu. Used as _goi_ is applied by Hebrews to +the unbelievers. + +{319b} _Romeli_, _rom'ni_. Wandering, gypsying. It is remarkable that +_remna_, in Hindu, means to roam. + +{320} _Chollo-tem_. Whole country, world. + +{324} There is a great moral difference, not only in the gypsy mind, but +in that of the peasant, between stealing and poaching. But in fact, as +regards the appropriation of poultry of any kind, a young English gypsy +has neither more nor less scruple than other poor people of his class. + +{325} _Man lana_, Hindostani: to set the heart upon. _Manner_, Eng. +Gyp.: to encourage; also, to forbid. + +{327} _Chovihan_, m., _chovihani_, fem., often _cho'ian_ or _cho'ani_, a +witch. Probably from the Hindu _'toanee_, a witch, which has nearly the +same pronunciation as the English gypsy word. + +{335} _Travels in Beloochistan and Scinde_, p. 153. + +{341a} English gypsies also call the moon _shul_ and _shone_. + +{341b} _Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo_, by Dr. Henry Rink. 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