ears; her nether garments are rags, and her feet are cased in
hempen sandals. Such is the wandering Gitana, such is the witch-
wife of Multan, who has come to spae the fortune of the Sevillian
countess and her daughters.

'O may the blessing of Egypt light upon your head, you high-born
lady! (May an evil end overtake your body, daughter of a Busnee
harlot!) and may the same blessing await the two fair roses of the
Nile here flowering by your side! (May evil Moors seize them and
carry them across the water!) O listen to the words of the poor
woman who is come from a distant country; she is of a wise people,
though it has pleased the God of the sky to punish them for their
sins by sending them to wander through the world. They denied
shelter to the Majari, whom you call the queen of heaven, and to
the Son of God, when they flew to the land of Egypt before the
wrath of the wicked king; it is said that they even refused them a
draught of the sweet waters of the great river when the blessed two
were athirst. O you will say that it was a heavy crime; and truly
so it was, and heavily has the Lord punished the Egyptians. He has
sent us a-wandering, poor as you see, with scarcely a blanket to
cover us. O blessed lady, (Accursed be thy dead, as many as thou
mayest have,) we have no money to buy us bread; we have only our
wisdom with which to support ourselves and our poor hungry babes;
when God took away their silks from the Egyptians, and their gold
from the Egyptians, he left them their wisdom as a resource that
they might not starve. O who can read the stars like the
Egyptians? and who can read the lines of the palm like the
Egyptians? The poor woman read in the stars that there was a rich
ventura for all of this goodly house, so she followed the bidding
of the stars and came to declare it. O blessed lady, (I defile thy