galleys; or if females or children, either scourged or mutilated.

The consequence of this severity, which, considering the manners
and spirit of the time, is scarcely to be wondered at, was the
speedy disappearance of the Gypsies from the soil of France.

Many returned by the way they came, to Germany, Hungary, and the
woods and forests of Bohemia; but there is little doubt that by far
the greater portion found a refuge in the Peninsula, a country
which, though by no means so rich and fertile as the one they had
quitted, nor offering so wide and ready a field for the exercise of
those fraudulent arts for which their race had become so infamously
notorious, was, nevertheless, in many respects, suitable and
congenial to them. If there were less gold and silver in the
purses of the citizens to reward the dexterous handler of the knife
and scissors amidst the crowd in the market-place; if fewer sides
of fatted swine graced the ample chimney of the labourer in Spain
than in the neighbouring country; if fewer beeves bellowed in the
plains, and fewer sheep bleated upon the hills, there were far
better opportunities afforded of indulging in wild independence.
Should the halberded bands of the city be ordered out to quell,
seize, or exterminate them; should the alcalde of the village cause
the tocsin to be rung, gathering together the villanos for a
similar purpose, the wild sierra was generally at hand, which, with
its winding paths, its caves, its frowning precipices, and ragged
thickets, would offer to them a secure refuge where they might
laugh to scorn the rage of their baffled pursuers, and from which
they might emerge either to fresh districts or to those which they
had left, to repeat their ravages when opportunity served.