been poured out. This tradition is alluded to in the following
stanza:-


'I have a gallant mare in stall;
My mother gave that mare
That I might seek Count Pepe's hall
And steal his son and heir.'


Martin Del Rio, in his TRACTATUS DE MAGIA, speaks of the Gypsies
and their Counts to the following effect: 'When, in the year 1584,
I was marching in Spain with the regiment, a multitude of these
wretches were infesting the fields. It happened that the feast of
Corpus Domini was being celebrated, and they requested to be
admitted into the town, that they might dance in honour of the
sacrifice, as was customary; they did so, but about midday a great
tumult arose owing to the many thefts which the women committed,
whereupon they fled out of the suburbs, and assembled about St.
Mark's, the magnificent mansion and hospital of the knights of St.
James, where the ministers of justice attempting to seize them were
repulsed by force of arms; nevertheless, all of a sudden, and I
know not how, everything was hushed up. At this time they had a
Count, a fellow who spoke the Castilian idiom with as much purity
as if he had been a native of Toledo; he was acquainted with all
the ports of Spain, and all the difficult and broken ground of the
provinces. He knew the exact strength of every city, and who were
the principal people in each, and the exact amount of their
property; there was nothing relating to the state, however secret,
that he was not acquainted with; nor did he make a mystery of his