THE Moors, after their subjugation, and previous to their expulsion
from Spain, generally resided apart, principally in the suburbs of
the towns, where they kept each other in countenance, being hated
and despised by the Spaniards, and persecuted on all occasions. By
this means they preserved, to a certain extent, the Arabic
language, though the use of it was strictly forbidden, and
encouraged each other in the secret exercise of the rites of the
Mohammedan religion, so that, until the moment of their final
expulsion, they continued Moors in almost every sense of the word.
Such places were called Morerias, or quarters of the Moors.

In like manner there were Gitanerias, or quarters of the Gitanos,
in many of the towns of Spain; and in more than one instance
particular barrios or districts are still known by this name,
though the Gitanos themselves have long since disappeared. Even in
the town of Oviedo, in the heart of the Asturias, a province never
famous for Gitanos, there is a place called the Gitaneria, though
no Gitano has been known to reside in the town within the memory of
man, nor indeed been seen, save, perhaps, as a chance visitor at a
fair.

The exact period when the Gitanos first formed these colonies
within the towns is not known; the laws, however, which commanded
them to abandon their wandering life under penalty of banishment
and death, and to become stationary in towns, may have induced them
first to take such a step. By the first of these laws, which was
made by Ferdinand and Isabella as far back as the year 1499, they
are commanded to seek out for themselves masters. This injunction
they utterly disregarded. Some of them for fear of the law, or
from the hope of bettering their condition, may have settled down