in the towns, cities, and villages for a time, but to expect that a
people, in whose bosoms was so deeply rooted the love of lawless
independence, would subject themselves to the yoke of servitude,
from any motive whatever, was going too far; as well might it have
been expected, according to the words of the great poet of Persia,
THAT THEY WOULD HAVE WASHED THEIR SKINS WHITE.

In these Gitanerias, therefore, many Gypsy families resided, but
ever in the Gypsy fashion, in filth and in misery, with little of
the fear of man, and nothing of the fear of God before their eyes.
Here the swarthy children basked naked in the sun before the doors;
here the women prepared love draughts, or told the buena ventura;
and here the men plied the trade of the blacksmith, a forbidden
occupation, or prepared for sale, by disguising them, animals
stolen by themselves or their accomplices. In these places were
harboured the strange Gitanos on their arrival, and here were
discussed in the Rommany language, which, like the Arabic, was
forbidden under severe penalties, plans of fraud and plunder, which
were perhaps intended to be carried into effect in a distant
province and a distant city.

The great body, however, of the Gypsy race in Spain continued
independent wanderers of the plains and the mountains, and indeed
the denizens of the Gitanerias were continually sallying forth,
either for the purpose of reuniting themselves with the wandering
tribes, or of strolling about from town to town, and from fair to
fair. Hence the continual complaints in the Spanish laws against
the Gitanos who have left their places of domicile, from doing
which they were interdicted, even as they were interdicted from
speaking their language and following the occupations of the