blacksmith and horse-dealer, in which they still persist even at
the present day.

The Gitanerias at evening fall were frequently resorted to by
individuals widely differing in station from the inmates of these
places - we allude to the young and dissolute nobility and hidalgos
of Spain. This was generally the time of mirth and festival, and
the Gitanos, male and female, danced and sang in the Gypsy fashion
beneath the smile of the moon. The Gypsy women and girls were the
principal attractions to these visitors; wild and singular as these
females are in their appearance, there can be no doubt, for the
fact has been frequently proved, that they are capable of exciting
passion of the most ardent description, particularly in the bosoms
of those who are not of their race, which passion of course becomes
the more violent when the almost utter impossibility of gratifying
it is known. No females in the world can be more licentious in
word and gesture, in dance and in song, than the Gitanas; but there
they stop: and so of old, if their titled visitors presumed to
seek for more, an unsheathed dagger or gleaming knife speedily
repulsed those who expected that the gem most dear amongst the sect
of the Roma was within the reach of a Busno.

Such visitors, however, were always encouraged to a certain point,
and by this and various other means the Gitanos acquired
connections which frequently stood them in good stead in the hour
of need. What availed it to the honest labourers of the
neighbourhood, or the citizens of the town, to make complaints to
the corregidor concerning the thefts and frauds committed by the
Gitanos, when perhaps the sons of that very corregidor frequented
the nightly dances at the Gitaneria, and were deeply enamoured with