the pursuit enable them to provide sufficient for the existence,
however poor and miserable, of their families and themselves.

A very singular kind of women are the Gitanas, far more remarkable
in most points than their husbands, in whose pursuits of low
cheating and petty robbery there is little capable of exciting much
interest; but if there be one being in the world who, more than
another, deserves the title of sorceress (and where do you find a
word of greater romance and more thrilling interest?), it is the
Gypsy female in the prime and vigour of her age and ripeness of her
understanding - the Gypsy wife, the mother of two or three
children. Mention to me a point of devilry with which that woman
is not acquainted. She can at any time, when it suits her, show
herself as expert a jockey as her husband, and he appears to
advantage in no other character, and is only eloquent when
descanting on the merits of some particular animal; but she can do
much more: she is a prophetess, though she believes not in
prophecy; she is a physician, though she will not taste her own
philtres; she is a procuress, though she is not to be procured; she
is a singer of obscene songs, though she will suffer no obscene
hand to touch her; and though no one is more tenacious of the
little she possesses, she is a cutpurse and a shop-lifter whenever
opportunity shall offer.

In all times, since we have known anything of these women, they
have been addicted to and famous for fortune-telling; indeed, it is
their only ostensible means of livelihood, though they have various
others which they pursue more secretly. Where and how they first
learned the practice we know not; they may have brought it with
them from the East, or they may have adopted it, which is less