likely, after their arrival in Europe. Chiromancy, from the most
remote periods, has been practised in all countries. Neither do we
know, whether in this practice they were ever guided by fixed and
certain rules; the probability, however, is, that they were not,
and that they never followed it but as a means of fraud and
robbery; certainly, amongst all the professors of this art that
ever existed, no people are more adapted by nature to turn it to
account than these females, call them by whatever name you will,
Gitanas, Ziganas, Gypsies, or Bohemians; their forms, their
features, the expression of their countenances are ever wild and
Sibylline, frequently beautiful, but never vulgar. Observe, for
example, the Gitana, even her of Seville. She is standing before
the portal of a large house in one of the narrow Moorish streets of
the capital of Andalusia; through the grated iron door, she looks
in upon the court; it is paved with small marble slabs of almost
snowy whiteness; in the middle is a fountain distilling limpid
water, and all around there is a profusion of macetas, in which
flowering plants and aromatic shrubs are growing, and at each
corner there is an orange tree, and the perfume of the azahar may
be distinguished; you hear the melody of birds from a small aviary
beneath the piazza which surrounds the court, which is surmounted
by a toldo or linen awning, for it is the commencement of May, and
the glorious sun of Andalusia is burning with a splendour too
intense for his rays to be borne with impunity. It is a fairy
scene such as nowhere meets the eye but at Seville, or perhaps at
Fez and Shiraz, in the palaces of the Sultan and the Shah. The
Gypsy looks through the iron-grated door, and beholds, seated near
the fountain, a richly dressed dame and two lovely delicate
maidens; they are busied at their morning's occupation,
intertwining with their sharp needles the gold and silk on the