_February_ 1891.


Just in front of my window, on the other side of the stream, a band of
gypsies have ensconced themselves, putting up bamboo frameworks covered
over with split-bamboo mats and pieces of cloth. There are only three of
these little structures, so low that you cannot stand upright inside.
Their life is lived in the open, and they only creep under these shelters
at night, to sleep huddled together.

That is always the gypsies' way: no home anywhere, no landlord to pay rent
to, wandering about as it pleases them with their children, their pigs,
and a dog or two; and on them the police keep a vigilant eye.

I frequently watch the doings of the family nearest me. They are dark but
good-looking, with fine, strongly-built bodies, like north-west country
folk. Their women are handsome, and have tall, slim, well-knit figures;
and with their free and easy movements, and natural independent airs, they
look to me like swarthy Englishwomen.

The man has just put the cooking-pot on the fire, and is now splitting
bamboos and weaving baskets. The woman first holds up a little mirror to
her face, then puts a deal of pains into wiping and rubbing it, over and
over again, with a moist piece of cloth; and then, the folds of her upper
garment adjusted and tidied, she goes, all spick and span, up to her man
and sits beside him, helping him now and then in his work.

These are truly children of the soil, born on it somewhere, bred by the
wayside, here, there, and everywhere, dying anywhere. Night and day under