SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY'.

MANNERS AND CUSTONIS.

TheZiucali ; or an account of the Gipsies of Spain. With an Original Collection, of their Songs and Poetry, and a copious Dictionary of their Language. By George Borrow, late Agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society in Spain. In 2 vols. Murray. NA•rosAL PHILOSOPHY,

Popular Cyclopredia of Natural Science. Vegetable Physiology. (Published by

the Society for the Promotion of Popular Instruction.) Tanner, Brothers. Porray,

Summer Morning ; a Poem. By Thomas Miller, Authoeof " A Day in the Woods."

" Rural Sketches," Sze Heyward and Cos MR. BORROW'S GIPSIES OF SPAIN.

MR. BORROW is an agent of the Bible Society, who has resided- about five years in Spain, pursuing his vocation of translating and distributing the Scriptures. During that period he lived much among the Gitanos, or Gipsies ; making use of them as agents for circulating his publications, and cautiously endeavouring to in- sinuate into the minds of the tribe some Scriptural facts and doc- trines. His acquaintance with the gipsy race is, however, of much longer standing than his Spanish visit, for he had been early attracted to study their language and peculiarities ; a fact which- some of the more speculative of the tribe accounted for on the principles of metempsychosis, conceiting his soul to have belonged- to a gipsy in a preExistent state, and hailing him a brother Rom. Hence, in addition to the language and habits of the gipsies of England, he had already made acquaintance with the "people" in Russia Hungary, and other countries, besides having read much

that been written on the subject. We may say, too, in passing, that Mr. BORROW has made strange acquaintances in the course of his pilgrimages besides gipsies, his vocation seeming constantly to have led him amongst publicans and sinners.

In the first requisite of authorship, knowledge of his subject, Mr. BoaRow may be held sufficient ; and his work abounds in facts and observations gathered from nature or selected from a pretty wide range Of curious reading, His views of things are commonly sound, his judgment being more rational and less tainted with indiscreet zeal than might have been expected from his position ; long travel, and a wide experience of man in many stages of society, having given him a more cos- mopolitan character than is usual with missionaries. His style is also graphic and vigorous ; rather rough, with a touch of forced effect about it, than either graceful or eloquent. In the disposition of his subject be exhibits an obvious artifice ; re- sorting to personification, rapid changes of scene and times, with rather abrupt surprises. He has also either a tinge of super- stition in his own mind, or he now and then tells a strange tale for the sake of its supposed effect upon the reader. Hence, though

The Zineali is a readable, interesting, and informing work, the

impression left on the mind is not of a satisfactory kind, so far as regards the philosophy of the subject ; nor can we be said to rise from the book with a whole view of the present state of the gipsies in Spain, but rather with the ideas derived from a series of indivi- dual sketches. The past history, though not continuous, is more complete. The work consists of three parts. The first is principally devoted to a history of the character and condition of the gipsies of Spain, but contains also a variety of miscellaneous information, including reminiscences of English, Russian, and Hungarian gipsies. The second part embraces a selection from the author's own adven- tures with the Spanish Gitanos, including a chapter or two relative to their character and usages. The third part treats of the language and poetry of the people : the genuine poetry, however, is only a collection of quatrains of a very rude and inartificial kind, descriptive of some common incident or feeling-

" Sire nor mother me caress, For I have none on earth ; One little brother I possess, And he's a fool by birth.

"Within his dwelling sits at ease Each wealthy gipsy churl,

While all the needy ones they seize And into prison hurl."

At times there is great conciseness and fulness in their narrative of facts occurring to themselves. Here is an example ; every mem- ber of the sentence describing a distinct incident-

" I left my house and walked about;

They seized me fast and bound:

It is a gipsy thief, they shout,

The Spaniards here have found.

"From out the prison me they led, Before the scribe they brought : It is no gipsy thief, he said, The Spaniards here have caught."

The account of the language contains an essay tending to iden- tify Rommany with Sanscrit, and hence to prove the Hindoo origin of the Horns, together with a vocabulary of the Spanish dialect of the people ; their language varying somewhat in different countries, but the main structure being alike, and a gipsy of one nation in- telligible to another.

Whatever interest attaches to this people in the feelings of Mr. BORROW, it clearly springs not from a moral character ; for the picture he draws of them is of the darkest kind. Their only vir- tue, if virtue it can be called, is attachment to the tribe or blood. Even this is waning ; still a brother is not an object of spoil, though he may not be assisted as he once was ; but all other persons are lawful prey. Cheating and thievery are the profession of the whole tribe of Gitanos, and fraud their means ; for though they will bear when danger is forced upon them, yet they are too cowardly a race to venture on violence where there is any risk. If the 'odds are greatly in their favour, and they have a prospect of impunity, they will murder without compunction ; and they pursue the Busne, as they call the Spaniards, with irreconcileable hatred, going the length of injuring infants intrusted to them to nurse. They are lazy, dirty, and ignorant ; incapable of rising to any thing like an abstract idea, or even of telling the name of a word unless they have occasion to use it ; and are without either history or tradition : the fact of their language being able to be written excited unbounded wonder and applause, when Mr. Boa- now induced them to assist him in translating some devotional piece, as an experiment. They have no religion ; believing neither in God nor in a future state, and professing to fear nothing supernatural; though Mr. Boattow found some females infected with a vague sort of superstition—dreading cabalistic words. The women make a trade of themselves as dancers, singers of obscene songs, and procuresses ; but, according to the ex- tensive observation of Mr. Boartow, fortified by the unsuccessful experience of a dissipated acquaintance, the Spanish gipsy women are corporeally chaste. Of gratitude he believes the whole tribe totally devoid : in fact, the hatred with which they regard all not of the blood, as a race they would gladly sweep from the earth, is not likely to permit the growth of the feeling towards strangers. It does not appear that they are ungrateful amongst one another. For many generations the gipsies in Spain were pursued with laws offering the alternative of death if they continued their mode of life ; or agricultural bondage, a sort of adaeripti glebe, if they abandoned it. During all that period of penal persecu- tion, they. flourished ; maintaining their institutions in primitive vigour, and resisting the ill-administered laws of Spain by bribing the officials, and by the influence which their arts obtained for them. In 1783, the edict of CHARLES the Third opened various industrial pursuits to the gipsy race, and gave them modified rights of citizenship. Since then, be the cause what it may, the strength of the national feelings has declined : the richer gipsies are making some approaches towards civilized life, or rather Spanish citizen life, and many of the poorer are settling down. The first interview Mr. BORROW had with the gipsies was at Badajoz, in 1836. He had just arrived, and was standing at the inn-door, when two men passed down the street. Recognizing them at a glance for gipsies, he addressed them in a single word, to which they responded : it was shortly noised over the town, that an Englishman as learned in Rommany as themselves had arrived, and who appeared to be of the "blood." All such as had clothes and were not overburdened with modesty thronged about the traveller, and his room was like a minister's levee. Amongst the people who came, was a man who had served during the French invasion, meeting a strange adven- ture; and who thus poured forth on the gipsy decline.

"Antonio. He told me that he was a Mayoro. "Myself. You mean a Magyar or Hungarian ? "Antonio. Just so; and I have repented ever since that I did not follow him.

"Myself Why so ? "Antonio. I will tell you: the King has destroyed the law of the Calls, and has put disunion amongst us. There was a time when the house of every Zincalo, however rich, was open to his brother, though be came to him naked;

and it was then the custom to boast of the " errate." It is no longer so now : those who are rich keep aloof from the rest, will not speak in Cab, and will

have no dealings but with the Bused. Is there not a false brother in this foros, the only rich man among us, the swine, the balichow ? He is married to a Busnee, and he would fain appear as a Busno! Tell me one thing—has he

been to see yea? The White blood ! I know he has not ; for by gipsy law he

was bound to take you to his house, and feast you whilst you remained, like a prince—like a crallis of the Cries, as I believe you are—even though he sold the last grass from the stall. Who have come to see you, brother ? Have they not been such as Paco and his wife—wretches without a house, or at best one filled with cold and poverty ; so that you have had to stay at a mesuna, at a

pmada of the Bused: and moreover, what have the Calls given you since you have been residing here ?—Nothing, I trow, better than this rubbish, which is all I can offer you, this Meligrfina de Ins Bengues.

"Here he produced a pomegranate from the pocket of his zamira, and flung it on the table with such force that the fruit burst, and the red grains were scattered on the floor."

At Badajoz, Mr. Boaaow entered on his vocation, but without any particular success.

"They never attend mass, nor did I ever hear them employ the names of God, Christ, and the Virgin, but in execration and blasphemy. From what I could learn, it appeared that their fathers had entertained some belief in me- tempsychosis; but they themselves laughed at the idea, and were of opinion that the soul perished when the hotly ceased to breathe: and the argument which they used was rational enough, as far as it impugned metempsychosis- , We have been wicked and miserable enough in this life,' they said; why should we live again ? ' "I translated certain portions of Scripture into their dialect, which I fre- quently read to them ; especially the parable of Lazarus and the Prodigal Son ; and told them that the latter had been as wicked as themselves, and both had suffered as much or more; but that the sufferings of the former, who always looked forward to a blessed resurrection, were recompensed by admission, in the life to come, to the society of Abraham and the Prophets; and that the latter, when he repented of his sins, was forgiven and received into as much favour as the just son.

"They listened with admiration; bat, alas! not of the truths, the eternal truths I was telling them, but to find that their broken jargon could be written and read. The only words of assent to the heavenly doctrine which I ever obtained, and that rather of the negative kind, were the following, from the mouth of a woman—' Brother, you tell us strange things, though perhaps you do not lie; a month since I would sooner have believed these tales than that this day I should see one who could write Rommany."

GIPSY VIGINTI CORDOVA.

I shall long remember these Cordovese Gitanos, by whom I was very well

received ; but always on the supposition that I was one of their own race. They. said that they never admitted strangers to their houses save at their marriage-festivals, when they flung their doors open to all, and save occasion- ally people of influence and distinction, who wished to hear their songs and converse with their women ; but they assured me, at the same time, that these they invariably deceived, and merely made use of as instruments to serve their own purposes. As for myself, I was admitted without scruple to their private meetings, and was made a participator of their most secret thoughts. During our intercourse, some remarkable scenes occurred. One night more than twenty of us, men and women, were assembled in a long low room on the ground-floor, in a dark alley or court in the old gloomy town of Cordova. After the Gitanos had discussed several jockey plans, and settled some private bargains amongst themselves, we all gathered round a huge brasero of flaming charcoal, and be- gan conversing sobre las coins de Egypt° ; when I proposed that, as we had no better means of amusing ourselves, we should endeavour to turn into the Cabo language some pieces of devotion, that we might see whether this language, the gradual decay of which I had frequently heard them lament, was capable of expressing any other matters than those which related to horses, mules, and gipsy traffic. It was in this cautious manner that I first endeavoured to divert the attention of these singular people to matters of eternal importance. My suggestion was received with acclamations; and we forthwith proceeded to the translation of the Apostles' Creed. I first recited in Spanish, in the usual manner and without pausing, this noble confession, and then repeated it again, sentence by sentence, the Gitanos translating as I proceeded. They exhibited the greatest eagerness and interest in their unwonted occupation, and fre- quently broke into loud disputes as to the best rendering; many being offered at the same time. In the mean while, I wrote down from their dictation ; and at the conclusion I read aloud the translation, the result of the united wisdom of the assembly ; whereupon they all raised a shoat of exultation, and appeared not a little proud of the composition.

Various stories are scattered over the volumes ; some represented as realities passing under the observation of Mr. BORROW, others avowedly historical or traditional, and occasionally dressed up by the author in the form of a tale. All of them throw some light upon gipsy manners ; and most of them are interesting for their character and incidents, but are too long for quotation. We will therefore confine ourselves to shorter passages of a miscellaneous kind.

SPANISH GIPSY WEDDING.

Throughout the day there was nothing going on but singing, drinking, feast- ing, and dancing; but the most singular part of the festival was reserved for the dark night. Nearly a ton weight of sweetmeats had been prepared, at an enormous expense ; not for the gratification of the palate, but for a purpose purely gipsy. These sweetmeats, of all kinds and of all forms, but princi- pally yemas, or yolks of eggs prepared with a crust of sugar, (a delicious bonne douche,) were strewn on the floor of a large room at least to the depth of three inches. Into this room, at a given signal, tripped the bride and bridegroom, dancing romalls, followed amain by all the Gitanos and Gitanas, dancing ro- malls. To convey a slight idea of the scene, is almost beyond the power of words. In a few minutes the sweetmeats were reduced to a powder, or rather to a mud, and the dancers were soiled to the knees with sugar, fruits, and yolks of eggs. Still more terrific became the lunatic merriment. The men sprang high into the air, neighed, brayed, and crowed ; whilst the Gitanas snapped their fingers in their own fashion, louder than castanets, distorting thew forms into all kinds of obscene attitudes, and uttering words to repeat which were an abomination. In a corner of the apartment capered the while Sebastianilla, a convict gipsy from Melilla, strumming the guitar most fu- riously, and producing demoniacal sounds which had some resemblance to Malbrun, (Malbrouk,) and as he strummed, repeating at intervals the gipsy modification of the song.

NATIONAL CONSCIENCES.

It has been said that there is a secret monitor, or conscience, within every heart, which immediately upbraids the individual on the commission of a crime: this may be true, but certainly the monitor within the Gitano breast is a very feeble one, for little attention is ever paid to its reproofs. With regard to con- science, be it permitted to observe, that it varies much according to climate, country, and religion. Perhaps nowhere is it so terrible and strong as in Eng- land : I need not say why. Amongst the English I have seen many indivi- duals stricken low and broken-hearted by the force of conscience ; but never amongst the Spaniards or Italians ; and I never yet could observe that the crimes which the Gitanos were daily and hourly committing occasioned them the slightest uneasiness.

GIPSY WOMEN.

I found the women much more disposed to listen to any thing I had to say than the men, who were in general so taken up with their traffic that they could think and talk of nothing else : the women, too, bad more curiosity and more intelligence ; the conversational powers of some of them I found to be very great ; and yet they were destitute of the slightest rudiments of educa- tion, and were thieves by profession. At Madrid I had regular conversaziones, or, as they are called in Spanish, tertfilias, with these women ; who generally visited me twice a week : they were perfectly unreserved towards me with re- spect to their actions and practices though their behaviour, when present, was invariably strictly proper. I have already had cause to mention Pepe, the sibyl, and her daughter-in-law Chicharona ; the manners of the first were sometimes almost elegant, though, next to Aurora, she was the most notorious she-thug in Madrid ; Chicbarona was good-humoured, like most fat personages. Peps had likewise two daughters; one of whom, every remarkable female, was called La Tuerta, from the circumstance of her having but one eye; and the other, who was a girl of about thirteen La Casdami, or the scorpion, from the malice which she occasionally displayed.

SPANISH WONDER AT MR. BORROW'S LEVEES.

The people of the street in which I lived, seeing such numbers of these strange females continually passing in and out, were struck with astonishment, and demanded the reason. The answers which they obtained by no means satisfied them. "Zeal for the conversion of souls—the souls too of Gitinas I- DisparAte ! the fellow is a brib6n. Besides he is an Englishman, and is not baptized ; what cares he for souls ? They visit him for other purposes. He makes base ounces, which they carry away and circulate. Madrid is already stocked with false money." Others were of opinion that we met for purposes of sorcery and abomination. The Spaniard has no conception that other springs of action exist than interest or villany.