[55] "The Zincali; or, an Account of the Gypsies of Spain." By George Borrow. 2 vols. London, John Murray, 1841.
[56] Whatever may have been their origin, their language demonstrates that the Spanish gypsies are not (as has been suggested) relics of the expelled Moors, Arabs, or Moriscos, with whose tongue theirs has no affinity. Many of the Rommany words appear to be of Sanscrit derivation.
[57] In speed of foot, the gitano lads carry off the palm, leaving all competitors behind in the rare athletic contests which have taken place in Southern Spain.
[58] These particulars are, however, given in nearly all Spanish diaries and almanacs.
[59] We do not encumber ourselves on these bird-hunting expeditions with tents, tressle-beds, indiarubber baths, and the other luxuries of the regular shooting campaigns. Sometimes, after sleeping in the cerrones, if no water was near, one's toilet was confined to a general "shake up," like a fox-terrier turning out from his mat, and we rode on till a hill-burn afforded a chance of a bath and breakfast.
[60] Our own experience on this point would not enable us to assert this fact so positively—indeed we have observed instances in which the reverse case appeared to obtain; but the circumstance has been stated to us by an ornithologist whose authority stands beyond question or doubt.
[61] Both my companion Ramon Romatez, and Juan Guarro y Guarro, as well as several of our other men, were independent yeomen, owning from 150 to 200 goats apiece, which they pastured on the slopes of the sierra. They were, however, glad to accompany us for the sum of eight reales (one shilling and eightpence) a day.
[62] Except at vintage-times the Alto Douro is almost uninhabited. Hence in early autumn, when work is plentiful, there occurs an extraordinary influx of labourers—men and women—many from considerable distances, and especially from the Spanish province of Galicia, flocking into the Alto Douro as the hop-pickers in September pour into Kent from the arcana of London, or as the Irish harvesters at that season flood the Midlands and North of England.
[63] The following are the constituents of the four different classes of soil of the Jerez vignobles, according to Don Simon de Roxas Clemente:—1st. Albariza, chiefly consists of carbonate of lime, with a small admixture of silex and clay, and occasionally magnesia. 2nd. Barros, composed of quartz or sand, mixed with clay and red or yellow ochre, which forms horizontal bands extending along the coast from the mouth of the Guadalquivir as far as Conil. 3rd. Arenas, or pure quartz ore sand. 4th. Bugeo, which contains argillaceous loam, mixed with carbonate of lime, some quartz ore sand, and a large proportion of vegetable mould.—"History of Modern Wines," by Dr. Alexander Henderson, p. 190.
[64] Dr. Henderson makes a contrary statement in his "History of Ancient and Modern Wines," p. 190 (London, 1824); but this we imagine must be attributed to a slip of the pen, and is, in any case, erroneous.