—George Borrow.
No foreigner has known the Zingali better than George Borrow, the linguistic Englishman, who could speak Rommany so well that gypsies all over Europe took him for a brother. In the employ of the English Bible Society, he spent some five adventurous years in Spain, wandering through the wilds and sharing the life of shepherds, muleteers, even the fierce gitanos. As he found the Spanish gypsies half a century ago, so, in essentials, are they still—the men jockeys, tinkers, and blacksmiths, the women fortune tellers and dancers, the children the most shameless little beggars of all the Peninsula. Yet there has been an improvement.
The gitanos are not such ruffians as of old, nor even such arrant thieves, although it would still be unwise to trust them within call of temptation.
"There runs a swine down yonder hill,
As fast as e'er he can,
And as he runs he crieth still,
'Come, steal me, Gypsyman.'"
Still more compromising is the Christmas carol:—
"Into the porch of Bethlehem
Have crept the gypsies wild,