They seldom trouble themselves about washing, or other modes of cleaning themselves. Experience also shews us, that the dark colour of the Gipseys, which is continued from generation to generation, is more the effect of education, and manner of life, than descent. Among those who profess music in Hungary, or serve in the Imperial army, where they have learnt to pay more attention to order and cleanliness, there are many to be found whose extraction is not at all discernible in their colour; though they had, probably, remained to the age of twelve or fourteen years under the care of their filthy parents; and must necessarily, when they first adopted a different mode of life, have borne the marks of the dirt contracted during this period. How much less, then, should we be able to distinguish a Gipsey if taken when a child from its sluttish mother, and brought up under some cleanly person! By the same reasoning we may account for their white teeth and sound limbs; namely, from their manner of life. The former are evidences of their spare diet: the latter prove them to have been reared more according to the dictates of nature, than those of art and tenderness. CHAPTER IV. _On their Food and Beverage_. THOSE Gipseys who are more connected with civilised people are not remarkable in their diet; though it is to be observed of them, that they are by no means particular in their cookery. The others, on the contrary, have their table furnished in a very irregular and extraordinary way. Sometimes they fast, or at best have only bread and water to subsist upon: at other times they regale on fowls and geese. The greatest luxury to them is, when they can procure a roast of cattle that have died of any distemper. It is the same to them, whether it be the carrion of a sheep, hog, cow, or other beast, horse-flesh only excepted: they are so far from being disgusted with it, that to eat their fill of such a meal is to them the height of epicurism. When any person censures their taste, or shews surprise at it, they answer, “The flesh of a beast which God kills, must be better than that of one killed by the hand of man:” they therefore embrace every opportunity of getting such dainties. That they take carrion from the laystalls, as is affirmed of the Gipseys in Hungary, is not probable, any more than that they eat horse flesh. But if a beast out of a herd die, and they find it before it become rotten and putrefied; or if a farmer give them notice of a cow dead in the stable; they proceed, without hesitation, to get possession of the booty. They are particularly fond of animals that have been destroyed by fire; therefore, whenever a conflagration has happened, either in town or country, the next day the Gipseys, from every neighbouring quarter, assemble, and draw the suffocated, half consumed, beasts out of the ashes. Men, women, and children, in troops, are extremely busy, joyfully carrying the flesh home to their dwellings: they