There prevails in popular traditions much mystery respecting gipsies. No wonder that this should be the case, since these strange vagabonds are in most countries so very different from the inhabitants in their appearance and habits; and their occupations are often so well calculated to appeal to the imagination of superstitious people, that a gipsy is regarded by them almost as a sorcerer. His better-half not unfrequently pretends to be a soothsayer, and he is often a musician. However different the gipsy hordes which rove about in European countries may be from each other in some respects, they are all fond of music, magic, and mysterious pursuits. Among the gipsy bands in Hungary and Transylvania talented instrumental performers are by no means rare; and in Russia, the gipsy singers of Moscow enjoy a wide reputation for their musical accomplishments. It is told,--not as a myth but as a fact,--that when the celebrated Italian singer Signora Catalani heard in Moscow the most accomplished of the gipsy singing-girls of that town, she was so highly delighted with the performance that she took from her shoulders a splendid Cashmere shawl which the Pope had presented to her in admiration of her own talent, and embracing the dear gipsy girl, she insisted on her accepting the shawl, saying that it was intended for the matchless cantatrice which she now found she could not longer regard herself. There is a wildness in the gipsy musical performances, which admirably expresses the characteristic features of these vagrants. Indeed theirs is just the sort of music which people ought to make who encamp in the open air, feed upon hedgehogs and whatever they can lay hand on, and profess to be adepts in sorcery and prophecy. The following event is told by the peasants in the Netherlands as having occurred in Herzeele. A troop of gipsies had arrived in a valley near that place. They stretched a tight rope, on which they danced, springing sometimes into the air so high that all who saw it were greatly astonished. A little boy among the spectators cried: "Oh, if I could but do that!"-- "Nothing is easier," said an old gipsy who stood near him: "Here is a powder; when you have swallowed it, you will be able to dance as well as any of us." The boy took the powder and swallowed it. In a moment his feet became so light that he found it impossible to keep them on the ground. The slightest movement which he made raised him into the air. He danced upon the ears of the growing corn, on the tops of the trees,--yea, even on the weather-cock of the church-tower. The people of the village thought this suspicious, and shook their heads, especially when they furthermore observed a disinclination in the boy to attend church. They, therefore, consulted with the parson about the boy. The parson sent for him, and got him all right on his legs again by means of exorcism; but it was a hard struggle to banish the potent effects of the gipsy's powder.[79]