On the other hand, South America is very little known; and yet the part with which I am most familiar, the Brazil, is full of Gypsies. When Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic (A.D. 1492) issued the exterminating edict against Moors, Jews, and Gitanos, the latter slunk into hiding-places; they were again proscribed by Charles V. (A.D. 1582); and Philip III. (A.D. 1619) issued from Belem in Portugal an order for all the Gypsies to quit the country within six months--an order renewed by Philip IV. in A.D. 1633. There was some reason for this severity. The “masterful beggars” had made themselves infamous by turning spies to the Turks and Saracens; and if the general prejudice against them was unfounded, it rested at least upon a solid foundation--their hatred of the Christian Busno, Gacho, or non-Gypsy. Thus every maritime city of the Brazil to which the exiles were shipped presently contained a Gypsy _bairro_, or quarter, the Portuguese Moreria (Moorery) corresponding with the Spanish Gitaneria, and not a little resembling the Ghettos of the Italian Jews. For instance, the Rocco, now the handsomest square in superb Rio de Janeiro, was of old the Campo dos Ciganos--the Gypsies’ Field. The “Egyptian pilgrims” thence spread abroad over the Interior, where their tents often attract the traveller’s eye; and some of them became distinguished criminals, like the Gypsy Beijú, one of the chief Thugs, whose career, ended by hanging for the murders which long disgraced the Mantiqueira Mountains, I have described in the _Highlands of the Brazil_ (i. 63). Wandering about the provinces of S. Paulo and Minas Geraes, I often met Gypsy groups whose appearance, language, and occupations were those of Europe. They are here perhaps a little more violent and dangerous, and the wayfarer looks to his revolver as he nears their camp at the dusk hour; yet they are hardly worse than the “Morpheticos” (lepers), who are allowed to haunt the country. Popular books and reviews ignore them; but the peasantry regard them with disgust and religious dread. They protest themselves to be pious Catholics, yet they are so far the best of Protestants, as they protest, practically and energetically, against the whole concern. Their religion, in fact, is embodied in the axiom: “Cras moriemur--post mortem nulla voluptas.” We may well believe the common rumour which charges them with being robbers of poultry and horses, and with doing at times a trifle in the way of assassination.