By far the most curious part of the fair, however, was the ass-market, held by a gay fraternity of gipsies. There were about a dozen of these, for the most part of middle stature, beautifully formed, with very regular features of an Asiatic cast, and having a copper tinge; their hands were very small, as of a race long unaccustomed to severe toil, with quantities of silver rings strung on the fingers. They had very white and regular teeth, and their black eyes were uncommonly large, round-orbed, projecting, and expressive; habitually languid and melancholy in moments of listlessness, they kindled into wonderful brightness when engaged in commending their asses, or in bartering with a purchaser. Their jet-black hair hung in long curls down their back, and they were nearly all dressed in velvet, as Andalusian majos, with quantities of buttons made from pesetas and half {391} pesetas covering their jackets and breeches, as many as three or four hanging frequently from the same eyelet-hole. Some of them wore the Andalusian leggjn and shoe of brown leather, others the footless stocking and sandal of Valencia; in general their dress, which had nothing in common with the country they were then in, seemed calculated to unite ease of movement and freedom from embarrassment to jauntiness of effect. All of them had a profusion of trinkets and amulets, intended to testily their devotion to that religion which, according to the popular belief, they were suspected of doubting, and one of them displayed his excessive zeal in wearing conspicuously from his neck a silver case, twice the size of a dollar, containing a picture of the Virgin Mary holding the infant Saviour in her arms. Four or five females accompanied this party, and came and went from the square and back, with baskets and other trifles, as if engaged at their separate branch of trade. They had beautiful oval faces, with fine eyes and teeth, and rich olive complexions. Their costume was different from any other I had seen in Spain, its greatest peculiarity consisting in a coarse outer petticoat, which was drawn over the head at pleasure instead of the mantilla, and which reminded me of the manta of Peru, concealing, as it did, the whole of the face, except only a single eye.