Up to the present period but little—they still continue jockeys and blacksmiths; but some of these Gypsy chalans, these bronzed smiths, these wild-looking esquiladors, can read or write in the proportion of one man in three or four; what more can be expected? Would you have the Gypsy bantling, born in filth and misery, ‘midst mules and borricos, amidst the mud of a choza or the sand of a barranco, grasp with its swarthy hands the crayon and easel, the compass, or the microscope, or the tube which renders more distinct the heavenly orbs, and essay to become a Murillo, or a Feijoo, or a Lorenzo de Hervas, as soon as the legal disabilities are removed which doomed him to be a thievish jockey or a sullen husbandman? Much will have been accomplished, if, after the lapse of a hundred years, one hundred human beings shall have been evolved from the Gypsy stock, who shall prove sober, honest, and useful members of society,—that stock so degraded, so inveterate in wickedness and evil customs, and so hardened by brutalising laws. Should so many beings, should so many souls be rescued from temporal misery and eternal woe; should only the half of that number, should only the tenth, nay, should only one poor wretched sheep be saved, there will be joy in heaven, for much will have been accomplished on earth, and those lines will have been in part falsified which filled the stout heart of Mahmoud with dismay:— ‘For the root that’s unclean, hope if you can; No washing e’er whitens the black Zigan: The tree that’s bitter by birth and race, If in paradise garden to grow you place, And water it free with nectar and wine, From streams in paradise meads that shine, At the end its nature it still declares, For bitter is all the fruit it bears. If the egg of the raven of noxious breed You place ‘neath the paradise bird, and feed The splendid fowl upon its nest, With immortal figs, the food of the blest, And give it to drink from Silisbél, {211} Whilst life in the egg breathes Gabriél, A raven, a raven, the egg shall bear, And the fostering bird shall waste its care.’— FERDOUSI. The principal evidence which the Gitános have hitherto given that a partial reformation has been effected in their habits, is the relinquishment, in a great degree, of that wandering life of which the ancient laws were continually complaining, and which was the cause of infinite evils, and tended not a little to make the roads insecure.