There are other ways of accomplishing the hokkano baro. The most simple, and indeed the one most generally used by the Gitánas, is to persuade some simple individual to hide a sum of money in the earth, which they afterwards carry away. A case of this description occurred within my own knowledge, at Madrid, towards the latter part of the year 1837. There was a notorious Gitána, of the name of Aurora; she was about forty years of age, a Valencian by birth, and immensely fat. This amiable personage, by some means, formed the acquaintance of a wealthy widow lady; and was not slow in attempting to practise the hokkano baro upon her. She succeeded but too well. The widow, at the instigation of Aurora, buried one hundred ounces of gold beneath a ruined arch in a field, at a short distance from the wall of Madrid. The inhumation was effected at night by the widow alone. Aurora was, however, on the watch, and, in less than ten minutes after the widow had departed, possessed herself of the treasure; perhaps the largest one ever acquired by this kind of deceit. The next day the widow had certain misgivings, and, returning to the spot, found her money gone. About six months after this event, I was imprisoned in the Carcel de la Corte, at Madrid, and there I found Aurora, who was in durance for defrauding the widow. She said that it had been her intention to depart for Valencia with the ‘barias,’ as she styled her plunder, but the widow had discovered the trick too soon, and she had been arrested. She added, however, that she had contrived to conceal the greatest part of the property, and that she expected her liberation in a few days, having been prodigal of bribes to the ‘justicia.’ In effect, her liberation took place sooner than my own. Nevertheless, she had little cause to triumph, as before she left the prison she had been fleeced of the last cuarto of her ill-gotten gain, by alguazils and escribanos, who, she admitted, understood hokkano baro much better than herself. When I next saw Aurora, she informed me that she was once more on excellent terms with the widow, whom she had persuaded that the loss of the money was caused by her own imprudence, in looking for it before the appointed time; the spirit of the earth having removed it in anger. She added that her dupe was quite disposed to make another venture, by which she hoped to retrieve her former loss.