‘I am, as you are aware, a native of this town, which I first left when I went to acquire an education at Salamanca; I continued there until I became a licentiate, when I quitted the university and strolled through Spain, supporting myself in general by touching the guitar, according to the practice of penniless students; my adventures were numerous, and I frequently experienced great poverty. Once, whilst making my way from Toledo to Andalusia through the wild mountains, I fell in with and was made captive by a band of the people called Gitános, or wandering Egyptians; they in general lived amongst these wilds, and plundered or murdered every person whom they met. I should probably have been assassinated by them, but my skill in music perhaps saved my life. I continued with them a considerable time, till at last they persuaded me to become one of them, whereupon I was inaugurated into their society with many strange and horrid ceremonies, and having thus become a Gitáno, I went with them to plunder and assassinate upon the roads. ‘The Count or head man of these Gitános had an only daughter, about my own age; she was very beautiful, but, at the same time, exceedingly strong and robust; this Gitána was given to me as a wife or cadjee, and I lived with her several years, and she bore me children. ‘My wife was an arrant Gitána, and in her all the wickedness of her race seemed to be concentrated. At last her father was killed in an affray with the troopers of the Hermandad, whereupon my wife and myself succeeded to the authority which he had formerly exercised in the tribe. We had at first loved each other, but at last the Gitáno life, with its accompanying wickedness, becoming hateful to my eyes, my wife, who was not slow in perceiving my altered disposition, conceived for me the most deadly hatred; apprehending that I meditated withdrawing myself from the society, and perhaps betraying the secrets of the band, she formed a conspiracy against me, and, at one time, being opposite the Moorish coast, I was seized and bound by the other Gitános, conveyed across the sea, and delivered as a slave into the hands of the Moors. ‘I continued for a long time in slavery in various parts of Morocco and Fez, until I was at length redeemed from my state of bondage by a missionary friar who paid my ransom. With him I shortly after departed for Italy, of which he was a native. In that country I remained some years, until a longing to revisit my native land seized me, when I returned to Spain and established myself here, where I have since lived by vending books, many of which I brought from the strange lands which I visited. I kept my history, however, a profound secret, being afraid of exposing myself to the laws in force against the Gitános, to which I should instantly become amenable, were it once known that I had at any time been a member of this detestable sect.