The Zincali; or, an account of the Gypsies of Spain. With an original collection of their songs and poetry / By George Borrow.

  • George Borrow
Date:
1842
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Zincali; or, an account of the Gypsies of Spain. With an original collection of their songs and poetry / By George Borrow. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    progress at all; as we observe in the nineteenth century the same gross credulity manifested as in the seventeenth, and the inhabitants of one of the countries most celebrated for the arts of civilization, imposed upon by the same stale tricks which served to deceive two centuries before in Spain, a country whose name has long and justly been considered as synonymous with every species of ignorance and barbarism. The same author, whilst speaking of these female Thugs, relates an anecdote very characteristic of them ; a device at which they are adepts, which they love to employ, and which is generally attended with success. It is the more deserving attention, as an instance of the same description, attended with very similar circumstances, occurred within the sphere of my own knowledge in my own country. This species of deceit is styled, in the peculiar lan- guage of the Rommany, liokkano haro, or the “great trickit being considered by the women as their most fruitful source of plunder. The story, as re- lated by Alonso, runs as follows: “ A band of Gitanos being in- the neighbourliood of a villa^ge, one of the women went to a house where lived a lady alone. This lady was a young widow, rich, without children, and of very handsome per- son. After having saluted her, the Gypsy repeated the harangue which she had already studied, to the effect that there was neither bachelor, widower, nor married man, nobleman, nor gallant, endowed with a thousand graces, who was not dying for love of her ;• 11*