GIPSEYS OF GRANADA.
From an Unpublished Work.
Cervantes begins his beautiful novel of the Gitanilla, in which he illustrates the pranks of the Gipseys, with the following not very flattering exordium: "It would seem that the Gitanos and Gitanas were solely born into the world to fill the station of thieves. They are brought up among thieves; they study the profession of thieves, and finally end by becoming thieves, the most current and thorough-paced on the face of the earth." The history of our species furnishes no study more singular than that of this unaccountable race, which, emigrating from the east, overran the whole of Europe, and pushed its way onward, not by the force of the sword, but by begging and stealing; and at the same time that they conformed in some particulars of dress, manners, customs, and religion, to the countries in which they settled, in others retained every where a common character, common propensities, and common occupations.
The Gipseys are found in no part of Spain except Andalusia, which, in their soft and lisping Spanish, they call la tierra de Dios—la tierra de Maria Santisima—the land of God-—he land of the most holy Virgin. They either live in the ruinous purlieus of the great cities, or else wander from place to place, the women carrying their children naked, slung from their shoulders, or dangling with one arm around them upon their hips. In Andalusia, as elsewhere, they gain their bread by tinkering, stealing, and fortune telling; and preserve the common tradition of an Egyptian descent. It is in Granada, however, that they most abound, just as the skippers are found in greatest numbers in the best cheese. They have their habitations in the caves of the Albaycin, where they practice little arts in lock and spoon making and basket work, their commodities having the common reputation of being worthless and catch-penny. To vend them, they take their stations in the Vivarambla, where they may always be seen seated at the shady side of the square, and never shifting their births until from shaving their favorite water dogs, of which there is one in almost every family; and I have often been amused at seeing the four paws of one of these animals, as he impatiently submitted
