the "ineffectual fire" of murder paled—he had stolen a leaden spoon from an ice-shop, and for this theft he was promptly executed the following morning—by which, I take it, leaden spoons must have been very scarce in Belgrade at that time, and mothers-in-law very plentiful.
Looking from that capital, which, unpicturesque in itself, is picturesquely situated at the juncture of the Trave and the Danube, the panorama presented of the shores of Hungary is most inviting, and at the time of which I am writing its effectiveness was added to by a large encampment of Pharaoh Nepeks—Hungarian gipsies. Ever on the alert for subjects for my pencil, I was not long before I chartered a small boat, and joined those wanderers, with whose brethren I had forgathered in many countries, and concerning whom I had written much and made innumerable sketches, and by whom I had always been received as a "Romany rye." This, however, was my first acquaintance with the Pharaoh Nepeks, of whose hospitality I cannot speak too highly. It appeared, however, that I had arrived at the moment of a political crisis. What the particular disagreement may have been—not understanding Romany sufficiently—I am unable to say. I only know that I had not been there many hours before a wordy warfare led to blows, and that encampment of about seven or eight hundred gipsies was at desperate logger-heads. Indeed, I have only on one occasion seen more frantic hand-to-hand fighting at close quarters in actual war.
Rushing on each other with long-bladed knives, they fought with a skill which must have been begotten of long practice, and terrible were the wounds which were presently inflicted; in fact, the matter was looked on as so serious that troops from the Hungarian garrison of Semlin, hard by, were sent to put a stop to the disturbance. This at once caused a diversion. Whatever their intestine troubles may have been, they were one against the invaders of their camp.
"A Nepek beauty."
It was at this moment, fired by the wildest enthusiasm, that a perfectly bewitching gipsy girl rushed forward and led her tribe against the common enemy. Bayonets, however, if sometimes brittle, are often stubborn things, and the steadily advancing lines of Hungarian troops quieted at last those desperate Nepeks; not, however, before many were severely wounded and numbers of prisoners taken, amongst whom I found myself being hurried off to a guard tent, much to my annoyance, since night was approaching, and I wanted to get back to Belgrade before sundown. That annoyance, however, short-lived, since I found myself placed in the same tent as that lovely young gipsy girl, to whom I had lost my all-too-susceptible heart an hour ago; indeed, then it was that I made the rough sketch which illustrates this article. Her chiselled features, the wildfire in her sloe-black eyes, her dishevelled hair, and the coins and beads with which those locks were interwoven, her torn green velvet bodice and coarse salmon coloured skirt are all as vividly before me now as then. Nor did she seem averse to my companionship, especially when she found I could make myself understood through the medium of two languages—that of Romany,
