os. Often a gipsy _gry-engro_, or
horse-dealer, would have a score or more horses on his hands at a time,
while, not infrequently, his sales on a fair-day would amount to 50 or 60
pounds. The women of his camp would be gaudily and expensively dressed,
and bedecked in heavy gold jewelry: he, himself, would often spend five
or six pounds on a suit of clothes, and half a guinea on a silk
handkerchief for his neck. Few of the women ever thought of marrying out
of the Romany tribe, and their virtue and constancy were an example to
all classes of society.

This last-mentioned fact is the more striking in view of the intense
admiration often felt for the handsome _chis_ by men who were not of the
gipsy race. Commenting upon it not long ago, {77} an _Athenaeum_
reviewer said: "Between some Englishmen and gipsy women there is an
extraordinary attraction--an attraction, we may say in passing, which did
not exist between Borrow and the gipsy women with whom he was brought
into contact. Supposing Borrow to have been physically drawn to any
woman, she would have been of the Scandinavian type; she would have been
what he used to call a Brynhild. It was tall blondes he really admired.
Hence, notwithstanding his love of the economies of gipsy life, his gipsy
women are all mere scenic characters, they clothe and beautify the scene:
they are not dramatic characters. When he comes to delineate a heroine,
Isopel Bernes, she is physically the very opposite of the Romany _chi_--a
Scandinavian Brynhild, in short."

Mr. Watts has remarked on Borrow's neglect to portray the higher traits
in the gipsy woman's character. Mrs. Herne and her grandchild Leonora,
who are instanced as the two great successes of his Romany group, are
both steeped in wickedness, and by omitting to draw a picture of the
women's loftier side, he is said to have failed to demonstrate their
great claim for distinction. There is a good deal of truth in this
accusation; and yet it cannot be admitted wholly justifiable. In "The
Romany Rye" we have a whole chapter devoted to the emphasising of the
chastity of the Romany girls, and their self-sacrificing devotion to
their husbands. Ursula marries a lazy, good-for-nothing _chal_, and then
expressess her willingness to steal and swindle in order to keep him in
comfort. The method is not commendable, but the object that prompts it
is highly praiseworthy--from a Romany point of view.

But to-day the old race of genuine