sidered by them as one of themselves, I had
better opportunities of coming to a fair conclusion respecting their
character than any other person, whether Spaniard or foreigner, could
have hoped for, not possessed of a similar advantage. The result of my
observations was a firm belief that the Spanish Gitanos are the most
vile, degraded, and wretched people upon the earth.

In no part of the world does the Gypsy race enjoy a fair fame and
reputation, there being no part where they are not considered, and I
believe with justice, as cheats and swindlers; but those of Spain are not
only all this, but far more. The Gypsies of England, Russia, etc., live
by fraud of various descriptions, but they seldom commit acts of
violence, and their vices are none or very few; the men are not
drunkards, nor are the women harlots; but the Gypsy of Spain is a cheat
in the market-place, a brigand and murderer on the high-road, and a
drunkard in the wine-shop, and his wife is a harlot and thief on all
times and occasions. The excessive wickedness of these outcasts may
perhaps be attributed to their having abandoned their wandering life and
become inmates of the towns, where to the original bad traits of their
character they have super-added the evil and vicious habits of the
rabble. Their mouths teem with abomination, and in no part of the world
have I heard such frequent, frightful, and extraordinary cursing as
amongst them.

Religion they have none; they never attend mass, nor confess themselves,
and never employ the names of God, Christ and the Virgin, but in
imprecation and blasphemy. From what I learnt from them it appeared that
their ancestors had some belief in metempsychosis, but they themselves
laughed at the idea, and were decidedly of opinion that the soul perished
when the body ceased to breathe; and the argument which they used was
rational enough, so far as it impugned metempsychosis: 'We have been
wicked and miserable enough in this life,' they said; 'why should we live
again?'

I translated certain portions of Scripture into their dialect, which I
frequently read to them, especially the parables of Lazarus and the
Prodigal Son, and told them that the latter had been as wicked as
themselves, and both had suffered as much or more; but that the
sufferings of the former, who always looked forward to a blessed
resurrection, were recompensed in the world to come by admission to the
society of Abraham and the prophets, and t