Vidocq to his Gypsy friends at Malines:

"Having traversed the city, we stopped in the Faubourg de Louvain, before
a wretched looking house with blackened walls, furrowed with wide
crevices, and many bundles of straw as substitutes for window glasses. It
was midnight, and I had time to make my observations by the moonlight,
for more than half an hour elapsed before the door was opened by one of
the most hideous old hags I ever saw in my life. We were then introduced
to a long room where thirty persons of both sexes were indiscriminately
smoking and drinking, mingling in strange and licentious positions. Under
their blue loose frocks, ornamented with red embroidery, the men wore
blue velvet waistcoats with silver buttons, like the Andalusian
muleteers; the clothing of the women was all of one bright colour; there
were some ferocious countenances amongst them, but yet they were all
feasting. The monotonous sound of a drum, mingled with the howling of
two dogs tied under the table, accompanied the strange songs, which I
mistook for a funeral psalm. The smoke of tobacco and wood which filled
this den, scarcely allowed me to perceive in the midst of the room a
woman, who, adorned with a scarlet turban, was performing a wild dance
with the most wanton postures."

Dr. Knapp, on insufficient evidence, attributes the translation to
Borrow. But certainly Borrow might have incorporated this passage in his
own work almost word for word without justifying a charge either of
plagiarism or untruth. Other men had written fiction as if it were
autobiography; he was writing autobiography as if it were fiction; he
used his own life as a subject for fiction. Ford crudely said that
Borrow "coloured up and poetised" his adventures.

CHAPTER XIV--OUT OF LONDON

If Borrow is taken literally, he was at Blackheath on May 12, 1825, sold
his "Life of Joseph Sell" on the 20th, and left London on the 22nd. "For
some months past I had been far from well, and my original indisposition,
brought on partly by the peculiar atmosphere of the Big City, partly by
anxiety of mind, had been much increased by the exertions which I had
been compelled to make during the last few days. I felt that, were I to
remain where I was, I should die, or become a confirmed valetudinarian. I
would go forth into the country, travelling on foot, and, by exercise and
inhaling pure air, endeavour to recover my health, leaving my subsequent
movements to be d