e gold dangle from wide slits in the lobes of her ears; her nether
garments are rags, and her feet are cased in hempen sandals. Such is the
wandering Gitana, such is the witch-wife of Multan, who has come to spae
the fortune of the Sevillian countess and her daughters.

"'O may the blessing of Egypt light upon your head, you high-born Lady!
(May an evil end overtake your body, daughter of a Busnee harlot!) and
may the same blessing await the two fair roses of the Nile here flowering
by your side! (May evil Moors seize them and carry them across the
water!) O listen to the words of the poor woman who is come from a
distant country; she is of a wise people, though it has pleased the God
of the sky to punish them for their sins by sending them to wander
through the world. They denied shelter to the Majari, whom you call the
queen of heaven, and to the Son of God, when they flew to the land of
Egypt, before the wrath of the wicked king; it is said that they even
refused them a draught of the sweet waters of the great river when the
blessed two were athirst. O you will say that it was a heavy crime; and
truly so it was, and heavily has the Lord punished the Egyptians. He has
sent us a-wandering, poor as you see, with scarcely a blanket to cover
us. O blessed lady (accursed be thy dead as many as thou mayest have),
we have no money to purchase us bread; we have only our wisdom with which
to support ourselves and our poor hungry babes; when God took away their
silks from the Egyptians, and their gold from the Egyptians, he left them
their wisdom as a resource that they might not starve. O who can read
the stars like the Egyptians? and who can read the lines of the palm like
the Egyptians? The poor woman read in the stars that there was a rich
ventura for all of this goodly house, so she followed the bidding of the
stars and came to declare it. O blessed lady (I defile thy dead corse),
your husband is at Granada, fighting with King Ferdinand against the wild
Corahai! (May an evil ball smite him and split his head!) Within three
months he shall return with twenty captive Moors, round the neck of each
a chain of gold. (God grant that when he enter the house a beam may fall
upon him and crush him!) And within nine months after his return God
shall bless you with a fair chabo, the pledge for which you have sighed
so long! (Accursed be the salt placed in its mouth in the church when it
is baptized!) Your palm, blessed