lady, your palm, and the palms of all I
see here, that I may tell you all the rich ventura which is hanging over
this good house; (May evil lightning fall upon it and consume it!) but
first let me sing you a song of Egypt, that the spirit of the Chowahanee
may descend more plenteously upon the poor woman.'

"Her demeanour now instantly undergoes a change. Hitherto she has been
pouring forth a lying and wild harangue, without much flurry or agitation
of manner. Her speech, it is true, has been rapid, but her voice has
never been raised to a very high key; but she now stamps on the ground,
and placing her hands on her hips, she moves quickly to the right and
left, advancing and retreating in a sidelong direction. Her glances
become more fierce and fiery, and her coarse hair stands erect on her
head, stiff as the prickles of the hedgehog; and now she commences
clapping her hands, and uttering words of an unknown tongue, to a strange
and uncouth tune. The tawny bantling seems inspired with the same fiend,
and, foaming at the mouth, utters wild sounds, in imitation of its dam.
Still more rapid become the sidelong movements of the Gitana. Movements!
she springs, she bounds, and at every bound she is a yard above the
ground. She no longer bears the child in her bosom; she plucks it from
thence, and fiercely brandishes it aloft, till at last, with a yell, she
tosses it high into the air, like a ball, and then, with neck and head
thrown back, receives it, as it falls, on her hands and breast,
extracting a cry from the terrified beholders. Is it possible she can be
singing? Yes, in the wildest style of her people; and here is a snatch
of the song, in the language of Roma, which she occasionally screams:

"En los sastos de yesque plai me diquelo,
Doscusanas de sonacai terelo,--
Corojai diquelo abillar,
Y ne asislo chapescar, chapescar."

"On the top of a mountain I stand,
With a crown of red gold in my hand,--
Wild Moors come trooping o'er the lea,
O how from their fury shall I flee, flee, flee?
O how from their fury shall I flee?

Such was the Gitana in the days of Ferdinand and Isabella, and much the
same is she now in the days of Isabel and Christina. . . ."

Here, it is true, there is a substantial richly-coloured and strange
subject matter, such as could hardly be set down in any way or by anyone
without attracting the attention. Borrow makes it do more than this. The
word "extant"