another, and the inviolable secrecy which they
keep for each other's benefit, in all compromising matters. And indeed
something of the same sort may be noticed in all mysterious associations
which are beyond the pale of the law.

* It has struck me that the German gipsies, though they
thoroughly understand the word _cale_, do not care to be
called by that name. Among themselves they always use the
designation _Romane tchave_.

Some months ago, I paid a visit to a gipsy tribe in the Vosges country.
In the hut of an old woman, the oldest member of the tribe, I found
a gipsy, in no way related to the family, who was sick of a mortal
disease. The man had left a hospital, where he was well cared for, so
that he might die among his own people. For thirteen weeks he had been
lying in bed in their encampment, and receiving far better treatment
than any of the sons and sons-in-law who shared his shelter. He had a
good bed made of straw and moss, and sheets that were tolerably white,
whereas all the rest of the family, which numbered eleven persons, slept
on planks three feet long. So much for their hospitality. This very same
woman, humane as was her treatment of her guest said to me constantly
before the sick man: "_Singo, singo, homte hi mulo_." "Soon, soon he
must die!" After all, these people live such miserable lives, that a
reference to the approach of death can have no terrors for them.

One remarkable feature in the gipsy character is their indifference
about religion. Not that they are strong-minded or sceptical. They
have never made any profession of atheism. Far from that, indeed, the
religion of the country which they inhabit is always theirs; but they
change their religion when they change the country of their residence.
They are equally free from the superstitions which replace religious
feeling in the minds of the vulgar. How, indeed, can superstition exist
among a race which, as a rule, makes its livelihood out of the credulity
of others? Nevertheless, I have remarked a particular horror of touching
a corpse among the Spanish gipsies. Very few of these could be induced
to carry a dead man to his grave, even if they were paid for it.

I have said that most gipsy women undertake to tell fortunes. They do
this very successfully. But they find a much greater source of profit
in the sale of charms and love-philters. Not only do they supply toads'
claws to hold fickle hearts, and powdered loadsto