It is true that the American gypsy has grown more vigorous in this
country, and, like many plants, has thriven better for being trans--I was
about to write incautiously _ported_, but, on second thought, say
_planted_. Strangely enough, he is more Romany than ever. I have had
many opportunities of studying both the elders from England and the
younger gypsies, born of English parents, and I have found that there is
unquestionably a great improvement in the race here, even from a gypsy
stand-point. The young sapling, under more favorable influences, has
pushed out from the old root, and grown stronger. The causes for this
are varied. Gypsies, like peacocks, thrive best when allowed to range
afar. _Il faut leur donner le clef des champs_ (you must give them the
key of the fields), as I once heard an old Frenchman, employed on
Delmonico's Long Island farm, lang syne, say of that splendid poultry.
And what a range they have, from the Atlantic to the Pacific! Marry,
sir, 't is like roaming from sunrise to sunset, east and west, "and from
the aurora borealis to a Southern blue-jay," and no man shall make them
afraid. Wood! "Well, 't is a _kushto tem for kasht_" (a fair land for
timber), as a very decent _Romani-chal_ said to me one afternoon. It was
thinking of him which led me to these remarks.
I had gone with my niece--who speaks Romany--out to a gypsyry by Oaklands
Park, and found there one of our good people, with his wife and children,
in a tent. Hard by was the wagon and the horse, and, after the usual
initiatory amazement at being accosted in the _kalo jib_, or black
language, had been survived, we settled down into conversation. It was a
fine autumnal day, Indian-summery,--the many in one of all that is fine
in weather all the world over, put into a single glorious sense,--a sense
of bracing air and sunshine not over-bold or bright, and purple, tawny
hues in western skies, and dim, sweet feelings of the olden time. And as
we sat lounging in lowly seats, and talked about the people and their
ways, it seemed to me as if I were again in Devonshire or Surrey. Our
host--for every gypsy who is visited treats you as a guest, thus much
Oriental politeness being deeply set in him--had been in America from
boyhood, but he seemed to be perfectly acquainted with all whom I had
known over the sea. Only one thing he had not heard, the death of old
Gentilla Cooper, of the Devil's Dyke, near Brighton, for I had just
received a letter from England announcing the sad news.
"Yes, this America is a good country for travelers. _We can go South in
winter_. Aye, the land is big enough to go to a warm side in winter, and
a cool one in summer. But I don't go South, because I don't like the
people; I don't get along with them. _Some Romanys do_. Yes, but I'm
not on that horse, I hear that the old country's getting to be a hard
place for our people. Yes, just as you say, there's no _tan to hatch_,
no place to stay in there, unless you pay as much as if you went to a
hotel. 'T isn't so here. Some places they're uncivil, but mostly we can
get wood and water, and a place for a tent, and a bite for the old _gry_
[horse]. The country people like to see us come, in many places.
They're more high-minded and hon'rable here than they are in England. If
we can cheat them in horse-dealin' they stand it as gentlemen always
ought to do among themselves in such games. Horse-dealin' is
horse-stealin', in a way, among real gentlemen. If I can Jew you or you
do me, it's all square in gamblin', and nobody has any call to complain.
Therefore, I allow that Americans are higher up as gentlemen than what
they are in England. It is not all of one side, like a jug-handle,
either. Many of these American farmers can cheat me, and have done it,
and are proud of it. Oh, yes; they're much higher toned here. In
England, if you put off a _bavolengro_ [broken-winded horse] on a fellow
he comes after you with a _chinamangri_ [writ]. Here he goes like a man
and swindles somebody else with the _gry_, instead of sneaking off to a
magistrate.
"Yes," he continued, "England's a little country, very little, indeed,
but it is astonishing how many Romanys come out of it over here. _Do I
notice any change in them after coming_? I do. When they first come,
they drink liquor or beer all the time. After a while they stop heavy
drinking."
I may here observe that even in England the gypsy, although his getting
drunk is too often regulated or limited simply by his means, seldom shows
in his person the results of long-continued intemperance. Living in the
open air, taking much exercise, constantly practicing boxing, rough
riding, and other manly sports, he is "as hard as nails," and generally
lives to a hearty old age. As he very much prefers beer to spirits, it
may be a question whether excess in such drinking is really any serious
injury to him. The ancestors of the common English peasants have for a
thousand, it may be for two thousand, years or more all got drunk on
beer, whenever they could afford it, and yet a more powerful human being
than the English peasant does not exist. It may be that the weaklings
all die at an early age. This I cannot deny, nor that those who survive
are simply so tough that beer cannot kill them. What this gypsy said of
the impartial and liberal manner in which he and his kind are received by
the farmers is also true. I once conversed on this subject with a
gentleman farmer, and his remarks were much like those of the Rom. I
inferred from what he said that the coming of a party of gypsy
horse-dealers into his neighborhood was welcomed much as the passengers
on a Southern steamboat were wont of old to welcome the proprietor of a
portable faro bank. "I think," said he, "that the last time the gypsies
were here they left more than they took away." An old Rom told me once
that in some parts of New Jersey they were obliged to watch their tents
and wagons very carefully for fear of the country people. I do not
answer for the truth of this. It speaks vast volumes for the cleverness
of gypsies that they can actually make a living by trading horses in New
Spain.
It is very true that in many parts of America the wanderers are welcomed
with _feux de joie_, or with salutes of shot-guns,--the guns,
unfortunately, being shotted and aimed at them. I have mentioned in
another chapter, on a Gypsy Magic Spell, that once in Tennessee, when an
old Romany mother had succeeded in hoaxing a farmer's wife out of all she
had in the world, the neighboring farmers took the witch, and, with a
view to preventing effectually further depredation, caused her to pass
"through flames material and temporal unto flames immaterial and
eternal;" that is to say, they burned her alive. But the gypsy would
much prefer having to deal with lynchers than with lawyers. Like the
hedge-hog, which is typically a gypsy animal, he likes better to be eaten
by those of his own kind than to be crushed into dirt by those who do not
understand him. This story of the hedge-hog was cited from my first
gypsy book by Sir Charles Dilke, in a speech in which he made an
application of it to certain conservatives who remained blindly suffering
by their own party. It will hold good forever. Gypsies never flourished
so in Europe as during the days when every man's hand was against them.
It is said that they raided and plundered about Scotland for fifty years
before they were definitely discovered to be mere marauders, for the
Scots themselves were so much given up to similar pursuits that the
gypsies passed unnoticed.
The American gypsies do not beg, like their English brothers, and
particularly their English sisters. This fact speaks volumes for their
greater prosperity and for the influence which association with a proud
race has on the poorest people. Our friends at Oaklands always welcomed
us as guests. On another occasion when we went there, I said to my
niece, "If we find strangers who do not know us, do not speak at first in
Romany. Let us astonish them." We came to a tent, before which sat a
very dark, old-fashioned gypsy woman. I paused before her, and said in
English,--
"Can you tell a fortune for a young lady?"
"She don't want her fortune told," replied the old woman, suspiciously
and cautiously, or it may be with a view of drawing us on. "No, I can't
tell fortunes."
At this the young lady was so astonished that, without thinking of what
she was saying, or in what language, she cried,--
"_Dordi_! _Can't tute pen dukkerin_?" (Look! Can't you tell fortunes?)
This unaffected outburst had a greater effect than the most deeply
studied theatrical situation could have brought about. The old dame
stared at me and at the lady as if bewildered, and cried,--
"In the name of God, what kind of gypsies are _you_?"
"Oh! _mendui shom bori chovihani_!" cried L., laughing; "we are a great
witch and a wizard, and if you can't tell me my fortune, I'll tell yours.
Hold out your hand, and cross mine with a dollar, and I'll tell you as
big a lie as you ever _penned_ a _galderli Gorgio_ [a green Gentile]."
"Well," exclaimed the gypsy, "I'll believe that you can tell fortunes or
do anything! _Dordi_! _dordi_! but this is wonderful. Yet you're not
the first Romany _rani_ [lady] I ever met. There's one in Delaware: a
_boridiri_ [very great] lady she is, and true Romany,--_flick o the jib
te rinkeni adosta_ [quick of tongue and fair of face]. Well, I am glad
to see you." "Who is that talking there?" cried a man's voice from
within the tent. He had heard Romany, and he spoke it, and came out
expecting to see familiar faces. His own was a study, as his glance
encountered mine. As soon as he understood that I came as a friend, he
gave way to infinite joy, mingled with sincerest grief that he had not at
hand the means of displaying hospitality to such distinguished Romanys as
we evidently were. He bewailed the absence of strong drink. Would we
have some tea made? Would I accompany him to the next tavern, and have
some beer? All at once a happy thought struck him. He went into the
tent and brought out a piece of tobacco, which I was compelled to accept.
Refusal would have been unkind, for it was given from the very heart.
George Borrow tells us that, in Spain, a poor gypsy once brought him a
pomegranate as a first acquaintanceship token. A gypsy is a gypsy
wherever you find him.
These were very nice people. The old dame took a great liking to L., and
showed it in pleasant manners. The couple were both English, and liked
to talk with me of the old country and the many mutual friends whom we
had left behind. On another visit, L. brought a scarlet silk
handkerchief, which she had bound round her head and tied under her chin
in a very gypsy manner. It excited, as I anticipated, great admiration
from the old dame.
"_Ah kenna tute dikks rinkeni_--now you look nice. That's the way a
Romany lady ought to wear it! Don't she look just as Alfi used to look?"
she cried to her husband. "Just such eyes and hair!"
Here L. took off the _diklo_, or handkerchief, and passed it round the
gypsy woman's head, and tied it under her chin, saying,--
"I am sure it becomes you much more than it does me. Now you look
nice:--
"'Red and yellow for Romany,
And blue and pink for the Gorgiee.'"
We rose to depart, the old dame offered back to L. her handkerchief, and,
on being told to keep it, was greatly pleased. I saw that the way in
which it was given had won her heart.
"Did you hear what the old woman said while she was telling your
fortune?" asked L., after we had left the tent.
"Now, I think of it, I remember that she or you had hold of my hand,
while I was talking with the old man, and he was making merry with my
whisky. I was turned away, and around so that I never noticed what you
two were saying."
"She _penned_ your _dukkerin_, and it was wonderful. She said that she
must tell it."
And here L. told me what the old _dye_ had insisted on reading in my
hand. It was simply very remarkable, and embraced an apparent knowledge
of the past, which would make any credulous person believe in her happy
predictions of the future.
"Ah, well," I said, "I suppose the _dukk_ told it to her. She may be an
eye-reader. A hint dropped here and there, unconsciously, the expression
of the face, and a life's practice will make anybody a witch. And if
there ever was a witch's eye, she has it."
"I would like to have her picture," said L., "in that _lullo diklo_ [red
handkerchief]. She looked like all the sorceresses of Thessaly and Egypt
in one, and, as Bulwer says of the Witch of Vesuvius, was all the more
terrible for having been beautiful."
Some time after this we went, with Britannia Lee a-gypsying, not
figuratively, but literally, over the river into New Jersey. And our
first greeting, as we touched the ground, was of good omen, and from a
great man, for it was Walt Whitman. It is not often that even a poet
meets with three sincerer admirers than the venerable bard encountered on
this occasion; so, of course, we stopped and talked, and L. had the
pleasure of being the first to communicate to Bon Gualtier certain
pleasant things which had recently been printed of him by a distinguished
English author, which is always an agreeable task. Blessed upon the
mountains, or at the Camden ferryboat, or anywhere, are the feet of
anybody who bringeth glad tidings.
"Well, are you going to see gypsies?"
"We are. We three gypsies be. By the abattoir. _Au revoir_."
And on we went to the place where I had first found gypsies in America.
All was at first so still that it seemed if no one could be camped in the
spot.
"_Se kekno adoi_." (There's nobody there.)
"_Dordi_!" cried Britannia, "_Dikkava me o tuv te tan te wardo_. [I see
a smoke, a tent, a wagon.] I declare, it is my _puro pal_, my old
friend, W."
And we drew near the tent and greeted its owner, who was equally
astonished and delighted at seeing such distinguished Romany _tani
ranis_, or gypsy young ladies, and brought forth his wife and three
really beautiful children to do the honors. W. was a good specimen of an
American-born gypsy, strong, healthy, clean, and temperate, none the
worse for wear in out-of-dooring, through tropical summers and terrible
winters. Like all American Romanys, he was more straightforward than
most of his race in Europe. All Romanys are polite, but many of the
European kind are most uncomfortably and unconsciously naive. Strange
that the most innocent people should be those who most offend morality.
I knew a lady once--Heaven grant that I may never meet with such
another!--who had been perfectly educated in entire purity of soul. And
I never knew any _devergondee_ who could so shock, shame, and pain decent
people as this Agnes did in her sweet ignorance.
"I shall never forget the first day you came to my camp," said W. to
Britannia. "Ah, you astonished me then. You might have knocked me down
with a feather. And I didn't know what to say. You came in a carriage
with two other ladies. And you jumped out first, and walked up to me,
and cried, '_Sa'shan_!' That stunned me, but I answered, '_Sa'shan_.'
Then I didn't speak Romanes to you, for I didn't know but what you kept
it a secret from the other two ladies, and I didn't wish to betray you.
And when you began to talk it as deep as any old Romany I ever heard, and
pronounced it so rich and beautiful, I thought I'd never heard the like.
I thought you must be a witch."
"_Awer me shom chovihani_" (but I am a witch), cried the lady. "_Mukka
men ja adre o tan_." (Let us go into the tent.) So we entered, and sat
round the fire, and asked news of all the wanderers of the roads, and the
young ladies, having filled their pockets with sweets, produced them for
the children, and we were as much at home as we had ever been in any
salon; for it was a familiar scene to us all, though it would, perhaps,
have been a strange one to the reader, had he by chance, walking that
lonely way in the twilight, looked into the tent and asked his way, and
there found two young ladies--_bien mises_--with their escort, all very
much at their ease, and talking Romany as if they had never known any
other tongue from the cradle.
"What is the charm of all this?" It is that if one has a soul, and does
not live entirely reflected from the little thoughts and little ways of a
thousand other little people, it is well to have at all times in his
heart some strong hold of nature. No matter how much we may be lost in
society, dinners, balls, business, we should never forget that there is
an eternal sky with stars over it all, a vast, mysterious earth with
terrible secrets beneath us, seas, mountains, rivers, and forests away
and around; and that it is from these and what is theirs, and not from
gas-lit, stifling follies, that all strength and true beauty must come.
To this life, odd as he is, the gypsy belongs, and to be sometimes at
home with him by wood and wold takes us for a time from "the world." If
I express myself vaguely and imperfectly, it is only to those who know
not the charm of nature, its ineffable soothing sympathy,--its life, its
love. Gypsies, like children, feel this enchantment as the older grown
do not. To them it is a song without words; would they be happier if the
world brought them to know it as words without song, without music or
melody? I never read a right old English ballad of sumere when the
leaves are grene or the not-broune maid, with its rustling as of sprays
quivering to the song of the wode-wale, without thinking or feeling
deeply how those who wrote them would have been bound to the Romany. It
is ridiculous to say that gypsies are not "educated" to nature and art,
when, in fact, they live it. I sometimes suspect that aesthetic culture
takes more true love of nature out of the soul than it inspires. One
would not say anything of a wild bird or deer being deficient in a sense
of that beauty of which it is a part. There are infinite grades, kinds,
or varieties of feeling of nature, and every man is perfectly satisfied
that his is the true one. For my own part, I am not sure that a rabbit,
in the dewy grass, does not feel the beauty of nature quite as much as
Mr. Ruskin, and much more than I do.
No poet has so far set forth the charm of gypsy life better than Lenau
has done, in his highly-colored, quickly-expressive ballad of "Die drei
Zigeuner," of which I here give a translation into English and another
into Anglo-American Romany.