This chapter was written by my niece through marriage, Miss Elizabeth
Robins. It is a part of an article which was published in "The Century,"
and it sets forth certain wanderings in seeking old houses in the city of
Philadelphia.
All along the lower part of Race Street, saith the lady, are wholesale
stores and warehouses of every description. Some carts belonging to one
of them had just been unloaded. The stevedores who do this--all
negroes--were resting while they waited for the next load. They were
great powerful men, selected for their strength, and were of many hues,
from _cafe au lait_, or coffee much milked, up to the browned or
black-scorched berry itself, while the very _athletae_ were coal-black.
They wore blue overalls, and on their heads they had thrown old
coffee-bags, which, resting on their foreheads, passed behind their ears
and hung loosely down their backs. It was in fact the _haik_ or
bag-cloak of the East, and it made a wonderfully effective Arab costume.
One of them was half leaning, half sitting, on a pile of bags; his
Herculean arms were folded, and he had unconsciously assumed an air of
dignity and defiance. He might have passed for an African chief. When
we see such men in Egypt or other sunny countries _outre mer_, we become
artistically eloquent; but it rarely occurs to sketchers and
word-painters to do much business in the home-market.
The mixture of races in our cities is rapidly increasing, and we hardly
notice it. Yet it is coming to pass that a large part of our population
is German and Irish, and that our streets within ten years have become
fuller of Italian fruit dealers and organ-grinders, so that _Cives sum
Romanus_ (I am a Roman citizen), when abroad, now means either "I possess
a monkey" or "I sell pea-nuts." Jews from Jerusalem peddle pocket-books
on our sidewalks, Chinamen are monoplizing our washing and ironing, while
among laboring classes are thousands of Scandinavians, Bohemians, and
other Slaves. The prim provincial element which predominated in my
younger years is yielding before this influx of foreigners, and Quaker
monotony and stern conservatism are vanishing, while Philadelphia becomes
year by year more cosmopolite.
As we left the handsome negroes and continued our walk on Water Street an
Italian passed us. He was indeed very dirty and dilapidated; his clothes
were of the poorest, and he carried a rag-picker's bag over his shoulder;
but his face, as he turned it towards us, was really beautiful.
"_Siete Italiano_?" (Are you an Italian?) asked my uncle.
"_Si_, _signore_" (Yes, sir), he answered, showing all his white teeth,
and opening his big brown eyes very wide.
"_E come lei piace questo paese_?" (And how do you like this country?)
"Not at all. It is too cold," was his frank answer, and laughing
good-humoredly he continued his search through the gutters. He would
have made a good model for an artist, for he had what we do not always
see in Italians, the real southern beauty of face and expression. Two or
three weeks after this encounter, we were astonished at meeting on
Chestnut Street a little man, decently dressed, who at once manifested
the most extraordinary and extravagant symptoms of delighted recognition.
Never saw I mortal so grin-full, so bowing. As we went on and crossed
the street, and looked back, he was waving his hat in the air with one
hand, while he made gestures of delight with the other. It was the
little Italian rag-picker.
Then along and afar, till we met a woman, decently enough dressed, with
jet-black eyes and hair, and looking not unlike a gypsy. "A Romany!" I
cried with delight. Her red shawl made me think of gypsies, and when I
caught her eye I saw the indescrible flash of the _kalorat_, or black
blood. It is very curious that Hindus, Persians, and gypsies have in
common an expression of the eye which distinguishes them from all other
Oriental races, and chief in this expression is the Romany. Captain
Newbold, who first investigated the gypsies of Egypt, declares that,
however disguised, he could always detect them by their glance, which is
unlike that of any other human being, though something resembling it is
often seen in the ruder type of the rural American. I believe myself
that there is something in the gypsy eye which is inexplicable, and which
enables its possessor to see farther through that strange mill-stone, the
human soul, than I can explain. Any one who has ever seen an old
fortune-teller of "the people" keeping some simple-minded maiden by the
hand, while she holds her by her glittering eye, like the Ancient
Mariner, with a basilisk stare, will agree with me. As Scheele de Vere
writes, "It must not be forgotten that the human eye has, beyond
question, often a power which far transcends the ordinary purposes of
sight, and approaches the boundaries of magic."
But one glance, and my companion whispered, "Answer me in Romany when I
speak, and don't seem to notice her." And then, in loud tone, he
remarked, while looking across the street,--
"_Adovo's a kushto puro rinkeno ker adoi_." (That is a nice old pretty
house there.)
"_Avali_, _rya_" (Yes, sir), I replied.
There was a perceptible movement by the woman in the red shawl to keep
within ear-shot of us. Mine uncle resumed,--
"_Boro kushto covva se ta rakker a jib te kek Gorgio iinella_." (It's
nice to talk a language that no Gentile knows.)
The red shawl was on the trail. "_Je crois que ca mord_," remarked my
uncle. We allowed our artist guide to pass on, when, as I expected, I
felt a twitch at my outer garment. I turned, and the witch eyes,
distended with awe and amazement, were glaring into mine, while she said,
in a hurried whisper,--
"Wasn't it Romanes?"
"_Avah_," I replied, "_mendui rakker sarja adovo jib_. _Butikumi ryeskro
lis se denna Gorgines_." (Yes, we always talk that language. Much more
genteel it is than English.)
"_Te adovo wavero rye_?" (And that _other_ gentleman?) with a glance of
suspicion at our artist friend.
"_Sar tacho_" (He's all right), remarked mine uncle, which I greatly fear
meant, when correctly translated in a Christian sense, "He's all wrong."
But there is a natural sympathy and intelligence between Bohemians of
every grade, all the world over, and I never knew a gypsy who did not
understand an artist. One glance satisfied her that he was quite worthy
of our society.
"And where are you _tannin kenna_?" (tenting now), I inquired.
"We are not tenting at this time of year; we're _kairin_," _i.e._,
houseing, or home-ing. It is a good verb, and might be introduced into
English.
"And where is your house?"
"There, right by Mammy Sauerkraut's Row. Come in and sit down."
I need not give the Romany which was spoken, but will simply translate.
The house was like all the others. We passed through a close, dark
passage, in which lay canvas and poles, a kettle and a _sarshta_, or the
iron which is stuck into the ground, and by which a kettle hangs. The
old-fashioned tripod, popularly supposed to be used by gypsies, in all
probability never existed, since the Roms of India to-day use the
_sarshta_, as mine uncle tells me he learned from a _ci-devant_ Indian
gypsy Dacoit, or wandering thief, who was one of his intimates in London.
We entered an inner room, and I was at once struck by its general
indescribable unlikeness to ordinary rooms. Architects declare that the
type of the tent is to be distinctly found in all Chinese and Arab or
Turkish architecture; it is also as marked in a gypsy's house--when he
gets one. This room, which was evidently the common home of a large
family, suggested, in its arrangement of furniture and the manner in
which its occupants sat around the tent and the wagon. There was a bed,
it is true but there was a roll of sail-cloth, which evidently did duty
for sleeping on at night, but which now, rolled up, acted the part
described by Goldsmith:--
"A thing contrived a double part to play,
A bed by night, a sofa during day."
There was one chair and a saddle, a stove and a chest of drawers. I
observed an engraving hanging up which I have several times seen in gypsy
tents. It represents a very dark Italian youth. It is a favorite also
with Roman Catholics, because the boy has a consecrated medal. The
gypsies, however, believe that the boy stole the medal. The Catholics
think the picture is that of a Roman boy, because the inscription says
so; and the gypsies call it a Romany, so that all are satisfied. There
were some eight or nine children in the room, and among them more than
one whose resemblance to the dark-skinned saint might have given color
enough to the theory that he was
"One whose blood
Had rolled through gypsies ever since the flood."
There was also a girl, of the pantherine type, and one damsel of about
ten, who had light hair and fair complexion, but whose air was gypsy and
whose youthful countenance suggested not the golden, but the brazenest,
age of life. Scarcely was I seated in the only chair, when this little
maiden, after keenly scrutinizing my appearance, and apparently taking in
the situation, came up to me and said,--
"Yer come here to have yer fortune told. I'll tell it to yer for five
cents."
"_Can tute pen dukkerin aja_?" (Can you tell fortunes already?) I
inquired. And if that damsel had been lifted at that instant by the hair
into the infinite glory of the seventh sphere, her countenance could not
have manifested more amazement. She stood _bouche beante_, stock still
staring, open-mouthed wide. I believe one might have put a brandy ball
into it, or a "bull's eye," without her jaws closing on the dainty. It
was a stare of twenty-four carats, and fourth proof.
"This here _rye_" remarked mine uncle, affably, in middle English, "is a
hartist. He puts 'is heart into all he does; _that's_ why. He ain't
Romanes, but he may be trusted. He's come here, that wot he has, to draw
this 'ere Mammy Sauerkraut's Row, because it's interestin'. He ain't a
tax-gatherer. _We_ don't approve o' payin' taxes, none of hus. We
practices heconomy, and dislike the po-lice. Who was Mammy Sauerkraut?"
"I know!" cried the youthful would-be fortune-teller. "She was a witch."
"_Tool yer chib_!" (Hold your tongue!) cried the parent. "Don't bother
the lady with stories about _chovihanis_" (witches).
"But that's just what I want to hear!" I cried. "Go on, my little dear,
about Mammy Sauerkraut, and you will get your five cents yet, if you only
give me enough of it."
"Well, then, Mammy Sauerkraut was a witch, and a little black girl who
lives next door told me so. And Mammy Sauerkraut used to change herself
into a pig of nights, and that's why they called her Sauerkraut. This
was because they had pig ketchers going about in those times, and once
they ketched a pig that belonged to her, and to be revenged on them she
used to look like a pig, and they would follow her clear out of town way
up the river, and she'd run, and they'd run after her, till by and by
fire would begin to fly out of her bristles, and she jumped into the
river and sizzed."
This I thought worthy of the five cents. Then my uncle began to put
questions in Romany.
"Where is Anselo W.? He that was _staruben_ for a _gry_?" (imprisoned
for a horse).
"_Staruben apopli_." (Imprisoned again.)
"I am sorry for it, sister Nell. He used to play the fiddle well. I wot
he was a canty chiel', and dearly lo'ed the whusky, oh!"
"Yes, he was too fond of that. How well he could play!"
"Yes," said my uncle, "he could. And I have sung to his fiddling when
the _tatto-pani_ [hot water, _i.e._, spirits] boiled within us, and made
us gay, oh, my golden sister! That's the way we Hungarian gypsy
gentlemen always call the ladies of our people. I sang in Romany."
"I'd like to hear you sing now," remarked a dark, handsome young man, who
had just made a mysterious appearance out of the surrounding shadows.
"It's a _kamaben gilli_" (a love-song), said the _rye_; "and it is
beautiful, deep old Romanes,--enough to make you cry."
There was the long sound of a violin, clear as the note of a horn. I had
not observed that the dark young man had found one to his hand, and, as
he accompanied, my uncle sang; and I give the lyric as he afterwards gave
it to me, both in Romany and English. As he frankly admitted, it was his
own composition.