MANY kinds of foreigner tread the streets of Liverpool, and thus, when
Uncle Kola and his tribe appeared on the banks of the Mersey from nowhere
in particular the little boys put him down as a new species of “Dago,”
and did not embarrass him with unwelcome attention. Yet Kola is an
extraordinary man, and even his costume is conspicuous. His trousers,
superfluously baggy and decorated with wide stripes of bright green and
red, are thrust into great top-boots elaborately stitched. The
complicated braiding of his dark blue coat and waistcoat would be
remarkable were it not eclipsed by the glory of his enormous buttons,
splendid examples of the silversmith’s craft. Kola is tall and
powerfully built, and he wears his finery with effect, supporting himself
by a five-foot staff almost covered with silver, on which shine countless
little images of Buddha. His keen eye, aquiline nose, strong mouth, and
venerable beard tinged with grey make derision impossible; and he walked
our thoroughfares with dignity, slowly, gravely scrutinizing the town as
if it owed him money.
And Kola intended that it should—before he left it. That was why he had
come. He was already rich; his pockets contained bank-notes which he
could have exchanged anywhere for several hundred golden sovereigns, and
his relations believe that he is worth £30,000. On great occasions he
can decorate his table, which stands only fourteen inches high, with
lordly plate; a silver samovar weighing twenty-three pounds is matched by
a huge salver and an immense bucket of the same precious metal decorated
in high relief. The weight of solid gold which his wife carries in her
hair, on her blouse, and round her neck and wrists is nothing less than
royal. Kola is, in fact, a ruler; and, if the citizens of Liverpool took
but little interest in him and his subjects, he reciprocated their
contempt, regarding them simply as so many more or less stupid persons
who were destined to provide for him and his tribe what they were then
seeking—copper pots to mend.
Kola is suave and courtly, and if you had asked him what were his name
and nationality he would have replied at once that he was Nicolas
Tshoron, a Caucasian, Russian, Ruthenian, Galitsian, or Hungarian. He
has now removed his kingdom to Brazil, and if you were to follow him
across the Atlantic and repeat the question it is probable that he would
elect to call himself Italian, French, or English. He may be all of
these if a short period of residence is sufficient qualification; but,
though he knows it not, Rumania has stronger claims to him, and India
stronger claims still. Sitting on the carpeted floor of his great
pedimental tent, surrounded by his family and connexions, you would have
found that he is really Worsho, son of Grantsha, and that he is a Gypsy.
Not, of course, exactly the kind we know; he would call our Gypsies
scornfully _Sinte_, and claim that he and his tribe alone are the _Roma_.
Intellectually he is a giant. In the morning his subjects would set out
to solicit orders, returning despondently as night fell with empty hands
or single pans on their shoulders. But Kola would march triumphantly to
the camp followed by a lorry heavily laden with cauldrons he had
collected for repair. It was Kola who directed the work, and when any
special difficulty arose it was he who sat down and overcame it. He was
completely illiterate; yet he used a complicated form of contract which
he dictated and his patrons wrote and signed. It concealed artfully the
extortionate charges he proposed to make, and hoodwinked not only the
authorities of a great political club but even those of a municipal
kitchen. And it was Kola who faced the indignant customer who came to
protest against the charge, and either browbeat him into submission or
put him into court.
The craft of the Gypsies was magnificent, and they wielded their hammers
sensitively, as if there were nerve-endings in the heads. They were
admittedly more skilful than British coppersmiths, ready to undertake and
execute successfully work that would elsewhere be refused as impossible.
But their ideas of remuneration were grandiose, and in a country where
bargaining is a neglected science they retained an oriental habit of
demanding ten times as much as they were prepared to accept. It mattered
not if his customers were offended—Kola never intended to see them again.
And so he and his subjects spent a few weeks in each town collecting
work, a few weeks in doing it, and a few turbulent and glorious weeks in
exacting payment. Then they shook the dust from off the soles of their
feet, and departed for ever from the city they had exhausted.
Kola’s policy is successful; it has made him rich. Other Gypsies have
attached themselves to his family, married his relations, and placed him
at the head of an important tribe, whose activities he regulates, whose
well-being he cares for, whose movements he directs, which he governs as
“king.” When dissatisfaction arises the malcontents are free to migrate
to another monarchy; but so long as Kola is successful and so long as his
subjects share his success, thus long will his kingdom endure.
Kola’s kingdom should be impossible. It is contrary to reason, contrary
at all events to what we call reason, that a community should prefer the
primitive ways of the Middle Ages to the latest improvements of modern
civilization. His bellows were old-fashioned even in the fifteenth
century and survive now only among savages; yet in his eyes they are
still the best bellows, and if out of curiosity he were to purchase a
mechanical blower he would probably hand it over to his grandchildren for
a toy. With pockets well lined with money he neglects to buy table
cutlery, tears his portion of bread from the loaf and scrapes it clumsily
in the butter-dish. The luxurious chairs and sofas with which he
furnishes his royal tent are vain ostentation; guests may use them, but
Kola himself prefers to sit, as his ancestors have sat for countless
centuries, cross-legged on the ground. Us and all that we value, with
the single exception of money, he despises even more cordially than we
despise him. Like a drop of oil in a glass of water he and his tribe
live in our midst untouched, strangely aloof and alien, a wonderful
spectacle of an _Imperium in Imperio_.