"'Life is sweet, brother.'
"'Do you think so?'
"'Think so!--There's night and day, brother, both sweet
things; sun, moon, and stars, brother, all sweet things;
there's likewise a wind on the heath. Life is very sweet,
brother; who would wish to die?'
"'I would wish to die.'
"'You talk like a gorgio--which is the same as talking like a
fool--were you a Rommany Chal you would talk wiser. Wish to
die, indeed!--A Rommany Chal would wish to live forever!'
"'In sickness, Jasper?'
"'There's the sun and stars, brother.'
"'In blindness, Jasper?'
"'There's the wind on the heath, brother; if I could only feel
that, I would gladly live forever. _Dosta_, we'll now go to
the tents and put on the gloves; and I'll try to make you feel
what a sweet thing it is to be alive, brother!'"
--GEORGE BORROW.
No foreigner has known the Zingali better than George Borrow, the
linguistic Englishman, who could speak Rommany so well that gypsies
all over Europe took him for a brother. In the employ of the English
Bible Society, he spent some five adventurous years in Spain,
wandering through the wilds and sharing the life of shepherds,
muleteers, even the fierce _gitanos_. As he found the Spanish gypsies
half a century ago, so, in essentials, are they still--the men
jockeys, tinkers, and blacksmiths, the women fortune tellers and
dancers, the children the most shameless little beggars of all the
Peninsula. Yet there has been an improvement.
The _gitanos_ are not such ruffians as of old, nor even such arrant
thieves, although it would still be unwise to trust them within call
of temptation.
"There runs a swine down yonder hill,
As fast as e'er he can,
And as he runs he crieth still,
'Come, steal me, Gypsyman.'"