_The Properties of their Bodies_.
HAD the Gipseys made but a temporary appearance, and we could only be
acquainted with them from the publications of former centuries, it would
be difficult to entertain any other idea than that they were a herd of
monsters and beelzebubs. We find in those books frequent mention of a
_savage people_, _black horrid men_. But now that they have continued to
our time, and we have an opportunity of seeing, with our own eyes, how
they are formed, and what appearance they make, they are so fortunate as
to have authors who commend their beauty, and take great pains to set
forth their advantages; though many, indeed most of the moderns, their
colour and looks being the same, perfectly agree with the writers of past
centuries, in their accounts of them. Both parties may be in the right,
when we consider, that what appears beautiful in the eyes of one person,
is possibly ugly and deformed in the eyes of another: this depends
entirely upon habit and familiarity. For this reason, the dark brown, or
olive coloured, skin of the Gipseys, with their white teeth appearing
between their red lips, may be a disgusting sight to an European,
unaccustomed to such objects. Let us only ask, As children, have we not,
at some time or other, run affrighted from a Gipsey? The case will be
entirely altered, if we divest ourselves of the idea that a black skin is
disagreeable. Their white teeth; their long black hair, on which they
pride themselves very highly, and will not suffer to be cut off; their
lively black rolling eyes;—are, without dispute, properties which must be
ranked among the list of beauties, even by the modern civilised European
world. They are neither overgrown giants, nor diminutive dwarfs: their
limbs are formed in the justest proportion. Large bellies are, among
them, as uncommon as hump-backs, blindness, or other corporeal defects.
When Grisellini asserts that the breasts of the Gipsey women, at the time
of their nursing, increase to a larger size than the child they support,
it is an assertion destitute of proof, and parallel with many other
arguments he adduces to prove the Gipseys are Egyptians. Probably he may
have confounded himself, by thinking of the Hottentots; the circumstance
above mentioned being true of them, though not of the Gipseys. Every
Gipsey is naturally endued with agility, great suppleness in, and the
free use of, his limbs: these qualities are perceptible in his whole
deportment, but in an extraordinary degree whenever he happens to be
surprised in an improper place: in the act of thieving, with a stolen
goose or fowl in his hand, he runs off so nimbly, that, unless his
pursuer be on horseback, the Gipsey is sure to escape. These people are
blessed with an astonishingly good state of health. Neither wet nor dry
weather, heat nor cold, let the extremes follow each other never so
quickly, seems to have any effect on them. Gipseys are fond of a great
degree of heat; their supreme luxury is, to lie day and night so near the
fire, as to be in danger of burning: at the same time they can bear to
travel in the severest cold bareheaded, with no other covering than a
torn shirt, or some old rags carelessly thrown over them, without fear of
catching cold, cough, or any other disorder.
By endeavouring to discover the causes of these bodily qualities of the
Gipseys, we find them, or at least some of them, very evidently arising
from their education and manner of life. They are lean; but how should
they be corpulent? as they are seldom guilty of excess in eating or
drinking; for if they get a full meal to-day, they must not repine should
they be under the necessity of keeping fast to-morrow and the next day.
They have iron constitutions, because they have been brought up hardily.
The pitiless mother takes her three-months-old child upon her back, and
wanders about in fair or foul weather, in heat or cold, without troubling
her head what may happen to it. When a boy attains the age of three
years, his lot becomes still harder. While an infant, and his age
reckoned by weeks and months, he was at least wrapped up closely in rags;
but now, deprived even of these, he is, equally with his parents, exposed
to the rigour of the elements, for want of covering: he is now put to
trial how far his legs will carry him, and must be content to travel
about, with, at most, no other defence for his feet than thin socks.
Thus he grows up, and acquires his good health by hardship and misery.
We may as easily account for the colour of the Gipsey’s skin. The
Laplanders, Samoieds, as well as the Siberians, likewise, have brown
yellow-coloured skins, in consequence of living, from their childhood, in
smoke and dirt, in the same manner as the Gipseys: these would, long ago,
have been divested of their swarthy complexions, if they had discontinued
their filthy mode of living. Only observe a Gipsey from his birth, till
he reaches man’s estate; and you must be convinced that their colour is
not so much owing to their descent, as to the nastiness of their bodies.
In summer, the child is exposed to the scorching sun; in winter, it is
shut up in a smoky hut. It is not uncommon for mothers to smear their
children over with a black ointment, and leave them to fry in the sun or
near the fire. They seldom trouble themselves about washing, or other
modes of cleaning themselves. Experience also shews us, that the dark
colour of the Gipseys, which is continued from generation to generation,
is more the effect of education, and manner of life, than descent. Among
those who profess music in Hungary, or serve in the Imperial army, where
they have learnt to pay more attention to order and cleanliness, there
are many to be found whose extraction is not at all discernible in their
colour; though they had, probably, remained to the age of twelve or
fourteen years under the care of their filthy parents; and must
necessarily, when they first adopted a different mode of life, have borne
the marks of the dirt contracted during this period. How much less,
then, should we be able to distinguish a Gipsey if taken when a child
from its sluttish mother, and brought up under some cleanly person! By
the same reasoning we may account for their white teeth and sound limbs;
namely, from their manner of life. The former are evidences of their
spare diet: the latter prove them to have been reared more according to
the dictates of nature, than those of art and tenderness.