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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.