and go back to it every night. They squat
upon heaps of filth, and begin smoking their
pipes, while the women set before them the
supper which has been cooked in the before-
mentioned old kettle, swung upon three sticks
over a fire of wood brought in by the children,
mixed with a kind of peat. Sometimes a piece
of turned meat, which all Christian cooks have
rejected in the butchers' shops, or a portion
of some animal that has come by an untimely
death and has been distributed by a generous
Boyard, is added to the porridge of beans or
maize on which the Zigans generally support
their strength. They use no plates or spoons,
but dip their hardened fingers into the steaming
kettle, and bring up a ball of porridge or
a fragment of meat, which they cool by
throwing from one palm to the other until
they can venture to cast it down their throats.
The women and children eat after the men,
who, as soon as they have wiped their hands in
their hair, take again to their pipes, and—if they
can afford it—to drinking. They make
themselves merry for an hour or two, until fatigue
comes over them, and then go pell-mell to their
huts, or stretch out by the embers of their fires.
Nothing can be more abominably filthy than
the habits of this degraded tribe. They are
often obliged to abandon their villages on
account of the dreadful state to which they
have been brought by their carelessness.
This abandonment costs them nothing in
feeling or in money: they are essentially
wanderers. When the air is too pestiferous
to breathe, they shoulder their working utensils
and their furniture, and remove a mile or
two away. If it be summer, they set up their
sheds again in a few hours; if it be winter,
and the frost has not yet come on, they form
subterranean dwellings in the course of half a
night.

As we have said, a good many of the
Zigans are employed in the rough labours of
agriculture. The greater number, however,
are artisans, and are celebrated for their
ingenuity. Their favourite trade is that of the
blacksmith, but they can turn their hands to
anything; and the bazaars of Bucharest are
filled with a vast variety of toys and fancy-
work, which would do credit to our cleverest
workmen. But the vagabond tendencies of
the Zigan—perhaps, also, the contempt with
which he is regarded—prevent him, except in
the rare instances we have mentioned, from
rising, by means of his industry, in the social
scale. It is difficult to learn anything of his
religious or other opinions. From his talk
one would sometimes fancy him to be half
Christian, half Mohammedan; at other
times to be a fire-worshipper, an infidel, a
believer in fetishes, or what you will. He is
a man of many colours, like his language,
which contains traces of an original character,
but which is encrusted, as it were, with words
borrowed (it might, perhaps be more appropriate
to say, stolen—for the Zigan, like his
brethren we know of, has great pilfering
propensities) from a dozen different dialects.
The sound is not at all unmusical; and some
of the songs which have been taken down
are curiously characteristic. The following
is the beginning of one of them:

"Through the pathway of the sky
Quail with sharpen'd beak doth fly,
Christos praising with sharp beak.
What, oh dun quail, dost thou seek?
To the grog-shop come with me,
And treat me to some arakee!"

It will be seen from these lines that the ideas
of the Zigans on various points are somewhat
confused, or at any rate, it seems rather odd
to interrupt a pious quail in its doxologies by
an invitation to tipple. Perhaps, as is the
case in many eastern songs, the words are
arbitrarily thrown together for the sake of
harmony—an observation that might apply
sometimes to the verse-making in our
civilised regions.

The Zigans are not only poets and singers,
but they are musicians also, and their favourite
instrument is the fiddle. They often ask
permission of their masters the Boyards to form
what are called Witzoulin, or storms of music,
consisting of ten or twelve members, who go
about the country to the towns, and castles of
the rich, and let themselves out at so much
an hour. No ball is considered complete
without one of the musical storms, who ask
very little for their services, pretending that
they are paid by their pleasure; but who,
unless they be grievously wronged, generally
contrive to leave a deficit behind them
somewhere, either in the larder or the hen-roost.
They often lead a few bears about with them;
and when there are no balls toward, dance a
strange dance among themselves for the
amusement of the public. Forming into a
circle, men and women, they begin by uttering
frightful cries, and then, as the fiddle strikes
up, whirl, jump, stoop, roll, crawl, crowd
together, separate, throw their arms and legs
into the air, wag their heads, shake their
bracelets, and work themselves up into a kind
of fury. The dance, in fact, is a kind of
compendium of the bolero, the saltarella, and the
fandango. Sometimes, a single performer goes
through a ferocious jig, which may be called
the jig of murder and suicide, for these two
pleasant things are the basis of his
representations. The acting is often so clever, that
the unaccustomed spectators shriek, and
rush away to save themselves. The ragged
and breathless artist, fancying they want
to escape payment, pursues them with his
greasy cap held out, shouting for a piastre.

Little is really known of the relations of
the Zigans among themselves. Marriage
can only take place within the limits of the
tribe, and generally within the limits of the
property of one master, whose permission,
also, is required before the ceremony can
take place. There is no ceremony of betrothal,
no intervention of match-makers or friends;