Walking across the country one breezy November day, I was attracted by the sight of a gypsy tent pitched on a piece of waste-land some hundred yards off my path—motive enough to cause me to change my direction and approach the little settlement; for these roving caravans have always had a peculiar fascination for me, and I rarely pass one by without nearer investigation.

This particular encampment turned out to be of the very poorest and most abject description: one miserable tent, riddled with holes, and patched with many-colored rags, was propped up against a neighboring bank. Alongside, a semi-starved donkey, laden with some tattered blankets and coverings, was standing immovable, and in the foreground a smoking camp-fire, over which was slung a battered kettle. There was very little fire and a great deal of smoke, which at first obscured the view, and prevented me from understanding why it was that the gypsies, usually so quick to mark a stranger, gazed at me with indifference: not a hand was stretched forth to beg, nor a voice raised in supplication. The men were standing or reclining on the turf in listless attitudes, while the women, crowded round the fire, were swaying their bodies to and fro, as though in bodily pain.

Soon, however, the shining point of a bayonet descried through the curling smoke gave me the clew to this abnormal behavior, and approaching nearer, I saw the figures of three Hungarian gendarmes dodging about between the ragged tent and the skeleton donkey; they were searching the camp, as they presently informed me, for a stolen purse. A peasant had had his pocket picked that morning at market, and as some of these gypsies had been seen in town, of course they must be guilty; and the speaker, with an oath, stuck his bayonet right into the depths of the little tent, bringing out to light a motley assortment of dirty rags, which he proceeded to turn over with scrutinizing investigation.

Any person with a well-balanced mind would, I suppose, have rejoiced at this improving spectacle of stern justice chastising degraded{307} vice; but I must confess that on this occasion my sympathies were all the wrong way, and I could not refrain from wishing that these poor hunted mortals might elude their punishment, whether deserved or not. Justice, as represented by these well-fed boorish gendarmes, who were turning over so ruthlessly the contents of the little camp, holding up to light each sorry rag with such pitiless scorn, and stripping the clothes from the half-naked backs of the gypsies with such needless brutality, appeared in the light of malicious and unnecessary persecution; while vice, so poor, so wretched, so woe-begone, could surely inspire no harsher feeling than pity.

Among the females I remarked a young woman of about twenty-five, with splendid eyes, skin of mahogany brown, and straight-cut regular features like those of an Indian chieftainess. She wore a tattered scarlet cloak, and had on her breast a small baby as brown as herself, and naked, in spite of the sharp November air. One of the gendarmes approached her, and with a coarse gesture would have removed her cloak (apparently her sole upper garment) to search beneath for the missing purse; but with the air of an outraged empress she waved him off, and raising full upon him her large black eyes, she broke into a torrent of speech. I could not understand her language, but the tenor of her discourse was easy to guess at from her expressive gestures and play of features. Her voice was of a rich contralto, as she poured forth what seemed to be the maledictions of an oppressed queen cursing a tyrant. Her gestures had an inbred majesty, and her attitude was that of an inspir............