The Gitanas 



as was expected of them in reason as well as rhyme. The 

 gipsies of Seville differ but little in appearance from the 

 Spaniards, except that the men are more hangdog-looking, 

 and the women plainer than usual ; their complexions are 

 perhaps a shade swarthier. 



Their singing is like any other wild, barbarous, melan- 

 choly howling, fit to mingle with the murmurs of a dreary 

 wind whistling through an uncomfortable tent on the 

 corner or a wilderness. A plaintive gusty wail, with long 

 quavering cadences, that begin loud and die away to 

 nothing. It reminds one of the crying of a child, which, 

 weary of the monotony of plain prosaic weeping, begins 

 to play with its lamentation and fashion it into the rude 

 resemblance of a song. I have heard semi-barbarous women 

 among other Southern nations, who, when almost delirious 

 with grief, bemoaned themselves in a sort of chanted rhythm 

 — the earliest type, no doubt, of elegiac poetry. 



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