280 WILD SPAIN. 



circumstances might suggest. The female gypsies, or 

 gitanas, more than doubled the ill-gotten gains of their 

 husbands by the arts of sorcery and divination, by selling 

 charms and love-philtres, stealing by legerdemain, and 

 exercising the various branches of what are termed the 

 "occult sciences" — in other words, practising upon the 

 silly credulity of the weaker portion of humanity — as well 

 as b}^ other and more loathsome avocations. The credulity 

 of their victims appears incredible, though it is hardly less 

 marvellous than the tact and effrontery displayed by the 

 gypsy women in their cozening and charlatan tricks. 

 Their knowledge of human nature and how to reach its 

 weak points, was remarkable in a race so low, so degraded, 

 and wholl}^ illiterate. They possessed the cunning and 

 boldness of the wild beast, and combined with it a hatred 

 of the " Busne," or Gentile, which the wild beast has not. 



The bitterness of hatred which was cherished by the 

 gitanos towards all of gentile race, appears incomprehen- 

 sible, unless it springs from some old-time "first cause," 

 the nature of which is long forgotten. Treacherous, cruel 

 and vindictive, they had the wit to conceal their ill-will 

 beneath soft words, and thus obtained means of commit- 

 ting atrocities against the " gentile," the records of which 

 make one shudder. 



Amongst the various devices employed by the gitanos 

 to plunder their victims, may be mentioned the follow- 

 ing :— 



HoHaxo Bai-o. — The great trick, or swindle, varying 

 from the " confidence trick " in its multifarious forms, 

 up to the boldest and most barefaced deceptions, often on 

 a grand scale. 



La Baji, or, in Spanish, hucna rentura. — Fortune-telling, 

 by chiromancy, necromancy, and other divinations. 



Ustilar Pastdas. — Stealing by legerdemain or sleight of 

 hand. 



(Jiirrelar NaficJa. — The evil eye. 



]>ra<) = poison. — Both these latter devices were em- 

 ployed to produce epidemics among men or flocks, when 

 the reputed medical or veterinary skill of the gitanos was 



