A fire was burning in the open, with a tripod to support the iron
pot--just as we see in England in a gipsy's camp; and the people had a
remarkable resemblance in complexion and feature, only that here they
were far less civilised than with us.
I entered one of the huts, in which by the way I could scarcely stand
upright, and found there a man employed in making a variety of simple
wooden articles for household use. The gipsies are remarkably clever
with their hands; many of these wooden utensils are fashioned very
dexterously, and even display some taste. The gipsy, moreover, is always
the best blacksmith in all the country round; and as for their music, I
have before spoken of the strange power these people possess of stirring
the hearts of their hearers with their pathetic strains. It has often
seemed to me that this marvellous gift of music is, as it were, a
language brought with them in their exile from another and a higher
state of existence.
That these poor outcasts are capable of noble self-sacrifice, the story
I am about to relate will testify. Not far from this very gipsy
settlement, in a wild romantic glen, is a steep overhanging rock, which
is known throughout the country as the "Gipsy's Rock," and came to be so
called from the following tragical occurrence. It seems that many years
ago--about the middle of the last century, I believe--there was a famine
in the land, and the poor gipsies, poorer than all the rest, were
reduced to great straits.
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