, 1888-03-04

| nOuio thCJ SNCl lCdlu AuC ldDEudRG- was
tinkering common and dickering easy;
and innumerable more, from chief to
muchncho and from bag to chauvie, and
the answers were caught as eagerly as n
hungry beast snaps at food tossed tantal.
izlngly to his open jaws. May my coun-
trymen forgive me. but in these hours |
fear | sowed such seed as will ripen into
wholesale Spanish Gypsy immigration into
America; for as confidence begets conf
dence, | was not long in learning some
surprising facts concerning these people.
Briefly, they demonstrate that an extra
ordinary exodus of Gitanos from Spain
has been going on during the past decade
into the Spanish speaking countries COM
prising the West Indies, Mexico and
South America. In this, perhaps 40, 600
Gipsies have come to Cuba. No r~ecogni-
ton whatever of the fact seems to be pos
sessed by Cuban people. But Gipsies are
now everywhere throughout the island,
especially in cities like Havana, Cardenas,
Matanzas, Santiago de Cuba, C~ieniuegos.
etc. Few live inland like my friends Of
the Luyano camp who are %sitieros, in that
they rent the lovely canyon where they
abide from a Havana landlord; and
through this ostensibly honest life of the
gusiiro are enabled to dicker with the
%peasantry, as well as descend upon the gay
Cuban capital in all manner of guises for
fortune telling among the rich and lowly,
and Tor general trickerY and petty depre-
dation within the narrow confines of Span
ish law.
In Havanna they masquerade in all man.
ner of occupations. They are among the
aguadors who hawk water from door to.
door asl in old Madrid. They are of the
| aalm Uraoau onpfaptaI onnha.0, o1oa~.z-
in the sun upon their victoria boxes.
They are in hundreds among the pictur-
esque guardenaros, or boatmen, upon the
fair bay. The dulceros or hawkers of
sweets know them for most patient of
street merchants. Among the carreteros
with their red cap, rawhide slippers, wide
linen trousers and bare breasts, are very
manv. Others have become servitors in
the quaint old posadas. Every ~latonero
or tinker here as in our own country, can
be set down as a Gypsy. While over at
the Plaza de Toros in Regla, and about
the grander one beneath Castillo del Prin-
cipe, three fourths of the ~matadors, plea
doris, banderillos and chulos, as well MS
the ambitious hangerson about those who
butcher bulls for public delectation, are
pure Romany, or are tainted with the
strain of barbaric Gypsy blood.
AS the time neared for my departure
from the Luyano camp the attentions on
the part of my dark faced friends in.
creased. Perforce l must visit every tent
or cabin-for a few inhabited the deserted
huts of the former tenantrY. 1t was a sad
thing to them that | persistently RETAINED
from the use of wine. But they
kindly drank the more. | have never
seen a drunken Gypsy. But these Rugged
the borderland closely, and the chatter
and yelling from it ali were deafening.
Though rushed from tent to tent and
cabin to cabin, there was still time for OBJ
servation. With few exceptions every
feature of the Gypsy camp in Germany, in
England or in America was here. The
tent bow of old was here. The hooded
covers were the same. Tents universally
faced the south. That sacred Gypsy heir
loom, the crooked kettle stick, stood by
each smoulderiDg or blazing fire. Pots,
kettles and all utensils for cooking were
more ancient, but quite the same. The
voiceless dogs were here. The same
shrill voices of women, melodic laughter
OF maldens, %garrulous tones of century old
hays, and hearty, husky, brazen voices of
men, were here the same as in Texas,
Ohio or Maine. And above all, that
utter abandon in spirits and movement
which render the happy, ~unguarded
Gipsy the most awkward, yet graceful, of
humans, was here as / had never seen it
before.
But when the night came again the
whole camp seemed determined on a gen.
uine Gypsy frolic. A bit of song started
in one group would be snatched away as it
were in another quarter and borne toward
barbaric climaxes. The good humor in it
all was irresistible. That night | must
have shaken hands with, or Rugged, every
Gitano in the band a dozen times over.
Then came feats of dancing, singing
and leaping, bacchaualian enough for
act-closings In the most picturesque of
dramas. Through it all there was never
malevolent or lascivious spirit. 1t was
the irrepressible, uncomfortable bubbling
ovor of happy-heartedness, and there was
a tenderness and affection for the aged,
the young and the weak, never elsewhere
seen. A dozen Gypsy louts, dashing their
sombreros aside, We'd with each other in
dancing the Cuban breakdown. Spurred
by this, old men would now and then en-
ter the cloud of dust and perform feats
that would dislocate every joint of the
average American youth. Nor were the
maidens silent. Here and there by fam
ing fires dances that were shadow dances
indeed began. No pen can convey the
matchless grace of these. Coniure all
forms and expressions of physical grace
YOU have ever beheld or imagined, and
the artless movements of the Spanish
Gypsy maiden will convey them all. In
curtesy, gliding, tripping, vaultinR, genu-
Election and dizzy whirl she is cat, bird,
Venus-as she is in her nature-in one
~bewildering, eloquent, human. But Eel
Americana Gorgio" must be one with
them all; and he was. He gave in his
barytone, and with aGipsy vim and spirit
which won him fame here, if never else
the best he had ever gained among Ameri-
can Gipsies, and made the echoes ring
from the canon walls with, THE Night
ha' Come, the Stars are Out" Sleep.
Sweet, My Chauvie, Sleepr' TITS Cheel
-Cheel When the Boobies Comel" that
widest and most hilarious OF all Gypsy
melodies; and never gained operate stars
such fervent applause. But all things
have an end. Zapateo, fandango,
wild aud barbaric melodies, all, stilled
in the late, late hours; and as the fires
paled beneath the canon palms and the
| flaming stars Olnuad with mora 6oru nyloo-