our own, and a radical moral difference. A very few years ago, when I
was on the Plains of Western Kansas, old Black Kettle, a famous Indian
chief said in a speech, "I am not a white man, I am a _wolf_. I was born
like a wolf on the prairies. I have lived like a wolf, and I shall die
like one." Such is the wild gipsy. Ever poor and hungry, theft seems to
him, in the trifling easy manner in which he practises it, simply a
necessity. The moral aspects of petty crime he never considers at all,
nor does he, in fact, reflect upon anything as it is reflected on by the
humblest peasant who goes to church, or who in any way feels himself
connected as an integral part of that great body-corporate--Society.




CHAPTER II. A GIPSY COTTAGE.


The Old Fortune-Teller and her Brother.--The Patteran, or Gipsies' Road-
Mark .--The Christian Cross, named by Continental Gipsies Trushul, after
the Trident of Siva.--Curious English-Gipsy term for the Cross.--Ashwood
Fires on Christmas Day.--Our Saviour regarded with affection by the
Rommany because he was like themselves and poor.--Strange ideas of the
Bible.--The Oak.--Lizards renew their lives.--Snails.--Slugs.--Tobacco
Pipes as old as the world.

"Duveleste; Avo. Mandy's kaired my patteran adusta chairuses where a
drum jals atut the waver," which means in English--"God bless you, yes.
Many a time I have marked my sign where the roads cross."

I was seated in the cottage of an old Gipsy mother, one of the most noted