I don't think I ever saw
a gipsy who had grown fat. In Germany the gipsy women are often very
pretty; but beauty is very uncommon among the Spanish gitanas. When very
young, they may pass as being attractive in their ugliness, but once
they have reached motherhood, they become absolutely repulsive. The
filthiness of both sexes is incredible, and no one who has not seen a
gipsy matron's hair can form any conception of what it is, not even
if he conjures up the roughest, the greasiest, and the dustiest heads
imaginable. In some of the large Andalusian towns certain of the gipsy
girls, somewhat better looking than their fellows, will take more care
of their personal appearance. These go out and earn money by performing
dances strongly resembling those forbidden at our public balls in
carnival time. An English missionary, Mr. Borrow, the author of two very
interesting works on the Spanish gipsies, whom he undertook to convert
on behalf of the Bible Society, declares there is no instance of any
gitana showing the smallest weakness for a man not belonging to her
own race. The praise he bestows upon their chastity strikes me as being
exceedingly exaggerated.
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