He had a
good bed made of straw and moss, and sheets that were tolerably white,
whereas all the rest of the family, which numbered eleven persons, slept
on planks three feet long. So much for their hospitality. This very same
woman, humane as was her treatment of her guest said to me constantly
before the sick man: "_Singo, singo, homte hi mulo_." "Soon, soon he
must die!" After all, these people live such miserable lives, that a
reference to the approach of death can have no terrors for them.
One remarkable feature in the gipsy character is their indifference
about religion. Not that they are strong-minded or sceptical. They
have never made any profession of atheism. Far from that, indeed, the
religion of the country which they inhabit is always theirs; but they
change their religion when they change the country of their residence.
They are equally free from the superstitions which replace religious
feeling in the minds of the vulgar. How, indeed, can superstition exist
among a race which, as a rule, makes its livelihood out of the credulity
of others? Nevertheless, I have remarked a particular horror of touching
a corpse among the Spanish gipsies.
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