like second-class French or Italian theatrical artistes, and I should not be astonished to learn that very late hours and champagne were familiar to them as cigarettes, or that their flirtations among their own people were neither faint nor few nor far between. But their conduct in my presence was irreproachable. Those of Moscow, in fact, had not even the apparent defects of their St. Petersburg sisters and brothers, and when among them it always seemed to me as if I were simply with nice gentle creoles or Cubans, the gypsy manner being tamed down to the Spanish level, their great black eyes and their guitars increasing the resemblance. The indescribably wild and thrilling character of gypsy music is thoroughly appreciated by the Russians, who pay very high prices for Rommany performances. From five to eight or ten pounds sterling is usually given to a dozen gypsies for singing an hour or two to a special party, and this is sometimes repeated twice or thrice of an evening. “A Russian gentleman, when he is in funds," said the clerk of the Slavansky Bazaar in Moscow to me, "will make nothing of giving the Zigani a hundred-ruble note," the ruble rating at half a crown. The result is, that good singers among these lucky Rommanies are well to do, and lead soft lives, for Russia. MOSCOW. I HAD no friends in Moscow to direct me where to find gypsies en famille, and the inquiries which I made of chance acquaintances simply convinced me that the world at large was as ignorant of their ways as it was prejudiced against them. At last the good-natured old porter of our hotel told me in his rough Baltic German how to meet these mysterious minstrels to advantage. "You must take a sleigh," he said, "and go out to Petrovka. That is a place in the country where there are grand cafés at considerable distances one from the other. Pay the driver three rubles for four hours. Enter a café, call for something to drink, listen to the gypsies singing, and, when they pass round a plate, put some money in it. That's all." This was explicit, and at ten o'clock in the evening I hired a sleigh and went. If the cold which I had experienced in the General's troika in St. Petersburg might be compared to a moderate rheumatism, that which I encountered in the sleigh outside the walls of Moscow on Christmas eve, 1876, was like a fierce gout. The ride was in all conscience Russian enough to have its ending among gypsies, Tartars, or Cossacks. To go at a headlong pace over the creaking snow behind an istvostshik, named Vassili, the round cold moon overhead, church-spires tipped with great inverted golden turnips in the distance, and this on a night when the frost seemed almost to scream in its intensity, is as much of a sensation in the suburbs of Moscow as it could be out on the steppes. A few wolves, more or less, make no difference-and even wolves come sometimes within three hours' walk of the Kremlin. Et ego inter lupos—I too have been among wolves in my time, by night, and thought nothing of such rides compared to the one I had when I went gypsying from Moscow. In half an hour Vassili brought me to a house which I entered. A "proud porter," a vast creature in uniform suggestive of embassies and kings' palaces, relieved me of my shuba, and I found my way into a very large and high hall, brilliantly lighted as if for a thousand guests, while the only occupants were four couples "spooning" sans gêne, one in each corner, and a small party of men and girls drinking in the middle. I called a waiter; he spoke nothing but Russian, and Russian is of all languages the most useless to him who only speaks it "a little." A little Arabic, or even a little Chippewa, I have found of great service, but a fair vocabulary and weeks of study of the grammar are of no avail in a country where even men of gentlemanly appearance turn away with childish impatience the instant they detect the foreigner, resolving apparently that they can not and will not understand him. In matters like this the ordinary Russian is more impatient and less intelligent than any Oriental or even Red Indian. The result of my interview with the waiter was that we were soon involved in the completest misunderstanding on the subject of gypsies. The question was settled by reference to a fat and fair damsel, one of the "spoons" already referred to, who spoke German. She explained to me that as it was Christmas eve no gypsies would be there or at any other café. This was disappointing. I called Vassili, and he drove on to another "garden," deeply buried in snow. When I entered the rooms at this place, I perceived at a glance that matters had mended. There were the hum of many voices, the perfume of much tea and many papiross or cigarettes, with a prompt sense of society and of enjoyment. I was dazzled at first by the glare of the lights, and could distinguish nothing unless it was that the numerous company regarded me with utter amazement; for it was an "off night" when no business was expected-few were there save "professionals" and their friends-and I was manifestly an unexpected intruder on Bohemia. As luck would have it, that which I believed was the one worst night in the year to find the gypsy minstrels proved to be the exceptional occasion when they only were assembled, and I had hit these, and then three or four circles of gypsies of upon it. All of this struck me pleasantly enough different ages and tints standing up surrounded as I looked around, for I knew that at a touch us all. In the outer ring were several fast-lookthe spell would be broken, and with one word I ing and pretty Russian or German blonde girls, should have the warmest welcome from all. I whose mission it is, I believe, to dance—and flirt had literally not one speaking acquaintance with--with visitors, and a few gentlemanly-looking in a thousand miles, and yet here was a room Russians-vieux garçons—evidently of the kind crowded with gay and festive strangers, whom who are at home behind the scenes, and who the slightest utterance would convert into friends. knew where to come to enjoy themselves. AlI was not disappointed. Seeking for a be- together there must have been about fifty presginning, I saw a young man of gentlemanly ap- ent, and I soon observed that every word I utpearance, well dressed, and with a mild and tered was promptly repeated, while every eye amiable air. Speaking to him in German, I was fixed on me. asked the very needless question if there were any gypsies present. "You wish to hear them sing?" he inquired. "I do not. I only want to talk with onewith any one." He appeared to be astonished, but pointing to a handsome, slender young lady, a very dark brunette, elegantly attired in black silk, said: There is one." I stepped across to the girl, who rose to meet me. I said nothing for a few seconds, but looked at her intently, and then asked: “Rakessa tu Romanes, miri pen?" you talk Rommany, my sister?") I could converse in Rommany with the guitarist, and without much difficulty, but with the charming, heedless young ladies I had as much trouble to talk as with their sisters in St. Petersburg. The young gentleman already referred to, to whom in my fancy I promptly gave the Offenbachian name of Prince Paul, translated whenever there was a misunderstanding, and in a few minutes we were all intimate. Miss Sarsha, who had a slight cast in one of her wild black eyes, which added something to the gypsiness and roguery of her smiles, and who wore in a ring a ("Do large diamond, which seemed as if it might be the right eye in the wrong place, was what is called an earnest young lady, with plenty to say and great energy wherewith to say it. What with her eyes, her diamond, her smiles, and her tongue, she constituted altogether a fine specimen of irrepressible fireworks, and Prince Paul had enough to do in facilitating conversation. There was no end to his politeness, but it was an impossible task for him now and then promptly to carry over a long sentence from German to Russian, and he would give it up like an invincible conundrum, with the patient smile and headwag and hand-wave of an amiable Dundreary. Yet I began to surmise a mystery even in him. More than once he inadvertently betrayed a knowledge of Rommany, though he invariably She gave one deep, long glance of utter astonishment, drew one long breath, and, with a cry of delight and wonder, said: "Romanichal!" That word awoke the entire company, and with it they found out who the intruder was. "Then might you hear them cry aloud, 'The Moringer is here!'" for I began to feel like the long-lost lord returned, so warm was my welcome. They flocked around me; they cried aloud in Rommany, and one good-natured, smiling man, who looked like a German gypsy, mounting a chair, waved a guitar by its neck high in the air as a signal of discovery to those at a distance, repeating rapidly: "Av'akai, ava’kai, Romanichal!" ("Come spoke of his friends around in a patronizing manhere-here's a gypsy!") And they came, dark and light, great and small, and got round me and shook hands, and held to my arms, and asked where I came from, and how I did, and if it wasn't jolly, and what would I take to drink, and said how glad they were to see me; and when conversation flagged for an instant, somebody said to his next neighbor, with an air of wisdom, "American Rommany," and everybody repeated it with delight. Then it occurred to the guitarist and the young lady that we had better sit down. So my first acquaintance and discoverer, whose name was Liubasha, was placed, in right of preemption, at my right hand, the belle des belles, Miss Sarsha, at my left, a sprinkling of damsels all around ner as "these gypsies." This was very odd, for in appearance he was a Gorgio of the Gorgios, and did not seem, despite any talent for languages which he might possess, likely to trouble himself to acquire Rommany while Russian would answer every purpose of conversation. All of this was, however, explained to me afterward. Prince Paul again asked me if I had come out to hear a concert. I said, "No-that I had simply come out to see my brothers and sisters and talk with them, just as I hoped they would come to see me if I were in my own country." This speech produced a most favorable impression, and there was, in a quiet way, a little private conversation among the leaders, after which Prince Paul said to me, in a very pleasant manner, that "these gypsies," being delighted at the visit from the gentleman from a distant country, would like to offer me a song in token of welcome. To this I answered, with many thanks, that such kindness was more than I had expected, for I was well aware of the great value of such a compliment from singers whose fame had reached me even in America. It was evident that my grain of a reply did not fall upon stony ground, for I never was among people who seemed to be so quickly impressed by any act of politeness, however trifling. A bow, a squeeze of the hand, a smile, or a glance, would gratify them, and this gratification their lively black eyes expressed in the most unmistakable manner. So we had the song, wild and wonderful like all of its kind, given with all that delightful abandon which attains perfection only among gypsies. I had enjoyed the singing in St. Petersburg, but there was a laisser aller, a completely gay spirit, in this Christmas-eve gypsy party in Moscow which was much more "whirling away." For at Dorot the gypsies had been on exhibition; here at Petrovka they were frolicking en famille with a favored guest-a Rommany Rye from a far land to astonish and delight—and he took good care to let them feel that they were achieving a splendid success, for I declared many times that it was būtsi shūkár, or very beautiful. Then I called for tea and lemon, and after that the gyp sies sang for their own amusement, Miss Sarsha, as the incarnation of fun and jollity, taking the lead, and making me join in. Then the crowd made way, and in the space appeared a very pretty little girl in the graceful old gypsy Oriental dress. This child danced charmingly indeed, in a style strikingly like that of the Almeh of Egypt, but without any of the erotic expressions which abound in Eastern pantomime. This little Rommany girl was to me enchanting, being altogether unaffected and graceful. It was evident that her dancing, like the singing of her elder sisters, was not an art which had been drilled in by instruction. They had fallen into it in infancy, and perfected themselves by such continual practice, that what they did was as natural as walking or talking. When the dancing was over, I begged that the little girl would come to me, and, kissing her tiny gypsy hand, I said, “Spassibo tute kamli, eto hi būtsi shūkár” (“Thank you, dear; that is very pretty "), with which the rest were evidently pleased. I had observed among the singers, at a little distance, a very remarkable and rather handsome old woman-a good study for an artist —and she, as I also noticed, had sung with a powerful and clear voice. "She is our grandmother," said one of the girls. Now, as every student of gypsies knows, the first thing to do in England or Germany, on entering a tent-gypsy encampment, is to be polite to "the old woman.” Unless you can win her good opinion you had better be gone. The Russian city Roms have apparently no such fancies. On the road, however, life is patriarchal, and the grandmother is a power to be feared. As a fortune-teller she is a witch, ever at warfare with the police world; she has a bitter tongue, and is quick to wrath. This was not the style or fashion of the old gypsy singer; but, as soon as I saw the puri babali dye, I requested that she would shake hands with me, and by the impression which this created I saw that the Rommany of the city had not lost all the feelings of the road. I spoke of Waramoff's beautiful song of the "Krasneya Sarafan," which Miss Sarsha began at once to warble. The characteristic of Russian gypsy-girl voices is a peculiarly delicate metallic tone-like that of the two silver bells of the Tower of Ivan Velikoi when heard from afar—yet always marked with fineness and strength. This is sometimes startling in the wilder effects, but it is always agreeable. These Moscow gypsy girls have a great name in their art, and it was round the shoulders of one of them-for aught I know it may have been Sarsha's great-grandmother— that Catalani threw the cashmere shawl which had been given to her by the Pope, as "to the best singer in the world." "It is not mine by right," said the generous Italian; "it belongs to the gypsy." The gypsies were desirous of learning something about the songs of their kindred in distant lands, and, though no singer, I did my best to please them, the guitarist easily improvising accompaniments, while the girls joined in. As all were in a gay mood, faults were easily excused, and the airs were much liked-Miss Tuckey's lyrics, set by Virginia Gabriel, being even more admired in Moscow than in St. Petersburg, apropos of which I may mention that, when I afterward visited the gypsy family in their own home, the first request from Sarsha was, “Eto gilyo rya!” (“ That song, sir"), referring to "Rommany," which has been heard at several concerts in London. And so, after much discussion of the affairs of Egypt, I took my leave amid a chorus of kind farewells. Then Vassili, loudly called for, reappeared from some nook with his elegantly frosted horse, and in a few minutes we were dashing homeward. Cold! it was as severe as in western New York or Minnesota, where the thermometer for many days every winter sinks lower than in St. Petersburg, but where there are no such incredible precautions taken as in the land of double windows cemented down, and fur-lined shubas. It is remarkable that the gypsies, who are Hindoos by origin, are said to surpass the Russians in enduring cold; and there is a marvelous story told about a Rommany who for a wager undertook to sleep naked against a clothed Muscovite on the ice of a river during an unusually cold night. In the morning the Russian was found frozen stiff, while the gypsy was snoring away unharmed. As we returned, I saw in the town something which recalled this story in more than one moujik, who, well wrapped up, lay sleeping in the open air, under the lee of a house. Passing through silent Moscow on the early Christmas morn, under the stars, as I gazed at the marvelous city which yields neither to Edinburgh, Cairo, nor Prague in picturesqueness, and thought over the strange evening I had spent among the gypsies, I felt as if I were in a melodrama with striking scenery. The pleasing finale was the utter amazement and almost speechless gratitude of Vassili at getting an extra half-ruble as an early Christmas gift. As I had received a pressing invitation from the gypsies to come again, I resolved to pay them a visit on Christmas afternoon in their own house if I could find it. Having ascertained that the gypsy street was in a distant quarter, called the grouszini, I engaged a sleigh, standing before the door of the Slavanski-Bazaar Hotel, and the usual close bargain with the driver was effected with the aid of a Russian gentleman, a stranger passing by, who reduced the ruble (one hundred kopecks) at first demanded to seventy kopecks. After a very long drive we found ourselves in the gypsy street, and the istvostshik asked me, "To what house?" "I don't know," I replied. here, don't they?" "Gypsies, and no others." way, not in front, but through a court, a back door, and up a staircase, very much in the style of certain dwellings in the Potteries in London. But, having entered, I was led through one or two neat rooms, where I saw lying sound asleep on beds, but dressed, one or two very dark Rommanies, whose faces I remembered. Then we passed into a sitting-room, which was very well furnished. I observed hanging up over the chimney-piece a good collection of photographs, nearly all of gypsies, and indicating that close resemblance to Hindoos which comes out so strongly in such pictures, being, in fact, more apparent in the pictures than in the models; just as the photographs of the old Ulfilas manuscript revealed curious characteristics not visible in the original. In the center of the group was a cabinet-size portrait of Sarsha, and by it another of an Englishman of very high rank. I thought this odd, but asked no questions. My hosts were very kind, offering me promptly a rich kind of Russian cake, begging to know what else I would like to eat or drink, and apparently deeply concerned that I could really partake of nothing, as I had just come from luncheon. They were all light-hearted and gay, so that the music began at once, as wild and as bewitching as ever. And here I observed, even more than before, how thoroughly sincere these gypsies were in their art, and to what a degree they enjoyed and were excited by their own singing. Here in their own home, warbling like birds and frolicking like children, their performance was even more delightful than it had been in the concert-room. There was evidently a 'Gypsies live great source of excitement in the fact that I must enjoy it far more than an ordinary stranger, because I understood Rommany and sympathized with gypsy ways, and regarded them not as the Gaji or Gentiles do, but as brothers and sisters. I confess that I was indeed moved by the simple kindness with which I was treated, and I knew that, with the wonderfully keen perception of character in which gypsies excel, they perfectly understood my liking for them. It is this ready intuition of feelings which, when it is raised from an instinct to an art by practice, enables shrewd old women to tell fortunes with so much skill. The driver laughed, and just at that instant I saw, as if awaiting me on the sidewalk, Sarsha, Liubasha, and another young lady with a goodlooking youth, their brother. "This will do," I said to the driver, who appeared utterly amazed at seeing me greeted like an old friend by the Zigani, but who grinned with delight, as all Russians of the lower class invariably do, at anything like sociability and fraternity. The damsels were faultlessly attired in Russian style, with full fur-lined glossy blacksatin cloaks and fine Orenberg scarfs, which are, I believe, the finest woolen fabrics in the world. The party were particularly anxious to know if I had come specially to visit them, for I have passed over the fact that I had also made the acquaintance of another very large family of gypsies who sang at a rival café, and who had also treated me very kindly. I was at once conducted to a house, which we entered in a rather gypsy I was here introduced to the mother of the girls. She was a neat, pleasant-looking woman, of perhaps forty years, in appearance and manners irresistibly reminding me of some respectable Cuban lady. Like the others, she displayed an intelligent curiosity as to my knowledge of Rommany, and I was pleased at finding that she knew much more of the language than her children did. Then there entered a young Russian gentleman, but not " Prince Paul." He was, however, a very agreeable person, as all Russians can be when so minded, and they are always so minded when they gather from information or conjecture the fact that the stranger whom they meet is one of education or position. This young gentleman spoke French, and undertook the part of occasional translator. proceeded to examine and predict. When I afterward narrated this incident to the late G. H. Lewes, he expressed himself to the effect that to tell fortunes to gypsies struck him as the very ne plus ultra of cheek-which shows how extremes meet, for verily it was with great modesty and proper diffidence that I ventured to foretell I asked Liubasha if any of them understood the lives of these little ladies, having an antipathy fortune-telling. to the practice of chiromancing as to other romancing. "No-we have quite lost the art of dorriki.* None of us know anything about it. But we hear that you Romanichals over the Black Water understand it. Oh, rya," she cried, eagerly, "you know so much-you're such a deep Rommany can't you tell fortunes?" "I should indeed know very little about Rommany ways," I replied gravely, "if I could not pen dorriki. But I tell you beforehand, terni pen, dorrikipen hi hokanipen' (Little Sister), fortune-telling is deceiving. Yet what the lines say, I can read." In an instant six as pretty little gypsy hands as I ever beheld were thrust before me, and I heard as many cries of delight. "Tell my fortune, rya! tell mine! and mine!" exclaimed the damsels, and I complied. It was all very well to tell them there was nothing in it-they knew a trick worth two of that. I perceived at once that the faith which endures beyond its own knowledge was placed in all I said. In England the gypsy woman, who at home ridicules her own fortune-telling and her dupes, still puts faith in a gusveri mush, or some “wise man,” who with crystal or magical apparatus professes occult knowledge, for she thinks that her own false art is an imitation of a true one. It is really amusing to see the reverence with which an old gypsy will look at the awful hieroglyphics in Cornelius Agrippa's "Occult Philosophy," or, better still, "Trithemius," and, as a gift, any ordinary fortunetelling book is esteemed by them beyond rubies. It is true that they can not read it, but the precious volume is treasured like a fetich, and the owner is happy in the thought of at least possessing darksome and forbidden lore, though it be of no earthly use to her. After all the kindness they had shown me, I could not find it in my heart to refuse to tell these gentle Zingari their little fortunes. It is not, I admit, exactly in the order of things that the chicken should dress the cook, or the Gorgio tell fortunes to gypsies, but he who wanders in strange lands meets with strange adventures. So, with a full knowledge of the legal penalties attached in England to palmistry and other conjuration, and with the then pending Slade case knocking heavily on my conscience, I * In Old English Rommany this is called dorrikin, in common parlance, dukkerin. Both forms are really old. I have observed that as among men of great and varied culture, and of extensive experience, there are more complex and delicate shades and half-shades of light in the face, so in the palm the lines are correspondingly varied and broken. Take a man of intellect and a peasant of equal excellence of figure according to the literal rules of art or of anatomy, and this subtile multiplicity of variety shows itself in the whole body in favor of the "gentleman," so that it would almost seem as if every book we read is republished in the person. The first thing that struck me in these gypsy hands was the very remarkable fewness of the lines, their clearly defined sweep, and their simplicity. In every one the line of life was unbroken, and, in fine, one might think from a drawing of the hand, and without knowing who its owner might be, that he or she was of a type of character unknown in most great European cities, a being gifted with special culture, and in a certain simple sense refined, but not endowed with experience in a thousand confused phases of life. To avoid mistakes I told the fortunes in French, which was translated into Russian I need not say that every word was listened to with earnest attention, or that the group of dark but young and comely faces, as they gathered around and bent over, would have made a good subject for a picture. After the girls, the mother must needs hear her dorriki also, and last of all the young Russian gentleman, who seemed to take as earnest an interest in his future as even the gypsies. As he alone understood French, and as he appeared to be un peu gaillard, and finally, as the lines of his hand said nothing to the contrary, I predicted for him in detail a fortune in which bonnes fortunes were not at all wanting. I think he was pleased, but when I asked him if he would translate what I had said of his future into Russian, he replied with a slight wink and a scarcely perceptible negative. I suppose he had his reasons. Then we had singing again, and Christopher, the brother, a wild and gay young gypsy, became so excited that while playing the guitar he also danced and carolled, and the sweet voices of the girls rose in chorus, and I was again importuned for the Rommany song, and we had altogether a very Bohemian frolic. I was sorry when the ear |