to conduct it over those rapids requires absolute knowledge of every rock hidden under the shallow falls.  If notice is given in time, a rude hut will be built on the raft to give shelter and make it possible to have meals cooked, altho in the simplest way (consisting of baked potatoes and stew), by the Slavs who are in charge of the raft.  If anything better is wanted it must be ordered by stopping at the larger towns; but to have it done in the simple way is entering into the true spirit of the voyage.

THE GIPSIES[2]

By H. Tornai de KOeVER

Gipsies!  Music!  Dancing!  These are words of magic to the rich and poor, noblemen and peasant alike, if he be a true Hungarian.  There are two kinds of gipsies.  The wandering thief, who can not be made to take up any occupation.  These are a terribly lawless and immoral people, and there seems to be no way of altering their life and habits, altho much has been written on the subject to improve matters; but the Government has shown itself to be helpless as yet.  These people live here and there, in fact everywhere, leading a wandering life in carts, and camp wherever night overtakes them.  After some special evil-doing they will wander into Rumania or Russia and come back after some years when the deed of crime has been forgotten.  Their movements are so quick and silent that they outwit the best detectives of the police force.  They speak the gipsy language, but often a half-dozen other languages besides, in their peculiar chanting voice.  Their only occupation is stealing, drinking, smoking, and being a nuisance to the country in every way.

The other sort of gipsies consist of those that have squatted down in the villages some hundreds of years ago.  They live in a separate part of the village, usually at the end, are dirty and untidy and even an unruly people, but for the most part have taken up some honest occupation.  They make the rough, unbaked earth bricks that the peasant cottages are mostly made of, are tinkers and blacksmiths, but they do the lowest kind of work too.  Besides these, however, there are the talented ones.  The musical gipsy begins to handle his fiddle as soon as he can toddle.  The Hungarians brought their love of music with them from Asia.  Old parchments have been found which denote that they had their songs and war-chants at the time of the “home-making,” and church and folk-songs from their earliest Christian period.  Peasant and nobleman are musical alike—­it runs in the race.  The gipsies that have settled among them caught up the love of music and are now the best interpreters of the Hungarian songs.  The people have got so used to their “blackies,” as they call them, that no lesser or greater fete day can pass without the gipsy band having ample work to do in the form of playing for the people.  Their instruments are the fiddle, ’cello, viola, clarinet, tarogato (a Hungarian specialty), and, above