the gipsy followed him, and some how or other, it was not long before he had stolen the ass, from which he immediately whipped off the false tail, leaving only a bare stump.  He then changed the halter and saddle, and had the audacity to go and offer the animal for sale to the countryman, before the latter had discovered his loss.  The bargain was soon made; the purchaser went into his house to fetch the money to pay for the second ass, and there he discovered the loss of the first.  Stupid as he was, he suspected that the gipsy had stolen the animal, and he refused to pay him.  The gipsy brought forward as witness the man who had received the alcabala[63] on the first transaction, and who swore that he had sold the countryman an ass with a very bushy tail, quite different from the second one; and an alguazil, who was present, took the gipsy’s part so strongly that the countryman was forced to pay for the ass twice over.  Many other stories they told, all about stealing beasts of burden, in which art they are consummate masters.  In short, they are a thoroughly bad race, and though many able magistrates have taken them in hand, they have always remained incorrigible.

[63] A tax on sales and transfers.

After I had remained with them twenty days, they set out for Murcia, taking me with them.  We passed through Granada, where the company was quartered to which my master the drummer belonged.  As the gipsies were aware of this, they shut me up in the place where they were lodged.  I overheard them talking about their journey, and thinking that no good would come of it, I contrived to give them the slip, quitted Granada, and entered the garden of a Morisco,[64] who gladly received me.  I was quite willing to remain with him and watch his garden,—­a much less fatiguing business in my opinion than guarding a flock of sheep; and as there was no need to discuss the question of wages, the Morisco soon had a servant and I a master.  I remained with him more than a month, not that the life I led with him was much to my liking, but because it gave me opportunities of observing that of my master, which was like that of all the other Moriscoes in Spain.  O what curious things I could tell you, friend Scipio, about that half Paynim rabble, if I were not afraid that I should not get to the end of my story in a fortnight!  Nay, if I were to go into particulars, two months would not be enough.  Some few specimens, however, you shall hear.

[64] A Christian of Moorish descent.

Hardly will you find among the whole race one man who is a sincere believer in the holy law of Christianity.  Their only thought is how to scrape up money and keep it; and to this end they toil incessantly and spend nothing.  The moment a real falls into their clutches, they condemn it to perpetual imprisonment; so that by dint of perpetually accumulating and never spending, they have got the greater part of the money of Spain into their hands.  They are the grubs, the magpies,