We have all, at some time or other, felt our curiosity and interest excited by the bands of wandering gypsies whom we may sometimes have come upon in their encampments pitched in some remote or sequestered wood or dell—­wild-looking men and women and dark, ragged children grouped about fires over which hang kettles suspended from stakes arranged in a triangle; mongrel curs which seem to share their masters’ instinctive distrust of strangers; and donkeys browsing near the tilted carts which convey the tribe from one place to another.  We feel a sort of traditional repulsion for these people, almost amounting to dread, for stories of children stolen by gypsies, and of their dark, mysterious ways, have taken root in our infant minds along with those of ghosts and goblins, robbers and Indians.  There are, it is true, romantic associations connected with them, and we try to fancy a Meg Merrilies in the swarthy old woman who examines the lines of our hand and tells us the past, present and future—­sometimes with a startling consistency and probability.  But few of us would have supposed that this race of vagabonds and outcasts had ever risen much above their traditional occupation of tinkering, far less that any portion of it had displayed original artistic genius.  We have, however, from Robert Franz the composer a most interesting account of the wonderful music of the Hungarian gypsies or Tziganys, which he had several opportunities of hearing during a visit to a friend in Hungary.  He had been much impressed in his youth by the wandering apparitions of these people in the streets of Kiev, and by the strange, wild dances of their women, whose outlandish garb was rendered still more effective by the pieces of red stuff cut into hearts and sewed all over their skirts.  “These caravans of strange beings, who preserve under every sky their dreamy laziness, their rebellion against the yoke, their love of solitude,” had always possessed an irresistible charm for him, and he had never understood the scorn and disgust of which they were the object.

Being informed of the arrival of a gypsy band within eight or ten miles of his friend’s chateau, he took his immediate departure for the forest where they had made their temporary home.  The sun was going down when he reached the camp.  It was in an open glade, where the ground was trampled down, in some places blackened by fire, and covered with fragments of coarse pottery, wooden bowls, bones, parings, etc.  The gypsies were there pell-mell—­men, women and children, horses, dogs and wagons.  The men, lounging about in various attitudes, were smoking:  all had a look of careless nobility about them, an air of melancholy, and eyes which burned with slumbering passion.  Old women were cowering about the fires, surrounded by children whose meagre limbs were frankly displayed to view.  Tall girls, with Oriental eyes, firm and polished cheeks, and vigorous forms, stood facing the horizon, and were distinctly defined