Such visitors, however, were always encouraged to a certain point,
and by this and various other means the Gitanos acquired
connections which frequently stood them in good stead in the hour
of need. What availed it to the honest labourers of the
neighbourhood, or the citizens of the town, to make complaints to
the corregidor concerning the thefts and frauds committed by the
Gitanos, when perhaps the sons of that very corregidor frequented
the nightly dances at the Gitaneria, and were deeply enamoured with
some of the dark-eyed singing-girls? What availed making
complaints, when perhaps a Gypsy sibyl, the mother of those very
girls, had free admission to the house of the corregidor at all
times and seasons, and spaed the good fortune to his daughters,
promising them counts and dukes, and Andalusian knights in
marriage, or prepared philtres for his lady by which she was always
to reign supreme in the affections of her husband? And, above all,
what availed it to the plundered party to complain that his mule or
horse had been stolen, when the Gitano robber, perhaps the husband
of the sibyl and the father of the black-eyed Gitanillas, was at
that moment actually in treaty with my lord the corregidor himself
for supplying him with some splendid thick-maned, long-tailed steed
at a small price, to be obtained, as the reader may well suppose,
by an infraction of the laws? The favour and protection which the
Gitanos experienced from people of high rank is alluded to in the
Spanish laws, and can only be accounted for by the motives above
detailed.
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