They have at all times
shown themselves extravagantly fond of a roving life. What land is
better adapted for such a life than Africa and its wilds? What
land, therefore, more likely to entice them?
All this is very plausible. It was easy enough for the Gitanos to
pass over to Tangier and Tetuan from the Spanish towns of Tarifa
and Algeziras. In the last chapter I have stated my belief of the
fact, and that moreover they formed certain connections with the
Moors of the coast, to whom it is likely that they occasionally
sold children stolen in Spain; yet such connection would by no
means have opened them a passage into the interior of Barbary,
which is inhabited by wild and fierce people, in comparison with
whom the Moors of the coast, bad as they always have been, are
gentle and civilised.
To penetrate into Africa, the Gitanos would have been compelled to
pass through the tribes who speak the Shilha language, and who are
the descendants of the ancient Numidians. These tribes are the
most untamable and warlike of mankind, and at the same time the
most suspicious, and those who entertain the greatest aversion to
foreigners.
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