I found that their ways and pursuits were in almost every respect
similar to those of their brethren in other countries. By cheating
and swindling they gained their daily bread; the men principally by
the arts of the jockey, - by buying, selling, and exchanging
animals, at which they are wonderfully expert; and the women by
telling fortunes, selling goods smuggled from Portugal, and dealing
in love-draughts and diablerie. The most innocent occupation which
I observed amongst them was trimming and shearing horses and mules,
which in their language is called 'monrabar,' and in Spanish
'esquilar'; and even whilst exercising this art, they not
unfrequently have recourse to foul play, doing the animal some
covert injury, in hope that the proprietor will dispose of it to
themselves at an inconsiderable price, in which event they soon
restore it to health; for knowing how to inflict the harm, they
know likewise how to remove it.
Religion they have none; they never attend mass, nor did I ever
hear them employ the names of God, Christ, and the Virgin, but in
execration and blasphemy. From what I could learn, it appeared
that their fathers had entertained some belief in metempsychosis;
but they themselves laughed at the idea, and were of opinion that
the soul perished when the body ceased to breathe; and the argument
which they used was rational enough, so far as it impugned
metempsychosis: 'We have been wicked and miserable enough in this
life,' they said; 'why should we live again?'
I translated certain portions of Scripture into their dialect,
which I frequently read to them; especially the parable of Lazarus
and the Prodigal Son, and told them that the latter had been as
wicked as themselves, and both had suffered as much or more; but
that the sufferings of the former, who always looked forward to a
blessed resurrection, were recompensed by admission, in the life to
come, to the society of Abraham and the Prophets, and that the
latter, when he repented of his sins, was forgiven, and received
into as much favour as the just son.
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