True it is that the original dress of the Gitanos, male and female,
whatever it was, may have had some share in forming the Andalusian
fashion, owing to the great number of these wanderers who found
their way to that province at an early period. The Andalusians are
a mixed breed of various nations, Romans, Vandals, Moors; perhaps
there is a slight sprinkling of Gypsy blood in their veins, and of
Gypsy fashion in their garb.
The Gitanos are, for the most part, of the middle size, and the
proportions of their frames convey a powerful idea of strength and
activity united; a deformed or weakly object is rarely found
amongst them in persons of either sex; such probably perish in
their infancy, unable to support the hardships and privations to
which the race is still subjected from its great poverty, and these
same privations have given and still give a coarseness and
harshness to their features, which are all strongly marked and
expressive. Their complexion is by no means uniform, save that it
is invariably darker than the general olive hue of the Spaniards;
not unfrequently countenances as dark as those of mulattos present
themselves, and in some few instances of almost negro blackness.
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