She then walks off with great
deliberation, bearing away the spoil. It is needless to say that
she never returns.
There are other ways of accomplishing the hokkano baro. The most
simple, and indeed the one most generally used by the Gitanas, is
to persuade some simple individual to hide a sum of money in the
earth, which they afterwards carry away. A case of this
description occurred within my own knowledge, at Madrid, towards
the latter part of the year 1837. There was a notorious Gitana, of
the name of Aurora; she was about forty years of age, a Valencian
by birth, and immensely fat. This amiable personage, by some
means, formed the acquaintance of a wealthy widow lady; and was not
slow in attempting to practise the hokkano baro upon her. She
succeeded but too well. The widow, at the instigation of Aurora,
buried one hundred ounces of gold beneath a ruined arch in a field,
at a short distance from the wall of Madrid. The inhumation was
effected at night by the widow alone. Aurora was, however, on the
watch, and, in less than ten minutes after the widow had departed,
possessed herself of the treasure; perhaps the largest one ever
acquired by this kind of deceit.
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