They
were in the habit of visiting the stalls and stables secretly, and
poisoning the provender of the animals, who almost immediately
became sick. After a few days the Gitanos would go to the
labourers and offer to cure the sick cattle for a certain sum, and
if their proposal was accepted would in effect perform the cure.
Connected with the cure was a curious piece of double dealing.
They privately administered an efficacious remedy, but pretended to
cure the animals not by medicines but by charms, which consisted of
small variegated beans, called in their language bobis, (56)
dropped into the mangers. By this means they fostered the idea,
already prevalent, that they were people possessed of supernatural
gifts and powers, who could remove diseases without having recourse
to medicine. By means of drao, they likewise procured themselves
food; poisoning swine, as their brethren in England still do, (57)
and then feasting on the flesh, which was abandoned as worthless:
witness one of their own songs:-
'By Gypsy drow the Porker died,
I saw him stiff at evening tide,
But I saw him not when morning shone,
For the Gypsies ate him flesh and bone.
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