The Catholic World Volume Iii Part 125

Then an inspiration came to him which lighted with a pale ray of hope, the sorrowful face long unused to happiness. The idea occurred to him, that if he should go and study the sh.e.l.ls of the Persian gulf where pearls are formed, he might succeed in winning from nature the mystery which he had so much interest in learning.

He set out the next morning on his long and wearisome journey, leaving his child to the faithful care of the old Jewish slave who had been so many years in his service, and in whom he reposed the most perfect confidence. She had been the nurse of Rachel, and loved her almost with a mother's love. He spent two months in studying the pearl oyster of the Persian gulf; but there, as in his laboratory, all his efforts were vain.

Providence, thought he, (he no longer said "nature,") Providence has secrets which will never be known to mortals!

Convinced of the utter folly of his painful researches--anxious, moreover, to see his poor child again. He sadly turned his face homeward.

VIII.

As he slowly and sadly pursued his way toward Egypt, he saw on the second day of his journey across the desert, a group in the distance, apparently just in his route; continuing to advance, he saw a dead camel covered with blood, beside him the dead body of a knight, pierced with sabre-strokes; on the road-side a woman, apparently dying, holding in her arms a young infant.

Ben-Ha-Zelah, moved with compa.s.sion, approached and accosted the woman. She told him that in crossing the desert with her husband and child, they had been attacked by brigands, who had killed her husband, left her mortally wounded, and had rifled them of all their treasures; even their water-bottles--more precious than all in the desert.

"I am dying," said she, "but my bitterest sorrow is in leaving my poor little babe, who must perish thus alone in the desert."

The poor mother for one moment thought of asking the kind old man to take her child, but she saw that one of his water-bottles had been broken by some accident, and that he had hardly enough water to cross the desert.

Ben-Ha-Zelah had had the same thought, but he calculated the quant.i.ty of water remaining to him, and and to himself that it was impossible.

The woman was dying.

There, in the presence of the mother's despair, with the wail of the infant so soon to be an orphan, in his ears, he thought of his own child.

"Woman," said he, "I will take your babe, and will care for him as for my own. I will save his life, even at the cost of my own."

The mother died, invoking blessings on his head.

Ben-Ha-Zelah resumed his journey across the desert, placing before him on the saddle, the infant, who at first wept, then laughed in infantile glee, then amused himself by teasing the patient nurse, pulling his beard, or tangling the reins of the camel. The old man who had become as gentle as a mother, sought every means which affection could suggest to amuse the helpless little creature, so strangely given to his charge--sometimes with the gold ta.s.sels of his bridle, sometimes with his bright fire-arms, sometimes by rattling in his ears the gold sequins in his purse. Again he would sing to him a lullaby, long-forgotten. {701} The child was pleased with each new amus.e.m.e.nt devised by the old savant, but it was only for a few moments, and was again looking about for something he had not yet seen.

How much we all resemble children!

Poor old Ben-Ha-Zelah knew not what to do to satisfy this restless craving for amus.e.m.e.nt. Suddenly he thought of the beautiful little box, which the child had not seen, and drew it out from the folds of his robe.

The child eagerly grasped this new plaything and turned it about in every possible way.

To the amazement of the old Jew, there was a slight sound, as of some small object rolling about in the box.

The child shouted with delight. The old man was breathless and trembling. He grasped the box convulsively from the hands of the infant, who held it out to him, smiling. He opened it. His blood froze in his veins, with an emotion not of terror but of joy and hope.

He beheld in the box a pearl, pure and more beautiful than any he had ever seen.

Speechless with emotion he could only raise his eyes to heaven in a wordless prayer of grat.i.tude.

Then he heard a voice which seemed to fill the immensity of the desert, and nevertheless, was as low and sweet as the loving murmur of a fond mother.

"O Ben-Ha-Zelah! every tear which thou shalt dry, is a pearl which thou dost create."

Ben-Ha-Zelah looked about him. All around him was the desert. Before him, in his arms, the little babe, suddenly grown calm, and smiling in his face.

A few more days and his journey through the desert was ended. But many were the privations he endured that the helpless little infant, now so dear to him, might not want.

Ben-Ha-Zelah was rich, and now he was good. His goodness made use of his riches to dry the tears of misfortune--there are as many, alas! in this world of suffering, as there are dewdrops on a summers morning-- and very soon his box was quite full.

When he again saw his child, the mysterious sleep was unbroken. She came not to welcome him, but he put the pearl necklace about her beautiful throat, and she awoke, smiling.

"Oh! what a lovely necklace, papa," she cried.

"It is the first I have ever given thee, my darling," said the happy father, "but I hope it may not be the last. My pearl-casket is now empty, but I trust in G.o.d that I may fill it many times before I die."

{702}

[ORIGINAL.]

THE GIPSIES. [Footnote 174]

[Footnote 174: "A History of the Gipsies: with Specimens of the Gipsy Language." By Walter Simson. Edited, with preface, introduction, and notes, and a disquisition on the past, present, and future of Glpsydom. By James Simson. 12mo, pp. 575. New York: M.

Doolady. London: Sampson Low, Son, & Marston. 1866.]

About the beginning of the 15th century there appeared in Germany a strange mysterious people, such as had never been seen in Europe before;

A vagrant crew, far straggled through the glade, With trifles busied, or in slumbers laid.

No man knew who they were or whence they came. Their swarthy complexions, long black hair, sharp eyes, high cheek-bones, narrow mouths and fine white teeth, were marks of an eastern origin. They spoke a language which had never been heard in Europe before, and followed a strange way of life, which savored more of the rude nomadic habits of primitive Asia, than the comparatively civilized customs of the country into which they had come. They travelled about in bands or tribes, each under the command of a leader, slept at night in tents or abandoned out-houses, and occupied themselves by day in a simple sort of smith work, basket-weaving, tinkering, fortune-telling, juggling, and stealing. Vagabonds as they were, filthy in their habits, and addicted to the eating of carrion and other disgusting things, they were fond of wearing gay dresses, whenever they could beg, buy, or steal them, and many of the women, with their lithe and agile figures, were not without a certain dark sort of beauty which found many admirers.

Whether they knew anything about their own origin or not, is doubtful; but if they did, they kept it so carefully' secret, that the knowledge has been completely lost. At all events they made their first appearance in France in 1427, with a great lie in their months, and a forged confirmation of it in their pockets. They called themselves Christian pilgrims from Lower Egypt, who had been expelled by the Saracens. They had unfortunately committed a few sins on the way, and having confessed to Pope Martin V., his holiness had enjoined upon them as a penance to traverse the world for seven years without sleeping in beds. In support of this story they exhibited doc.u.ments purporting to be issued by the holy see, but they had probably manufactured these testimonials themselves. However, the world was not very wise in those days, and the mysterious strangers were accepted for what they professed to be; and for some years the wandering penitents pursued a brilliant career of theft and imposture, while their leaders galloped over the continent with the high-sounding t.i.tles of dukes, counts, and lords of Little Egypt. When they first came to Paris they had among them a duke, a count, and ten lords. The authorities would not let them enter the city, but a.s.signed them quarters at La Chapelle near St. Denis, where they were consulted on occult matters by great numbers of the citizens. But our Egyptian pilgrims were soon found to be such incorrigible rascals that the bishop of Paris caused them to be removed, and excommunicated those who had consulted them. Similar treatment was shown them in other parts of Europe. For a time their forged credentials had enabled them to obtain pa.s.sports and letters of {703} security from various European potentates; but the wanderers everywhere made themselves nuisances, and were banished under threats of the severest punishments. Fortunately for them, however, these edicts were not published simultaneously all over Europe, so that they were not exactly driven into the ocean, but only exiled from one part of the continent to another. In Germany they were called _Zigeuner_, or wanderers; in Holland, _Haydens_, or heathens, in Spain, _Gitanos_; in Italy, _Zingari_; in France, Bohemians, because they entered that country from Bohemia. The name of gipsy, by which they were known in England and Scotland, is evidently a corruption of their self-chosen appellation Egyptians.

More than four hundred years have pa.s.sed since these swarthy penitents made their seven years' pilgrimage of cheating and pilfering through Europe, and they are still a people as distinct from all other races in their essential characteristics as they were on the day they first humbugged our ancestors. The general improvement of society all over the world has compelled them to abandon many of their vagabond ways.

They have no longer that complete organization in tribes and companies which they used to preserve; they no longer claim the privilege of governing themselves in all things by their own laws, and their earls and captains no longer exercise the authority of life and death over their subjects. A large gipsy encampment is a rare sight nowadays, and even the gipsy features, owing to frequent intermarriages between the tribes and the European race, are in a fair way of being obliterated.

But there are still many thousands of gipsies roaming about Europe in small companies; they still preserve their ancient customs in secret; and under all the restraints of civilization, even the most orderly of them cherish their old vagabond propensities. The Gipsy physiognomy is quite as marked as the Jewish, and the gipsy race is far more distinctly separated from the rest of the world than are the children of Abraham. Their speech, which is not, as some people suppose, a mere farago of slang or thieves' latin, but a genuine language, has been handed down from mother to child, and is still a living tongue--a fact which is not a little remarkable, because the language has no literature, and can only be perpetrated by tradition. The gipsies have no written characters. And yet it would be hard to find a gipsy who cannot speak the language, though few of them are willing to acknowledge it.

The problem of the origin of this strange people has exercised learned brains ever since the civilized world became civilized enough to perceive that there was a mystery about their presence in the midst of Christendom. It seems to be pretty well agreed that they came into Europe from Hindostan; but why they came, and why they called themselves Egyptians are matters of dispute. Grellman in Germany, and Hoyland and Borrow in England have hitherto been the most esteemed authorities on the subject of gipsies; but we have now a new work, by Walter and James Simson, which promises to shove the older books aside. It is a rather outlandish production, but on that very account perhaps more appropriate to its subject, Mr. Walter having spent some seventeen years poking about gipsy encampments, peeping into their huts, studying their cookery, sc.r.a.ping up odds and ends of their language, learning how they picked pockets, told fortunes, robbed hen-roosts, stole horses, married their wives and divorced them, fought with each other, protected their friends, and pursued their enemies with unrelenting vengeance; having gathered up a great store of interesting anecdotes and historical notes, and got to know, in fine, more about the gipsies of Scotland than any other man, probably, who ever lived--having done all this, Mr. Walter Simson died one day and left an ill-digested ma.n.u.script {704} book on his pet subject, which Mr. James Simson took up, annotated, enlarged, and published.

Mr. Walter's book, if it was not a model of literary neatness, was unpretentious, entertaining, and full of valuable information. Mr.

James, however, must needs add to it, first an advertis.e.m.e.nt, then a preface, then an introduction, and lastly a long-drawn disquisition, all of which are tiresome to the last degree, and not worth a tenth of the s.p.a.ce they fill. Besides, Mr. James Simson has a bad temper, and it is not pleasant to read his arguments, even when he argues against an imaginary adversary. He has a theory of his own about the origin of the gipsies, to which we do not purpose to commit ourselves; but it is curious enough to be stated, so that our readers may judge of it for themselves.

An intelligent gipsy once told Mr. Simson that his race sprang from a body of men-a cross between the Arabs and Egyptians--who left Egypt in the train of the Jews. Now we read in Exodus xii. 38, that "a mixed mult.i.tude went up also with them," [_i.e._, with the Jews out of Egypt;] and from the fact stated in Numbers xi. 4, that "the mixed mult.i.tude that was among them fell a l.u.s.ting" for flesh, it would appear that these refugees had not amalgamated with the Jews, but only journeyed in company with them. Since this mult.i.tude were not children of the promise, and had no call from G.o.d to go out from among the Egyptians and journey to a land of peace and plenty, their condition in Egypt must have been a hard one, or they would not have entered upon a long and painful wandering to escape from it. No doubt, says Mr. Simson, they were slaves, like the Jews; probably descendants of the Hyksos, or "Shepherd Kings," who possessed the land before its conquest by the Pharaohs; perhaps descendents of these Hyksos by Egyptian women. G.o.d had promised Canaan, however, only to the Israelites; the "mixed mult.i.tudes" could have no share in the inheritance; so they probably separated from the Jews in the wilderness, and wandered eastward into Hindostan. Coming into that country from a long servitude, they would naturally have been timid of mixing with the native inhabitants, disposed to cling together for mutual protection, loose in their notions of right and wrong and the laws of property. Every man's hand would have been against them, and they would have been no man's friend. The lawless and migratory habits engendered by their isolation would soon have become fixed and hereditary; and so, to hasten to a conclusion, the mixed mult.i.tude of Egyptians would have grown to be, in the course of a few hundreds of generations, more or less, a race of horse-thieves and fortune-tellers.

This theory accounts for the fact that the gipsies call themselves Egyptians, while their language and many other peculiarities are strongly redolent of Hindostan. It is true that no Egyptian words have been detected in their speech, while its resemblance to Hindostance dialects is very strong; but then just think what an unconscionably long time it is since they came away from Egypt, and how easy it would have been for them, in the absence of an alphabet and a literature, to forget the language of captivity and acquire that of freedom.

Why they came out of Hindostan into Europe, or why they waited to come until the fifteenth century, is purely matter of conjecture. But that Hindostan was their last abiding place before their appearance in Germany, about 1417, there is, for various reasons which we need not here enumerate, no reasonable doubt.

Of their history and character in continental Europe, Mr. Simson tells us but little, and that little is not new. We pa.s.s at once therefore to the portion of his book which is devoted to the Scottish gipsies; and when we have read that, we shall have a pretty clear idea of the peculiarities of the race all over the world.