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232 gipsy tinkers and blacksmiths, who journey from village to village, just as their brethren do in the lonely parts of England; committing depredations in the farm-yards, and sometimes breaking into houses. These gipsies came out of their tents to look at us. Their complexions were very dark. The men had rather a sullen and stern expression of countenance, and were clothed in sackcloth, girdled with leather straps. Black shawls were fastened on their heads with ropes made of camel's-hair, in Bedouin style. The women and girls seemed hardy, bold, and daring, but good-natured. Their features were strongly marked. They approached and examined me with curiosity, and expressed surprise that I traveled without any female attendants. In their greetings I observed that they did not utter the name of Allah, though it is generally the first word on the lips of an Arab woman. The women wore long, heavy, dark, ungirdled shirts, made of coarse wool—not unlike the shapeless gowns provided for female bathers at English watering-places. They had no other garment, except a shawl or kerchief tied over their heads, from under which their straggling unbraided black hair escaped. Broad silver armlets adorned their tattooed arms, and clumsy cabalistic rings were displayed on some of the swarthy hands, to protect the wearers from harm.

The boys were naked, or nearly so. They tried to attract my notice by vigorously turning summersaults, walking on their heads, and suspending themselves from high tree branches by their pliant feet.

These gipsies, besides attending to their tinkering, perform most astounding feats of jugglery, gymnastics, and magic. When they visit towns or large villages, they are gladly engaged by the inhabitants to tell fortunes, interpret dreams and dark sayings, and to give entertainments in private houses or in the market-places.

I have several times seen companies of this mysterious race of people in Hâifa, and have witnessed their exhibitions of necromancy, or rather sleight-of-hand, by torch-