I turned and saw along the street that was lost in a distant grove an interminable row of houses. Of houses? Rather of dens dug in the earth, with a bit of wall in front, with holes for windows and crevices for doors, and wild plants of every sort on top and along the sides—veritable caves of beasts, in which by the glow of faint lights, scarcely visible, swarmed the gypsies by hundreds; a people multiplying in the bowels of the mountain, poorer, blacker, and more savage than any seen before; another city, unknown to the greater part of Granada, inaccessible to the police, closed to the census-officers, ignorant of every law and of all government, living one knows not how, how numerous no one knows, foreign to the city, to Spain, and to modern civilization, with a language and statutes and manners of their own—superstitious, false, thieving, beggarly, and fierce.

"Button up your coat and look out for your watch," said Gongora to me, "and let us go forward."

We had not taken a hundred steps when a half-naked boy, black as the walls of his hovel, ran out, gave a cry, and, making a sign to the other boys who followed him, dashed toward us; behind the boys came the women; behind the women the men, and then old men, old women, and more children; and in less time than it takes to tell it we were surrounded by a crowd. My two friends, recognized as Granadines, succeeded in saving themselves; I was left in the lurch. I can still see those horrid faces, still hear those voices, and still feel the pressure of those hands: gesticulating, shouting, saying a thousand things which I did not understand; dragging at my coat, my waistcoat, and my sleeves, they pressed upon me like a pack of famished people, breathed in my face, and cut off my very breath. They were, for the most part, half naked and emaciated—their garments falling in tatters, with unkempt hair, horrible to see; I seemed to be like Don Roderick in the midst of a crowd of the infected in that famous dream of the August night.

"What do these people want?" I asked myself. "Where have I been brought? How shall I get out of this?" I felt almost a sense of fear, and looked around uneasily. Little by little I began to understand.

"I have a sore on my shoulder," said one; "I cannot work; give me a penny."

"I have a broken leg," said another.

"I have a palsied arm."

"I have had a long sickness."

"Un cuarto, Señorito!"

"Un real, caballero!"

"Una peseta para todos!"

This last request was received with a general cry of approval: "Una peseta para todos!" (a peseta for us all).

With some little trepidation I drew out my purse; they all stood on tiptoe; the nearest poked their chins into it; those behind put their chins on the heads of those in front; the farthest stretched out their arms.

"One moment," I cried. "Who has the most authority among you all?"

They all replied with one voice, stretching out their arms toward the same person, "That one."

It was a terrible old hag, all nose and chin, with a great tuft of white hair standing straight above her head like a bunch of feathers, and a mouth which seemed like a letter-box, with little clothing save a chemise—black, shrivelled, and mummified; she approached me bowing and smiling, and held out her hands to take mine.

"What do you want?" I demanded, taking a step backward.

"Your fortune," they all cried.

"Tell my fortune, then," I replied, holding out my hand.

The old woman took my poor hand between her ten—I cannot say fingers, but shapeless bones—placed her sharp nose on it, raised her head, looked hard at me, pointed her finger toward me, and, swaying and pausing at every sentence as if she were reciting poetry, said to me in inspired accents, "Thou wert born upon a famous day.

"Upon a famous day also shalt thou die.

"Thou art the possessor of amazing riches."

Here she muttered I know not what about sweethearts and marriage and felicity, from which I understood that she supposed I was married, and then she continued: "On the day of thy marriage there was great feasting in thy house; there were many to give and take.

"And another woman wept.

"And when thou seest her the wings of thy heart open."

And so on in this strain, saying that I had sweethearts and friends and treasures and jewels in store for me every day of the year, in every country of the world. While the old woman was speaking they were all silent, as if they believed she had prophesied truly. She finally closed her prophecy with a formula of dismissal, and ended the formula by extending her arms and making a skip in a dancing attitude. I gave her the peseta, and the crowd broke into shouting, applause, and singing, making a thousand uncanny hops and gestures around me, saluting me with nudges and slaps of the hand on my back, as if I were an old friend, until finally, by dint of wriggling and striking now one and then another, I succeeded in opening a passage and rejoined my friends. But a new danger threatened us. The news of the arrival of a foreigner had spread, the tribes were in motion, the city of the gypsies was all in an uproar; from the neighboring houses and from the distant huts, from the top of the hill and the bottom of the valley, ran boys, women with babies about their necks, old men with canes, cripples, and professional imposters, septuagenarian prophetesses who wished to tell my fortune—an army of beggars coming upon us from every direction. It was night; there was no time for hesitation; we broke into a run toward the city like school-boys. Then a devilish cry broke out behind us, and the nimblest began to chase us. Thanks to Heaven! after a short race we found ourselves in safety—tired and breathless, and covered with dust, but safe.

"It was necessary to escape at any cost," said Señor Melchiorre with a laugh; "otherwise we should have gone home without our shirts."

"And take notice," added Gongora, "that we have seen only the door of Gypsy-town, the civilized part, not the Paris nor the Madrid, but at least the Granada, of the Albaicin. If we could only have gone on! if you could have seen the rest!"

"But how many thousand are there of those people?" I demanded.

"No one knows."

"How do they live?"

"No one can imagine."

"What authority do they recognize?"

"One only—los reyes (the kings), the heads of families or of houses, those who have the most money and years. They never go out of their city; they know nothing, they live in the dark as to all that happens beyond the circle of their hovels. Dynasties fall, governments change, armies clash, and it is a miracle if the news ever reaches their ears. Ask them if Isabella is still on the throne; they do not know. Ask them who Amadeus is; they have never heard his name. They are born and perish like flies, and they live as they lived centuries ago, multiplying without leaving their own boundaries, ignorant and unknown, seeing nothing all their lives beyond the valleys lying below their feet and the Alhambra towering above their heads."

We passed again through all the streets that we had traversed, now dark and deserted, and endless as it seemed to me; and, climbing and descending, turning and twisting, and turning again, we finally arrived at the square of the Audiencia in the middle of the city of Granada—in the civilized world. At the sight of the brightly-lighted cafés and shops I experienced a feeling of pleasure, as if I had just returned to city-life after a year's sojourn in an uninhabited wilderness.

On the evening of the next day I left for Valencia. I remember that a few moments before starting, as I was paying my hotel-bill, I observed to the proprietor that there was an overcharge for one candle, and playfully asked him, "Will you deduct it for me?" The proprietor seized his pen, and, deducting twenty centimes from the total charge, replied in a voice which he wished to appear emotional, "The devil! among Italians!"