Читать книгу Dissertation on the Gipseys - Heinrich Moritz Gottlieb Grellmann - Страница 7

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The Properties of their Bodies.

Had the Gipseys made but a temporary appearance, and we could only be acquainted with them from the publications of former centuries, it would be difficult to entertain any other idea than that they were a herd of monsters and beelzebubs. We find in those books frequent mention of a savage people, black horrid men. But now that they have continued to our time, and we have an opportunity of seeing, with our own eyes, how they are formed, and what appearance they make, they are so fortunate as to have authors who commend their beauty, and take great pains to set forth their advantages; though many, indeed most of the moderns, their colour and looks being the same, perfectly agree with the writers of past centuries, in their accounts of them. Both parties may be in the right, when we consider, that what appears beautiful in the eyes of one person, is possibly ugly and deformed in the eyes of another: this depends entirely upon habit and familiarity. For this reason, the dark brown, or olive coloured, skin of the Gipseys, with their white teeth appearing between their red lips, may be a disgusting sight to an European, unaccustomed to such objects. Let us only ask, As children, have we not, at some time or other, run affrighted from a Gipsey? The case will be entirely altered, if we divest ourselves of the idea that a black skin is disagreeable. Their white teeth; their long black hair, on which they pride themselves very highly, and will not suffer to be cut off; their lively black rolling eyes;—are, without dispute, properties which must be ranked among the list of beauties, even by the modern civilised European world. They are neither overgrown giants, nor diminutive dwarfs: their limbs are formed in the justest proportion. Large bellies are, among them, as uncommon as hump-backs, blindness, or other corporeal defects. When Grisellini asserts that the breasts of the Gipsey women, at the time of their nursing, increase to a larger size than the child they support, it is an assertion destitute of proof, and parallel with many other arguments he adduces to prove the Gipseys are Egyptians. Probably he may have confounded himself, by thinking of the Hottentots; the circumstance above mentioned being true of them, though not of the Gipseys. Every Gipsey is naturally endued with agility, great suppleness in, and the free use of, his limbs: these qualities are perceptible in his whole deportment, but in an extraordinary degree whenever he happens to be surprised in an improper place: in the act of thieving, with a stolen goose or fowl in his hand, he runs off so nimbly, that, unless his pursuer be on horseback, the Gipsey is sure to escape. These people are blessed with an astonishingly good state of health. Neither wet nor dry weather, heat nor cold, let the extremes follow each other never so quickly, seems to have any effect on them. Gipseys are fond of a great degree of heat; their supreme luxury is, to lie day and night so near the fire, as to be in danger of burning: at the same time they can bear to travel in the severest cold bareheaded, with no other covering than a torn shirt, or some old rags carelessly thrown over them, without fear of catching cold, cough, or any other disorder.

By endeavouring to discover the causes of these bodily qualities of the Gipseys, we find them, or at least some of them, very evidently arising from their education and manner of life. They are lean; but how should they be corpulent? as they are seldom guilty of excess in eating or drinking; for if they get a full meal to-day, they must not repine should they be under the necessity of keeping fast to-morrow and the next day. They have iron constitutions, because they have been brought up hardily. The pitiless mother takes her three-months-old child upon her back, and wanders about in fair or foul weather, in heat or cold, without troubling her head what may happen to it. When a boy attains the age of three years, his lot becomes still harder. While an infant, and his age reckoned by weeks and months, he was at least wrapped up closely in rags; but now, deprived even of these, he is, equally with his parents, exposed to the rigour of the elements, for want of covering: he is now put to trial how far his legs will carry him, and must be content to travel about, with, at most, no other defence for his feet than thin socks. Thus he grows up, and acquires his good health by hardship and misery. We may as easily account for the colour of the Gipsey’s skin. The Laplanders, Samoieds, as well as the Siberians, likewise, have brown yellow-coloured skins, in consequence of living, from their childhood, in smoke and dirt, in the same manner as the Gipseys: these would, long ago, have been divested of their swarthy complexions, if they had discontinued their filthy mode of living. Only observe a Gipsey from his birth, till he reaches man’s estate; and you must be convinced that their colour is not so much owing to their descent, as to the nastiness of their bodies. In summer, the child is exposed to the scorching sun; in winter, it is shut up in a smoky hut. It is not uncommon for mothers to smear their children over with a black ointment, and leave them to fry in the sun or near the fire. They seldom trouble themselves about washing, or other modes of cleaning themselves. Experience also shews us, that the dark colour of the Gipseys, which is continued from generation to generation, is more the effect of education, and manner of life, than descent. Among those who profess music in Hungary, or serve in the Imperial army, where they have learnt to pay more attention to order and cleanliness, there are many to be found whose extraction is not at all discernible in their colour; though they had, probably, remained to the age of twelve or fourteen years under the care of their filthy parents; and must necessarily, when they first adopted a different mode of life, have borne the marks of the dirt contracted during this period. How much less, then, should we be able to distinguish a Gipsey if taken when a child from its sluttish mother, and brought up under some cleanly person! By the same reasoning we may account for their white teeth and sound limbs; namely, from their manner of life. The former are evidences of their spare diet: the latter prove them to have been reared more according to the dictates of nature, than those of art and tenderness.