lmost every third person amongst them labours under some
mental peculiarity or defect. Their male youths enjoy greater latitude;
yet, on their alliance with the Philistine fair, they are usually looked
down upon, and regarded as a kind of amphibious race, who, like the
"Proselytes of the Gate" amongst the Jews, were not admitted into equal
communion. Their children are brought up (at least were so, till of
late) in the most religious contempt of the alphabet. Nor are any moral
principles inculcated, beyond successful thieving--that is, downright
knavery--and dexterity of execution as workmen, whether it be in forming
a ram's horn into a cutty spoon, or in appropriating the fattest hens
from the farmer's bauks. Their women, too, are expert fortunetellers,
and have husbands ready-made for sixpence. They are a fearful, fearless
race, wandering about, in former times, almost during the whole year,
and pitching their tents--in other words, setting their asses to graze,
and themselves to forage--wherever solitude or the tolerance of the
laird or farmer will permit their presence. When Scotland, in general,
and Dumfries-shire in particular, from Criffell to Corsincon, were
densely covered with natural wood, these people divided the woodland
with the fox, the boar, and the wolf, and were extremely expert in
noosing hares, rabbits, and polecats. Theirs was the bow, and ultimately
the long-barrelled gun, for securing the fowls of heaven; and the set
line, liester, and fishing-rod for the tenants of the water.

As was the case with the Roman of old--"_Patres ad insignem deformitatem
puerum cito necaverunt;_" in other words, and in a different tongue,
they put their diseased and deformed offspring to death; and more than
one-half of those which were permitted to survive were killed in a year
or two by harsh usage, cold, and imperfect clothing. Thus their youth
which did survive these manifold trials and risks rose up into man and
womanhood, proud, hardy, strong, well-seasoned plants, exhibiting much
muscular power and symmetry in the male, and occasionally uncommon
beauty and figure in the female form.

The "wild gazelle exulting" and bounding on the hills of Judah was not
more elastic in its motion, nor penetrating and fascinating in its
glance, than were many of the fairer wives and daughters of these hordes
of part mendicant, part predatory, and part artist wanderers. Their
chief resorts, in ancient times, were to the banks of t