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International Business

This is the third edition of the widely respected text International Business, which offers
a comprehensive yet critical overview of the phenomenon of globalisation and its impacts
on key aspects of the business environment as it fundamentally alters corporate strategy.
This updated edition covers the core international business topics and themes, including
multinationals, internationalisation, and international market entry, as well as a new focus
on risk, business models, and hyperglobalisation. With dedicated chapters on the role
of non-market actors in international business, the book provides a multi-disciplinary
worldview for readers.
Featuring a wealth of case studies and pedagogy, the new edition examines the rise
of India and China as well as growing levels of risk within the global system. The book
looks at those developed economies which have been the core drivers behind the trend
towards hyperglobalisation. The author explores and guides students through what this
means for the study of international business.
A comprehensive and engaging text, supplemented by online resources, this book is
the ideal accompaniment to international and global business learning.

Colin Turner is Senior Lecturer in Management at Heriot-Watt University, UK

International Business
Themes and Issues in the Modern
Global Economy
THIRD EDITION

Colin Turner
Designed cover image: shaunl
Third edition published 2024
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2024 Colin Turner
The right of Colin Turner to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with
sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by
any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying
and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are
used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
First edition published by Routledge 2003
Second edition published by Routledge 2010
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-138-73568-2 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-73882-9 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-18450-0 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781315184500
Typeset in Berling-Roman
by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India
Access the Support Material: www​.routledge​.com ​/9781138738829
CONTENTS

List of case studies vii

List of boxes ix
List of figures xi
List of tables xiii
Preface xv
Abbreviations xix

Part I: The strategic context of the shifting international

business environment 1
1 Globalisation and the changing business environment 3

2 International corporate strategy in global markets 38

3 State strategy and competitiveness 63

4 Governance issues in an integrating world economy 84

5 Regional integration and globalisation 107

Part II: Global market opportunities and risks 143

6 Developed economies: The rising risks facing the world’s most
advanced economies 145

7 Emerging economies: The major beneficiaries of globalisation 168

8 Development and international production 191


vi Contents

Part III: The multinational firm 219

9 Market selection and entry 221

10 Multinational enterprises 240

11 The internationalisation of small and medium-sized

enterprises (SMEs) 266

12 Culture and international business 294

Part IV: International business and civil society issues 319

13 Corporate social responsibility and ethics 321

14 Labour issues in the global economy 343

15 The Environment: Greening international business 370

Part V: International business resource issues 393

16 The international monetary system and global financial
integration 395

17 Global infrastructure 423

18 The global information economy and digital globalisation 447

19 Natural resources and international business:

the food-water-energy nexus 469

20 The evolving international environment 492

Index 501
CASE STUDIES

1.1 The US Inflation Reduction Act: an emerging US-EU trade dispute? 29

1.2 The 2011 floods in Thailand and the impact on global supply chains. 32
2.1 Swiss chocolate 41
2.2 Apple, Foxconn, and manufacturing strategy 48
3.1 Dubai world and the US ports 65
3.2 Saudi Arabia and the Saudi Vision 2030 71
3.3 Djibouti – taking advantage of strategic position 80
4.1 China and market economy status 86
4.2 The neutering of the WTO – the US and the dispute settlement mechanism 97
5.1 Brexit: the UK’s departure from the European Union 122
5.2 The US–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA) 137
5.3 The regional MNC 138
6.1 What happened to Japan? 149
6.2 The euro crisis 155
6.3 The turnaround at Ford 161
7.1 The rise of Chinese MNEs 174
7.2 Indian conglomerates 178
8.1 Marketing gardening in Kenya 198
8.2 The Maquiladora: export-driven manufacturing in Mexico 205
9.1 McDonald’s global expansion 230
10.1 Siemens 245
10.2 The international strategy of Samsung 249
10.3 The turnaround at Ford 262
11.1 China’s Internet startups 276


viii Case studies

12.1 Guanxi: an essential tool for doing business in China or an

outdated concept? 297
12.2 The US as a cultural superpower 308
13.1 Lava Jato (car wash) scandal Brazil 322
13.2 Rio Tinto and the destruction of Aboriginal caves 334
14.1 The use of penal labour in the US 351
14.2 GoodWeave 355
15.1 Climate change and trade 375
16.1 Chinese shadow banking 407
16.2 The Tobin tax 419
17.1 Geostrategic significance of the Gwadar port 431
17.2 The East African energy pipeline 442
18.1 The international expansion of Spotify 461
19.1 Resource nationalism 488
BOXES

1.1 The butterfly defect 12

1.2 The deglobalisation imperative 17
2.1 The future of the Airbus A380 52
4.1 The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) 93
4.2 IMF and COVID-19 103
5.1 Levels of regional integration 108
5.2 The ASEAN way 128
5.3 The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) 133
7.1 Geopolitical rivals: China and India 183
7.2 What went wrong with Brazil? 187
8.1 Categorisation of countries according to their level of development 192
8.2 Rostow’s five stages of growth 208
8.3 The Washington Consensus 209
9.1 Nation branding for competitive advantage 236
10.1 Perlmutter’s classifications of MNEs 252
10.2 The end of the global company 258
11.1 Senior entrepreneurship 290
12.1 Western state culture wars 305
13.1 The problem of greenwashing 327
13.2 The anti-ESG movement 336
13.3 The ten principles of the Global Compact 340
14.1 The International Labour Organisation (ILO) 364
15.1 The Paris Agreement 380
15.2 Key principles of contemporary environmental policy 383


x Boxes

15.3 The environmental dimension of WTO instruments 386

16.1 The emergent Beijing Consensus 402
17.1 The vulnerability of the global infrastructure system:
the case of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano 427
17.2 China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) strategy 428
19.1 Global pandemics and food security 476
19.2 China’s water security issues 481
FIGURES

1.1 The globalisation/fragmentation continuum 14

1.2 Pressures and opportunities from globalisation shaping the
operating environment of the firm 31
2.1 Integration-responsiveness framework 46
2.2 The configuration/coordination matrix 57
3.1 Porter’s Diamond 76
5.1 RTAs in force: participation by region 112
7.1 Foreign direct investment flows in China and India 1990–2021 171
8.1 Commodity price trends (UNCTAD Commodity Price Index (2015) 197
9.1 Types of entry modes 227
11.1 Knowledge and the internationalisation process 270
12.1 Determinants of and expression of culture 300
13.1 Retail value of Fairtrade products by country 2007 and 2017 326
13.2 Typical stakeholders in a firm 330
14.1 Distribution of migrant workers by sub-region (2019) 345
14.2 Share of international migrants by income level, 2019 346
14.3 International stock of migrants by region 346
15.1 Environmental Kuznets Curve 374
15.2 Pollution havens and halo effects 378
15.3 The Porter hypothesis 390
17.1 Trends in ocean trade 431
17.2 Container port throughput, annual 435
17.3 World seaborne trade by types of cargo and by group of
economies, annual  435


xii Figures

17.4 International aviation air passenger numbers 436

17.5 International trade in gas by pipeline and LNG 2011–2021 440
18.1 Channels through which ICT contributes to productivity growth 450
18.2 Internet connectivity and adoption gaps (by region) 467
19.1 The food-water-energy nexus 470
19.2 Global trade in all foods (1995–2001) 472
19.3 Levels of water stress: freshwater withdrawal as a proportion of freshwater
resources478
19.4 Annual freshwater withdrawals (per cent of internal resources) 483
19.5 Energy transitions since 1800 484
19.6 The energy trilemma 485
19.7 Share of renewable energy generation 486
TABLES

1.1 Ranking of countries and companies by GDP and market

capitalisation ($ bn) 16
1.2 Share of world GDP, exports of goods and services, and
population in 2023 (%) 19
1.3 Changing regional composition of merchandise trade exports (%),
1948–201721
1.4 Changing regional composition of commercial services exports (%),
1980–202222
1.5 FDI by type of economy, 1970–2021 24
1.6 Distribution of FDI inflows among developing countries, 2022 25
2.1 Corporate value and the global economy 40
3.1 WEF pillars of competitiveness 74
3.2 The top/bottom 10 most and least competitive states (2019)
(rank out of 141) 75
6.1 Advanced economies (figures in brackets are the placing in UN’s Human
Development Index) 147
7.1 The changing comparative economic structures of the US, EU, India,
and China 170
7.2 Comparison of China and India 172
7.3 The top Chinese MNEs 175
8.1 LDCs real GDP growth rates per capita, 1992–2021 (annual average
growth rates, %) 194
8.2 Growth in real GNP per capita in the main economic regions of Africa 196
10.1 Top 20 non-financial MNEs ranked by foreign assets 241
10.2 Host country determinants of FDI 244
11.1 The distribution of SMEs 267


xiv Tables

11.2 Contributors to the internationalisation of SMEs 272

11.3 Types of Internationalisation for SMEs 273
11.4 The main barriers to SME internationalisation 281
11.5 A framework for entrepreneurship 287
11.6 Components of infrastructural ecosystem 289
13.1 2022 corruption perceptions index for selected countries: top
and bottom ten countries (out of 180 countries) 332
16.1 The risks of neo-liberal financial integration 404
17.1 Maritime bottlenecks in global logistics 434
17.2 The top global hubs (by seats – both domestic and international) (2023) 437
17.3 Spatial disparity of hydrocarbon production and consumption 438
18.1 Development differentials in the information economy (by region) 466
Another Random Scribd Document
with Unrelated Content
 Angel. The King he turneth deadly pale,
And feels his strength about to fail.

King. Lord, mercif’ly my life prolong,

Thus wofully not let me die;
Hast plenty poor to choose among.

Death. More than I list of poor I have;

But rich men also do I crave
My ranks to ornament,
As bishops, princes, mighty kings—
These fill me with content.

King. Great is thy power—

Angel. The King did say,

Out-stretched as on his bed he lay—

King. O Death, unto thy power I bow;

But still one hope I cherish yet,
A favor last grant to me now.

Death. Then speak—

Angel. Said Death unto the King—

Death. Let’s hear what is this mighty thing.

King. But twelve years longer let me live;

Twelve thousand pounds of heaviest gold
In payment to thee will I give.

Death. For all thy gold I little care;

Do thou at once for death prepare.
’Tis vain to pray, ’tis vain to grieve;
Come in my ranks, for thou art mine—
Thy gold behind to others leave.
 King. But give to me—

Angel. The King did say—

King. But half a year and yet a day;

I fain would build a castle new
Of massive stone, with lofty tower,
From which my kingdom I may view.

Death. Leave those to build who list to build;

For thee thy span of life is filled.
Come in my ranks and tarry not,
We must to-day a measure tread;
’Twill cause thee small delight, I wot.

King. Yet will I yet for something pray;

This only wish do not gainsay:
If only thou wiltst let me live,
A beggar humble will I be;
My royal crown to thee I give.

Death. O King, why useless words thus waste?

Prepare to go, and make thee haste,
Nor seek me idly to detain;
Still many thousand men must I
To-day invite to join my train.

King. Oh, hurry not—

Angel. The King did say—

King. But grant me yet another day.

To make my will still let me bide;
My silver, gold, and jewels rare,
I fain would righteously divide.

Angel But Death then spoke

 Angel. But Death then spoke.

Death. It cannot be;

Conform must thou to my decree.
Prepare to start without reprieve;
Thy silver, gold, and jewels rare,
Must be content behind to leave.

King. Then is it all in vain I pray?

Death. Lament and prayer all useless be.

King. Shall I not see another day?

Death. Not one. To judgment come with me.

King. Oh, grant me but one little hour!

Death. To grant aught is not in my power.

King. Have patience but three words to hear.

Death. Patience ’s an herb[62] which grows not here.

Angel. The King upon his couch down sinks:

His haughty form all helpless shrinks;
To ashy white has turned his lip.
Both rich and poor the strangler thus
With iron hand alike doth grip.
Thus stealthy Death will oft appear,
When no one deems that he is near,
With deadly aim to shoot his dart.
So live in God, his laws observe,
That mayst in peace depart.

[The King sinks down lifeless, and Death disappears. The soldiers
raise up the dead body and lay it on a bier, singing—
 Soldiers. Why value crown or power,
Since neither can we own
But for a passing hour?
No sceptre and no throne
Grim Death away can scare,
Nor gold nor jewels rare.

Angel [reappearing]. By Providence as herald sent,

Touched by the sound of dire lament;
The monarch to his land restore
Will I, in pity for your grief.
King, for thy kingdom live once more.

[The Angel touches the King’s breast, who, waking apparently from a
deep slumber, sits up and sings—

King. How is’t I feel? and can it be

That once again the earth I see?
What miracle of grace!
Who art thou, Lord? I knew thee not;
Deign to reveal thy face.

Angel. The Lord who sent me to this land,

He is a Lord of mighty hand.
He gives, he taketh life,
As thou hast seen, O King, this day;
To do his will must strive alway.

[The King, now standing up, takes the crown from his head, and
accompanied by the chorus, sings—
 King. Lord of the world, the crown is thine,
Who rulest us with power divine.
Oh, what is man! He is but dust,
And fall a prey to death he must.
Let none be proud of lofty rank,
For ’tis indeed but idle prank.
Guide thou us, Lord, upon our way;
Our souls receive in grace some day.

Grimm is of opinion that this drama is also allegorical of the triumph

of spring over winter, which opinion he chiefly supports by the
incident of the King’s resurrection, and of the allusion to the garden.
This view has, however, been strongly combated by other
authorities, who remind us that in many old pictures Death is often
represented as a gardener, and armed with bow and arrows.

“Herodes” is the name of a Christmas drama acted by the

Transylvanian Saxons; but as, though undoubtedly ancient, it is
totally wanting in humor and originality, I do not here reproduce it.
Most probably such qualities as this drama may once have possessed
have been pruned away by the over-vigorous knife of some ruthless
reformer.
The Song of the Three Kings, beginning,

“Through storm and wind, through weather wild,

We come to seek the new-born child,”

is sung by little boys, who at Christmas-time go about from house to

house with tinsel crowns on their heads, one of them having his face
blackened to represent the negro king, and who expect a few coins
and some victuals as reward for their performance.
At Hermanstadt these three kings threatened to become somewhat
of a nuisance in Christmas-week, there being several sets of them
who were continually walking uninvited into our rooms. At last one
day when we had already received the visit of several such royal
parties, our footman opened the door and inquired in a tone of mild
exasperation, “Please, madam, the holy three kings are there again;
had I not better kick them down-stairs?”
 CHAPTER XXXI.

BURIED TREASURES.

Few things possess such powerful attraction as the thought of buried

treasures which may be lying unsuspected around us. To think that
the golden buttercups which dot a meadow are, perchance, but the
reflections of other golden pieces lying beneath the surface; to
suppose the crumbling gray walls of some ancient tower to be the
dingy casket enshrouding priceless gems, there secreted by long-
vanished hands—is surely enough to set imagination on fire, and
engender the wild, delirious hope that to you alone, favored among
ten thousand other mortals who have passed by the spot
unknowing, may be destined the triumph of finding that golden key.
Vain and futile as such researches mostly are, yet they have in
Transylvania a somewhat greater semblance of reason than in most
other countries, for nowhere else, perhaps, have so many successive
nations been forced to secrete their riches in flying from an enemy,
to say nothing of the numerous, yet undiscovered, veins of gold and
silver which must be seaming the country in all directions. Not a year
passes without bringing to light some earthen jar containing old
Dacian coins, or golden ornaments of Roman origin—which
discoveries all serve to feed and keep up the national superstitions
connected with treasures and treasure-finders.
The night of St. George, the 24th of April (corresponding to our 6th
of May), is of all others the most favorable in the year for such
researches, and many Roumanian peasants spend these hours in
wandering about the hills, trying to probe the earth for the gold it
contains; for in this night (so say the legends) all these treasures
begin to burn, or, to speak in technical, mystic language, “to bloom,”
in the bosom of the earth, and the light they give forth, described as
a bluish flame, resembling the color of burning spirits of wine, serves
to guide favored mortals to their place of concealment.
The conditions to the successful raising of a treasure are manifold
and difficult of accomplishment. In the first place, it is by no means
easy for a common mortal who has not been born on a Sunday, nor
even at mid-day when the bells are ringing, to hit upon a treasure at
all. If he does, however, chance to catch sight of a flame such as I
have described, he must quickly pierce through the swaddling rags
of his right foot with a knife, and then throw it in the direction of the
flame seen. If two people are together during this discovery, they
must on no account break silence till the treasure is raised; neither is
it allowed to fill up the hole from which anything has been taken, for
that would entail the death of one of the finders. Another important
feature to be noted is that the lights seen before midnight on St.
George’s Day denote treasures kept by good spirits, while those
which appear at a later hour are unquestionably of a pernicious
nature.
For the comfort of less favored mortals who do not happen to have
been born either on a Sunday nor to the sound of bells, I must here
mention that these deficiencies may to some extent be condoned for
and the mental vision sharpened by the consumption of mouldy
bread; so that whoever has, during the preceding year, been careful
to feed upon decayed loaves only, may (if he survive this trying diet)
become the fortunate discoverer of hidden treasures.
Sometimes the power of finding a particular treasure is supposed
only to be possessed by members of some particular family. A
curious instance of this was lately recorded in Roumania, relating to
an old ruined convent, where, according to a popular legend, a large
sum of gold is concealed. A deputation of peasants, at considerable
trouble and expense, found out the last surviving member of the
family supposed to possess the mystic power, and offered him
unconditionally a very handsome sum merely for the benefit of his
personal attendance on the spot. The gentleman in question being
old, and probably sceptical, declined the offer, to the peasants’ great
disappointment.
There is hardly a ruin, mountain, or forest in Transylvania which has
not got some legend of a hidden treasure attached to it. These are
often supposed to be guarded by some animal, as a serpent, turkey,
dog, or pig; or sometimes the devil himself, in the shape of a black
buffalo, haunts the place at night and carries off those who attempt
to raise the treasure. Out of the many such tales there afloat I shall
here quote only a few, which have been collected and written down
from the words of old villagers in different places:

THE TREASURE OF DARIUS

is one of the principal treasures supposed to be somewhere
concealed on Transylvanian ground. It is said to be of immense
value, and is believed to have been secreted when the Persian king
was compelled to fly before the Scythian forces; but opinions are
divided as to the exact locality where it lies. One version, which
places the treasure in a forest in the neighborhood of Hamlesch,
relates of it that fifty years ago a poor German workman, sleeping in
the forest one night, discovered the treasure, and being versed in
the formalities to be observed on such occasions, laid upon it some
article of clothing marked with his name in token of taking
possession. Then, as he did not trust the country people, he went
off to Germany to fetch his relations to assist him in raising the
treasure. But, hardly arrived at his house, he fell ill and died; and
though on his death-bed he exactly described the place where he
had seen the gold, and gave directions for finding it, his relations
were never able to hit upon the place.
Another story declares the treasure to have been hidden in the
Sacsorer Burg, an old ruined fortress, where some centuries ago it
was discovered by six Hungarian burghers, who swore to keep the
secret among themselves; and once in each year they went and
carried off a sack of gold and silver pieces, which they divided. Only
after five of them had died did the last survivor in his testament
leave directions how to reach the place. To approach the treasure
(so runs the legend), one must pass through a strong iron door lying
towards the west. This door can be opened from the outside, but
whoever is not in possession of the secret is sure to fall down
through a trap-door into a terrible abyss, where he will be cut to
pieces by a thousand swords set in motion by machinery; therefore
it is necessary to bridge over the trap-door with several stout planks
before entering. After this a second iron door is reached, in front of
which are lying two life-sized lions of massive silver. This second
door leads into a large hall, where round a long table are sitting the
figures of King Darius, and of twelve other kings whom he had
vanquished in battle. King Darius himself, who sits at the head of the
table, is formed of purest gold, while the other monarchs, six on
either side, are of silver. This hall leads into a cellar, where are
ranged twenty-four barrels bound with hoops of silver; half of these
barrels contain gold, the other half silver pieces.
It is likewise asserted that towards the end of the last century a
Wallachian hermit was known to reside in those same ruins, in
whose possession were often seen gold and silver coins stamped
with the image of King Darius, but that when questioned on the
subject he would never reveal how he had come by them.
Finally, it is said that within the memory of people still living there
came hither from Switzerland three men with an ancient parchment
document, out of which they professed to have deciphered the
directions for finding the treasure of Darius, but after spending
several days in digging about the place they had to go empty-
handed away.

After writing those lines I have unexpectedly come across a new

version of the treasure of Darius, as I read in a current newspaper,
dated November 24, 1886, that only a few weeks ago an old
Roumanian peasant woman formally applied to the Government at
Klausenburg for leave to dig for the treasure of Darius, which, as a
sorcerer had revealed to her, lay buried at Hideg Szamos.
The directions she had received were to dig, at the spot indicated,
as deep as the height of the Klausenburg church steeple, when
stone steps and an iron door would be disclosed. The latter can be
opened by a blow from an axe which had been dipped in holy-water.
A large stone vault with twelve more iron doors will then appear.
Twelve golden keys hang on the wall, and each door being opened
will lead to a chamber filled to overflowing with solid gold-pieces.
Three people only were permitted to dig simultaneously for the
treasure, the sorcerer himself disinterestedly disclaiming any part in
the matter, as he professes to have renounced all earthly goods.
The prosaic Klausenburg officials could not, however, be induced to
share the woman’s enthusiasm, and tried to convince her of the folly
of such search; but all in vain, for, dispensing with the permission
she had failed to obtain, she has now engaged three day-laborers,
who since the 15th of November, 1886, are said to be engaged on
this stupendous task.
Perhaps we shall some day hear the result of their labors.

THE TREASURE OF DECEBALUS

is also among those to which Transylvania lays claim. When Trajan
went forth for the second time against the Dacian king, Decebalus,
vanquished in the fight near his capital, Zarmiszegthusa, retired to a
stronghold in the mountains, where he was again pursued by the
conqueror, and, after a second defeat, perished by his own hand, in
order to escape the ignominy of captivity. But before these reverses
Decebalus had taken care to secure his immense riches. For this
purpose he caused the river Sargetia,[63] which flowed past his
residence, to be diverted from its course at great toil and expense;
in the dry river-bed strong vaulted cellars were constructed, in which
all the gold, silver, and precious stones were stowed away, the whole
being then covered up with earth and gravel, and the river brought
back to its original course.
The work had been executed by prisoners, who were all either
massacred or deprived of their eyesight to avoid betrayal. But a
confidant of the Dacian king, Bicilis, or Biculus, who afterwards fell
into Roman captivity, revealed to the Emperor what he knew of it,
and Trajan thus succeeded in appropriating a considerable portion of
the secreted treasure, but not the whole, it is said.
In the year 1543 some Wallachian fishermen, when mooring their
boat on the banks of the river Strell, became aware of something
shining in the water at the place where a tree had lately been
uprooted. Pursuing the search, they brought to light more than forty
thousand gold-pieces, each of them as heavy as three ducats, and
stamped with the image of King Decebalus on one side, and that of
the Goddess of Victory on the other. This treasure was delivered up
to the monk Martinuzzi, the counsellor of Queen Isabella, and the
most powerful man in Transylvania of that time. Part of the money
was sent to the Roman emperor, Ferdinand I.; but many people
declare the treasure of Decebalus not to be exhausted even now,
and prophesy that we have not yet heard the last of it.

THE TREASURE ON THE KOND.

The Kond is a gloomy wooded plain near to the town of Regen.
Great riches are said to be here concealed, but they are difficult to
obtain, for the place is haunted by coal-black buffaloes, which may
be seen running backward and forward at night, especially about the
time of St. George and St. Thomas. A citizen named Simon Hill, who
once caught sight of the subterraneous fire, marked the place,
resolving to raise the treasure the following night. But distrusting his
own strength and courage, he confided his purpose to a neighbor
called Martin Rosenau, asking him to come to the place that night at
twelve o’clock.
This neighbor, however, was faithless, being one of those who pray
against the Catechism; so he resolved to cheat his friend. Instead,
therefore, of waking his neighbor, as had been agreed, at ten
o’clock, he repaired alone to the spot, where, digging, he found
nothing but a horse’s skull filled with dead frogs. Full of anger at his
bad-luck, he took the skull and flung it along with the frogs in at the
open window of his sleeping friend. But what was the surprise of this
latter when, waking in the morning, he found the whole room strewn
with golden ducats, and in the midst the horse’s skull, likewise half
full of gold. Happy beyond measure, Simon Hill ran to his neighbor
to tell him the joyful news how God had sent him the gold in his
sleep; but the faithless Martin, on hearing the tale, was so seized
with grief and anger that a stroke of apoplexy put an end to his life.

GOLD-DUST.
An old man at Nadesch relates how in his youth he missed a chance
of becoming a rich man for life. Going once to the forest, he saw on
the steep bank near a stream the handle of some sort of earthen-
ware jar peeping out of the soil. Curious to investigate it, he climbed
up the steep bank; but hardly had he seized the handle and drawn
the heavy jar out of the earth, when, the ground giving way under
his feet, he rolled to the bottom of the incline still holding the jar in
his hand. But finding that it contained nothing but a dull yellow dust,
which had partly been spilled in falling, he threw it as worthless into
the stream. Often in later days did he regret this rash act, for, as he
was told by others, this yellow powder could have been nothing else
but gold-dust.
Other ancient vessels which have been sometimes discovered filled
with ashes[64] are believed by the people to have contained golden
treasures, thus changed by the devil to ashes.
There is a plant which is believed by both Saxons and Roumanians
to possess the virtue of opening every lock and breaking iron fetters,
as well as helping to the discovery of hidden treasures. The
Roumanians call it jarbe cherului (iron grass or herb), and it is only
efficacious when it has sprouted at the spot where a rainbow has
touched the earth. The rainbow is the bridge on which the angels go
backward and forward between earth and heaven, and the flower
grows there where an angel has dropped his golden key of Paradise
on to the earth. The Germans call the flower schlüssel blume (key-
flower), and it may be recognized by having a heart-shaped leaf on
which is a spot like a drop of gold or blood. There are several places
in Transylvania where the plant is supposed to grow, but he who
walks over it unheeding will be sure to lose his way. In order to find
it, it is recommended to go out at daybreak and creep on all fours
over the grass. Who finds it should cut open the ball of his left hand
and let the leaf grow into the wound; he will then have power to
break fetters and open locks. The celebrated robber F—— is said to
have been in possession of such a leaf, till the police destroyed his
powers by cutting it out of his hand. Horses whose fore-legs are
tethered together by chains are sometimes set free when they
happen to tread on the jarbe cherului; and in the village of Heltau a
Saxon peasant once hit upon the device of putting his wife in chains
and thus driving her over the fields, expecting to find the flower
where the fetters should fall off.
Whoever sells land in certain parts of the country where gold is
supposed to be buried is always careful to indorse the reservation of
eventual treasures to be found on the spot.
But the people say that it is rarely good to seek for hidden treasures,
for much of the gold buried in the country has been secured by a
heavy curse, so that he who raises it will be pursued by illness or
misfortune to himself and his family, unless he is descended in direct
line from the man who buried the treasure. Only such treasures as
lie above-ground exposed to the light of day may be appropriated
without misgiving. Many men have lost their reason, or have become
crippled or blind, but few indeed were ever made happy by gold dug
out of the earth.
 CHAPTER XXXII.

THE TZIGANES: LISZT AND LENAU.

Among the many writers who have made of this singular race their
special study, none, to my thinking, has succeeded in understanding
them so perfectly as Liszt. Other authors have analyzed and
described the gypsies with scientific accuracy, but their opinions are
mostly tinged by prejudice or enthusiasm; for while Grellman
approaches the subject with evident repugnance, like a naturalist
dissecting some nauseous reptile in the interest of science, Borrow,
on the contrary, idealizes his figures almost beyond recognition.
Perhaps it needed a Hungarian to do justice to this subject, for the
Hungarian is the only man who, to some extent, is united by
sympathetic bonds to the Tzigane; he alone has succeeded in
identifying himself with the gypsy mind, and comprehending all the
strange contradictions of this living paradox.
I cannot, therefore, do better than quote (in somewhat free
translation) some passages from Liszt’s valuable work on gypsy
music, which, far more vividly than any words of mine, will serve to
sketch the portrait of the Hungarian Tzigane.
“There started up one day betwixt the European nations an
unknown tribe, a strange people of whom none was able to say who
they were nor whence they had come. They spread themselves over
our continent, manifesting, however, neither desire of conquest nor
ambition to acquire the right of a fixed domicile; not attempting to
lay claim to so much as an inch of land, but not suffering themselves
to be deprived of a single hour of their time: not caring to command,
they neither chose to obey. They had nothing to give of their own,
and were content to owe nothing to others. They never spoke of
their native land, and gave no clew as to from which Asiatic or
African plains they had wandered, nor what troubles or persecutions
had necessitated their expatriation. Strangers alike to memory as to
hope, they kept aloof from the benefits of colonization; and too
proud of their melancholy race to suffer admixture with other
nations, they lived on, satisfied with the rejection of every foreign
element. Deriving no advantage from the Christian civilization
around them, they regarded with equal repugnance every other form
of religion.
“This singular race, so strange as to resemble no other—possessing
neither country, history, religion, nor any sort of codex—seems only
to continue to exist because it does not choose to cease to be, and
only cares to exist such as it has always been.

GYPSY TYPE.
“Instruction, authority, persuasion, and persecution have alike been
powerless to reform, modify, or exterminate the gypsies. Broken up
into wandering tribes and hordes, roving hither and thither as
chance or fancy directs, without means of communication, and
mostly ignoring one another’s existence, they nevertheless betray
their common relationship by unmistakable signs—the self-same
type of feature, the same language, the identical habits and
customs.
“With a senseless or sublime contempt for whatever binds or
hampers, the Tziganes ask nothing from the earth but life, and
preserve their individuality from constant intercourse with nature, as
well as by absolute indifference to all those not belonging to their
race, with whom they commune only as far as requisite for obtaining
the common necessities of life.
“Like the Jews they have natural taste and ability for fraud; but,
unlike them, it is without systematic hatred or malice. Hatred and
revenge are with them only personal and accidental feelings, never
premeditated ones. Harmless when their immediate wants are
satisfied, they are incapable of preconceived intention of injuring,
only wishing to preserve a freedom akin to that of the wild horse of
the plains, and not comprehending how any one can prefer a roof,
be it ever so fine, to the shelter of the forest canopy.
“Authority, rules, laws, principles, duties, and obligations are alike
incomprehensible ideas to this singular race—partly from indolence
of spirit, partly from indifference to the evils engendered by their
irregular mode of life.
“Such only as it is, the Tzigane loves his life, and would exchange it
for no other. He loves his life when slumbering in a copse of young
birch-trees: he fancies himself surrounded by a group of slender
maidens, their long floating hair bestrewed with shining sapphire
stones, their graceful figures swayed by the breeze into voluptuous
and coquettish gestures, as though each were trembling and thrilling
under the kiss of an invisible lover. The Tzigane loves his life when
for hours together his eyes idly follow the geometrical figures
described in the sky overhead by the strategical evolutions of a flight
of rooks; when he gauges his cunning against that of the wary
bustard, or overcomes the silvery trout in a trial of lightning-like
agility. He loves his life when, shaking the wild crab-apple-tree, he
causes a hail-storm of ruddy fruit to come pouring down upon him;
when he picks the unripe berries from off a thorny branch, leaving
the sandy earth flecked with drops of gory red, like a deserted
battle-field; when bending over a murmuring woodland spring,
whose grateful coolness refreshes his parched throat as its gurgling
music delights his ear; when he hears the woodpecker tapping a
hollow stem, or can distinguish the faint sound of a distant mill-
wheel. He loves his life when, gazing on the gray-green waters of
some lonely mountain lake, its surface spellbound in the dawning
presentiment of approaching frost, he lets his vagrant fancy float
hither and thither unchecked; when reclining high up on the branch
of some lofty forest-tree, hammock-like he is rocked to and fro, while
each leaf around him seems quivering with ecstasy at the song of
the nightingale. He loves his life when, out of the myriads of ever-
twinkling stars in the illimitable space overhead, he chooses out one
to be his own particular sweetheart; when he falls in love, to-day
with a gorgeous lilac-bush of overwhelming perfume, to-morrow
with a slender hawthorn or graceful eglantine, to be as quickly
forgotten at sight of a brilliant peacock-feather, with which, as with a
victorious war-trophy, he adorns his cap; when he sits by the
smouldering camp-fire under ancient oaks or massive beeches;
when, lying awake at night, he hears the call of the stag and the
lowing of the respondent doe; when he has no other society but the
forest animals, with whom he forms friendships and enmities—
caressing or tormenting them, depriving them of liberty or setting
them free, revelling in the treasures of Nature like a wanton child
despoiling his parent’s riches, but well knowing their wealth to be
inexhaustible.
“What he calls life is to inhale the breath of Nature with every pore
of his body; to surfeit his eye with all her forms and colors; with his
ear greedily to absorb all her chords and harmonics. Life for him is
to multiply the possession of all these things by the kaleidoscopic
and phantasmagorial effects of alcohol, then to sing and play, shout,
laugh, and dance, till utter exhaustion.
“Having neither Bible nor Gospels to go by, the Tziganes do not see
the necessity of fatiguing their brain by the contemplation of
abstract ideas; and obeying their instincts only, their intelligence
naturally grows rusty. Conscious of their harmlessness they bask in
the rays of the sun, content in the satisfaction of a few primitive and
elementary passions—the sans-gêne of their soul fettered by no
conventional virtues.
“What strength of indolence! what utter want of all social instinct
must these people possess in order to live as they have done for
centuries, like that strange plant, native of the sandy desert, so aptly
termed the wind’s bride, which, by nature devoid of root, and blown
from side to side by every breeze, yet bears flower and fruit
wherever it goes, continuing to put out shoots under the most
unlikely conditions!
“And whenever the Tziganes have endeavored to bring themselves
to a settled mode of life and to adopt domestic habits, have they not
invariably sooner or later returned to their hard couch on the cold
ground, to their miserable rags, to their rough comrades, and the
brown beauty of their women?—to the sombre shades of the virgin
forests, to the murmur of unknown fountains, to their glowing camp-
fires and their improvised concerts under a starlit sky?—to their
intoxicating dances in the lighting of a forest glade, to the merry
knavery of their thievish pranks—in a word, to the hundred
excitements they cannot do without?
“Nature, when once indulged in to the extent of becoming a
necessity, becomes tyrannical like any other passion; and the charms
of such an existence can neither be explained nor coldly analyzed—
only he who has tasted of them can value their power aright. He
must needs have slumbered often beneath the canopy of the starry
heavens; have been oft awakened by the darts of the rising sun
shooting like fiery arrows between his eyelids; have felt, without
horror, the glossy serpent coil itself caressingly round a naked limb;
must have spent full many a long summer day reclining immovable
on the sward, overlapped by billowy waves of flowery grasses which
have never felt the mower’s scythe; he must often have listened to
the rich orchestral effects and tempestuous melodies which the
hurricane loves to draw from vibrating pine-stems, or slender
quaking reeds; he must be able to recognize each tree by its
perfume, be initiated into all the varied languages of the feathered
tribes, of merry finches, and of chattering grasshoppers; full often
must he have ridden at close of day over the barren wold, when the
rays of the setting sun cast a golden glamour over the atmosphere,
and all around is plunged in a bath of living fire; he must have
watched the red-hot moon rise out of the sable night over lonely
plains whence all life seems to have fled away; he must, in short,
have lived like the Tzigane in order to comprehend that it is
impossible to exist without the balmy perfumes exhaled by the
forests; that one cannot find rest within stone-built prisons; that a
breast accustomed to draw full draughts of the purest ozone feels
weighed down and crushed beneath a sheltering roof; that the eye
which has daily looked on the rising sun breaking out through pearly
clouds must weep, forsooth, when met on all sides by dull, opaque
walls; that the ear hungers when deprived of the loud modulations,
of the exquisite harmonies, of which the mountain breeze alone has
the secret.
“What have our cities to offer to senses surfeited with such ever-
varied effects and emotions? What in such eyes can ever equal the
bloody drama of a dying sun? What can rival in voluptuous
sweetness the rosy halo of early dawn? What other voice can equal
in majesty the thunder-roll of a midsummer storm, to which the
woodland echoes respond as the voice of a mighty chorus? What
elegy so exquisite as the autumn wind stripping the foliage from the
blighted forest? What power can equal the frigid majesty of the cruel
frost, like an implacable tyrant bidding the sap of trees to stand still,
and rendering silent the voices of singing birds and babbling
streams? To those accustomed to quaff of this bottomless tankard,
must not all other pleasures by comparison appear empty and
meaningless?
“Indifferent to the minute and complicated passions by which
educated mankind is swayed, callous to the panting, gasping effects
of such microscopic and supercultured vices as vanity, ambition,
intrigue, and avarice, the Tzigane only comprehends the simplest
requirements of a primitive nature. Music, dancing, drinking, and
love, diversified by a childish and humorous delight in petty thieving
and cheating, constitute his whole répertoire of passions, beyond
whose limited horizon he does not care to look.”

Having begun this chapter with the words of Liszt, let me finish it
with those of the German poet Lenau, who, in his short poem, “Die
Drei Zigeuner” (“The Three Gypsies”), traces a perfect picture of the
indolent enjoyment of the gypsy’s existence:
“One day, in the shade of a willow-tree laid,
I came upon gypsies three,
As through the sand of wild moorland
My cart toiled wearily.

“Giving to naught but himself a thought,

His fiddle the first did hold,
While ’mid the blaze of the evening rays
A fiery lay he trolled.

“His pipe with the lip the second did grip,

A-watching the smoke that curled,
As void of care as nothing there were
Could better him in the world.

“The third in sleep lay slumbering deep,

On a branch swung his guitar;
Through its strings did stray the winds at play,
His soul was ’mid dreams afar.

“With a patch or two of rainbow hue,

Tattered their garb and torn;
But little recked they what the world might say,
Repaying its scorn with scorn.

“And they taught to me, these gypsies three,

When life is saddened and cold,
How to dream or play or puff it away,
Despising it threefold!

“And oft on my track I would fain cast back

A glance behind me there—
A glance at that crew of tawny hue,
With their swarthy shocks of hair.”
 CHAPTER XXXIII.

THE TZIGANES: THEIR LIFE AND

OCCUPATIONS.

In every other country where the gypsies made their appearance

they were oppressed and persecuted—treated as slaves or hunted
down like wild beasts. So in Prussia in 1725 an edict was issued
ordering that each gypsy found within the confines of the country
should be forthwith executed; and in Wallachia, until quite lately,
they were regarded as slaves or beasts of burden, and bought and
sold like any other marketable animal. Thus a Bucharest newspaper
of 1845 advertises for sale two hundred gypsy families, to be
disposed of in batches of five families—a handsome deduction being
offered to wholesale purchasers. In Moldavia, up to 1825, a master
who killed one of his own gypsies was never punished by law, but
only if he killed one which was the property of another man—the
crime in that case not being considered to be murder, but merely
injury to another man’s property.
In Hungary alone these wanderers found themselves neither
oppressed nor repulsed, and if the gypsy can be said to feel at home
anywhere on the face of the globe it is surely here; and although
Hungarians are apt to resent the designation, Tissot was not far
wrong when he named their country “Le pays des Tziganes,” for the
Tziganes are in Hungary a picturesque feature—a decorative adjunct
inseparable alike from the solitude of its plains as from the
dissipation of its cities. Like a gleam of dusky gems they serve to set
off every picture of Hungarian life, and to play to it a running
accompaniment in plaintive minor chords. No one can travel many
days in Hungary without becoming familiar with the strains of the
gypsy bands. And who has journeyed by night without noting the
ruddy light of their myriad camp-fires, which, like so many gigantic
glowworms, dot the country in all directions?
At the present time there are in Hungary above one hundred and
fifty thousand Tziganes, of which about eighty thousand fall to the
share of Transylvania, which therefore in still more special degree
may be termed the land of gypsies.
The Transylvanian gypsies used to stand under the nominal authority
of a nobleman bearing the title of a Gypsy Count, chosen by the
reigning prince; as also in Hungary proper the Palatine had the right
of naming four gypsy Woywods. To this Gypsy Count the chieftains
of the separate hordes or bands were bound to submit, besides
paying to him a yearly tribute of one florin per head of each member
of the band; and every seventh year they assembled round him to
receive his orders. The minor chieftains were elected by the votes of
the separate communities; and to this day every wandering troop
has its own self-elected leader, although these have no longer any
recognized position in the eyes of the law.
The election usually takes place in the open field, often on the
occasion of some public fair; and the successful candidate is thrice
raised in the air on the shoulders of the people, presented with gifts,
and invested with a silver-headed staff as badge of his dignity. Also,
his wife or partner receives similar honors, and the festivities
conclude with much heavy drinking.
Strictly speaking, only such Tziganes are supposed to be eligible as
are descended from a Woywod family; but in point of fact the
gypsies mostly choose whoever happens to be best dressed on the
occasion. Being of handsome build, and not over-young, are likewise
points in a candidate’s favor; but such superfluous qualities as
goodness or wisdom are not taken into account.
This leader—who is sometimes called the Captain, sometimes the
Vagda, or else the Gako, or uncle—governs his band, confirms
marriages and divorces, dictates punishments, and settles disputes;
and as the gypsies are a very quarrelsome race the chief of a large
band has got his hands pretty full. He has likewise the power to
excommunicate a member of the band, as well as to reinstate him in
honor and confidence by letting him drink out of his own tankard.
Certain taxes are paid to the Gako; also, he is entitled to
percentages on all booty and theft. In return it is his duty to protect
and defend his people to the best of his ability, whenever their
irregularities have brought them within reach of the law.
Whether, besides the chieftains of the separate hordes, there yet
exists in Hungary a chief judge or monarch of the Tziganes, cannot
be positively asserted; but many people aver such to be the case,
and designate either Mikolcz or Schemnitz as the seat of his
residence. In his hands are said to be deposited large sums of
money for secret purposes, and he alone has the right to condemn
to death, and with his own hands to put his sentence into execution.
No Tzigane durst ever accept the position of a gendarme or
policeman, for fear of being obliged to punish his own folk; and only
very rarely is it allowed for one of them to become a game-keeper or
wood-ranger.
Only the necessity of obtaining a piece of bread to still his hunger, or
of providing himself with a rag to cover his nakedness, occasionally
obliges the Tzigane to turn his hand to labor of some kind. Most
sorts of work are distasteful to him—more especially all work of a
calm, monotonous character. For that reason the idyllic calm of a
shepherd’s existence, which the Roumanian so dearly loves, could
never satisfy the Tzigane; and equally unpalatable he finds the
sweating toils of the agriculturist. He requires some occupation
which gives scope to the imagination and amuses the fancy while his
hands are employed—conditions he finds united in the trade of a
blacksmith, which he oftenest plies on the banks of a stream or river
outside the village, where he has been driven by necessity. The
snorting bellows seem to him like a companionable monster; the
equal cadence of the hammer against the anvil falls in with melodies
floating in his brain; the myriads of flying sparks, in which he loves
to discern all sorts of fantastic figures, fill him with delight; horses
and oxen coming to be shod, and the varied incidents to which these
operations give rise, are never-tiring sources of interest and
amusement.
Instinctively expert at some sorts of work, the Tzigane will be found
to be as curiously awkward and incapable with others. Thus he is
always handy at throwing up earthworks, which he seems to do as
naturally as a mole or rabbit digs its burrow; but as carpenter or
locksmith he is comparatively useless, and though an apt reaper
with the sickle he is incapable of using the scythe.
 GYPSY TINKER.
All brickmaking in Hungary and Transylvania is in the hands of the
Tziganes, and formerly they were charged with the gold-washing in
the Transylvanian rivers, and were in return exempted from military
service. They are also flayers, broom-binders, rat-catchers, basket-
makers, tinkers, and occasionally tooth-pullers—dentist is too
ambitious a denomination.
 BASKET-MAKER.
Up to the end of the sixteenth century in Transylvania the part of
hangman was always enacted by a gypsy, usually taken on the spot.
On one occasion the individual to be hanged happening to be
himself a gypsy, there was some difficulty in finding an executioner,
and the only one produced was a feeble old man, quite unequal to
the job. A table placed under a tree was to serve as scaffold, and
with trembling fingers the old man proceeded to attach the rope
round the neck of his victim. All his efforts were, however, vain to fix
this rope to the branch above, and the doomed man, at last losing
patience at the protracted delay, gave a vigorous box on the ear to
his would-be hangman, which knocked him off the table. Instantly
all the spectators, terrified, took to their heels; whereon the culprit,
securely fastening the rope to the branch above, proceeded unaided
to hang himself in the most correct fashion.
When obliged to work under supervision, the Tzigane groans and
moans piteously, as though he were enduring the most acute
tortures; and a single Tzigane locked up in jail will howl so
despairingly as to deprive a whole village of sleep.
The Tzigane makes a bad soldier but a good spy; his cowardice has
passed into a proverb, which says that “with a wet rag you can put
to flight a whole village of gypsies.”
The Tziganes are by no means dainty with regard to food, and have
a decided leaning towards carrion, indiscriminately eating of the
flesh of all fallen animals, or, as they term it, whatever has been
killed by “God,” and consider themselves much aggrieved when
forced at the point of the bayonet to abandon the rotting carcass of
a sheep or cow, over which they had been holding a harmless
revelry.
A hedgehog divested of its spikes is considered a prime delicacy;
likewise a fox baked under the ashes, after having been laid in
running water for two days to reduce the flavor. Horse-flesh alone
they do not touch.
The only animals whose training the gypsy cares to undertake are
the horse and bear. For the first he entertains a sort of respectful
veneration, while the second he regards as an amusing bajazzo. He
teaches a young bear to dance by placing it on a sheet of heated
iron, playing the while on his fiddle a strongly accentuated piece of
dance music. The bear, lifting up its legs alternately to escape the
heat, unconsciously observes the time marked by the music. Later
on, the heated iron is suppressed when the animal has learned its
lesson, and whenever the Tzigane begins to play on the fiddle the
young bear lifts its legs in regular time to the music.
Of the tricks practised upon horses, in order to sell them at fairs,
many stories are told of the gypsies. Sometimes, it is said, they will
make an incision in the animal’s skin, and blow in air with the
bellows in order to make it appear fat; or else they introduce a living
eel into its body under the tail, which serves to give an appearance
of liveliness to the hind-quarters. For the same reason live toads are
forced down a donkey’s throat, which, moving about in the stomach,
produce a sort of fever which keeps it lively for several days.
The gypsies are attached to their children, but in a senseless animal
fashion, alternately devouring them with caresses and violently ill-
treating them. I have seen a father throw large, heavy stones at his
ten-year-old daughter for some trifling misdemeanor—stones as
large as good-sized turnips, any one of which would have been
sufficient to kill her if it had happened to hit; and only her agility in
dodging these missiles—which she did, grinning and chuckling as
though it were the best joke in the world—saved her from serious
injury.
They are a singularly quarrelsome people, and the gypsy camp is the
scene of many a pitched battle, in which men, women, children, and
dogs indiscriminately take part with turbulent enjoyment. When in a
passion all weapons are good that come to the gypsy’s hand, and,
faute de mieux, unfortunate infants are sometimes bandied
backward and forward as improvisé cannon-balls. A German traveller
mentions having been eye-witness to a quarrel between a Tzigane
man and woman, the latter having a baby on the breast. Passing
from words to blows, and seeing neither stick nor stone within
handy reach, the man seized the baby by the feet, and with it
belabored the woman so violently that when the by-standers were
able to interpose the wretched infant had already given up the
ghost.
 BEAR DRIVER.
The old-fashioned belief that gypsies are in the habit of stealing
children has long since been proved to be utterly without foundation.
Why, indeed, should gypsies, already endowed with a numerous
progeny, seek to burden themselves with foreign elements which can
bring them no sort of profit? That they frequently have beguiled
children out of reach in order to strip them of their clothes and
ornaments has probably given rise to this mistake; and when, as
occasionally, we come across a light-complexioned child in a gypsy
camp, it is more natural to suppose its mother to have been the
passing fancy of some fair-haired stranger than itself to have been
abstracted from wealthy parents.
Tzigane babies are at once inured to the utmost extremes of heat
and cold. If they are born in winter they are rubbed with snow; if in
summer, anointed with grease and laid in the burning sun. Though
trained to resist all weathers, the Tzigane has a marked antipathy for
wind, which seems for the time to weaken his physical and mental
powers, and deprive him of all life and energy. Cold he patiently
endures; but only in summer can he really be said to live and enjoy
his life. There is a legend which tells how the gypsies, pining under
the heavy frosts and snows with which the earth was visited,
appealed to God to have pity on them, and to grant them always
twice as many summers as winters. The Almighty, in answer to this
request, spoke as follows: “Two summers shall you have to every
winter; but as it would disturb the order of nature if both summers
came one on the back of the other, I shall always give you two
summers with a winter between to divide them.” The gypsies humbly
thanked the Almighty for the granted favor, and never again
complained of the cold, for, as they say, they have now always two
summers to every winter.
Another legend relates how the Tziganes once used to have
cornfields of their own, and how, when the green corn had grown
high for the first time, the wind caused it to wave and shake like
ripples on the water, which seeing, a gypsy boy came running in
alarm to his parents, crying, “Father, father! quick, make haste! the
corn is running away!” On hearing this the gypsies all hastened forth
with knives and sickles to cut down the fugitive corn, which of
course never ripened, and discouraged by their first agricultural
essay the gypsies never attempted to sow or reap again.
Both Maria Theresa and her son Joseph II. did much to induce the
Transylvanian gypsies to renounce their vagrant habits and settle
down as respectable citizens, but their efforts did not meet with the
success they deserved. The system of Maria Theresa was no less
than to recast the whole gypsy nature in a new mould, and by fusion
with other races to cause them by degrees to lose their own identity;
the very name of gypsy was to be forgotten, and the Empress had
ordained that henceforward they were to be known by the
appellation of Neubauer (new peasants). With a view to this all
marriages between gypsies were forbidden, and the Empress
undertook to dot every young gypsy girl who married a person of
another race. The Tziganes, however, too often accepted these
favors, and took the earliest opportunity of deserting the partners
thus forced upon them; while the houses built expressly for their use
were frequently used for the pigs or cattle, the gypsies themselves
preferring to sleep outside in the open air.
A gypsy girl, who had married a young Slovack peasant some years
ago, used to run away and sleep in the woods whenever her
husband was absent from home; while in another village, where the
Saxon pastor had with difficulty induced a wandering Tzigane family
to take up their residence in a vacant peasant house, he found them
oddly enough established in their old ragged tent, which had been
set up inside the empty dwelling-room. A story is also told of a
gypsy man who, having attained a high military rank in the Austrian
army, disappeared one day, and was later recognized with a strolling
band.
There is, I am told, a certain method in the seemingly aimless
roamings of each nomadic gypsy tribe, which always pursues its
wanderings in a given circle, keeping to the self-same paths and the
identical places of bivouac in plain or forest; so that it can mostly be
calculated with tolerable accuracy in precisely how many years such
and such a band will come round again to any particular
neighborhood.
Nowadays the proportion of resident gypsies in towns and villages is,
of course, considerably larger than it used to be, and nearly each
Saxon or Hungarian town and village has a faubourg of miserable
earth-hovels tacked on to it at one end. It is not uncommon, in
these gypsy hovels, to find touches of luxury strangely out of
keeping with the rest of the surroundings: pieces of rare old china,
embroidered pillow-cases, sometimes even a silver goblet or platter
of distinct value—to which things they often cling with a sort of blind
superstition, always contriving to reclaim from the pawnbroker
whatever of these articles they have been compelled to deposit
there in a season of necessity. In the same way it is alleged that
many of the wandering gypsy hordes in Hungary and Transylvania
have in their possession valuable gold and silver vessels (some of
these engraved in ancient Indian characters), which they carry about
wherever they go, and bury in the earth wherever they pitch their
temporary camp.
In order to count the treasures of one of the resident gypsies, it
suffices to watch him when there is a fire in the village; ten to one it
will be his fiddle which he first takes care to save, and next his bed
and pillows—a soft swelling bed and numerous downy pillows being
among the principal luxuries to which he is addicted.
Characteristic of the Tzigane’s utter incomprehension of all social
organization and privileges is an anecdote related by a Transylvanian
proprietor. “In 1848,” he told me, “when serfdom was abolished in
Austria, and the gypsies residing in my village became aware that
henceforward they were free, they were at first highly delighted at
the news, and spent three days and nights in joyful carousing. On
the fourth day, however, when the novelty of being free had worn
off, they were at a loss what use to make of their novel dignity, and
numbers of them came trooping to me begging to be taken back.
They did not care to be free after all, they said, and would rather be
serfs again.”
Of their past history the only memory the Tziganes have preserved is
that of the disastrous day of Nagy Ida, when a thousand of their
people were slain. This was in 1557, when Perenyi, in want of
soldiers, had intrusted to a thousand gypsies the fortress of Nagy
Ida, which they defended so valiantly that the imperial troops beat a
retreat. But, intoxicated with their triumph, the Tziganes called after
the retreating enemy, that but for the lack of gunpowder they would
have served them still worse. On hearing this the army turned round
again, and easily forcing an entrance into the castle cut down the
gypsies to the last man.