Nothing pleases Hungarian Gipseys more than a pair of yellow (_tschischmen_) boots, and spurs: no sooner do the latter glitter on his feet, but he bridles up, and marches consequentially about, often eying his fine boots, at the same time totally regardless of his breeches, which may have lost a portion before or behind, or be in some other respects quite shabby.
The usual dress of the women is no better than that of the men; indeed they have generally been thought rather to go beyond them in filth and nastiness. Their appearance is truly disgusting to any civilised person: their whole covering consists of, either a piece of linen thrown over the head and wound round the thighs, or an old shift hung over them, through which their smoky hides appear in numberless places. Sometimes, in winter, they wrap themselves in a piece of woollen stuff like a cloak. Occasionally, their dress partakes of the other sex; as they do not hesitate to wear breeches, or other male habilament. They use the same covering for the feet as the men;—either a pair of coarse socks, knit with wooden needles, which is commonly done in Moldavia and Wallachia; or they sew them up in rags, which remain on till the stuff perishes and falls off, or till spring arrives, at which season both men and women go barefooted. { 29}
The women are as fond of dress as the men, and equally ridiculous in their choice of it; they are often seen in a _dress cap_, while their rotten linen jacket scarcely serves to cover their nakedness. In Spain, they plaster their temples with great patches of black silk; and hang all sorts of trumpery in their ears, besides a number of baubles about the neck.
The Gipseys were at very little trouble respecting the dress of their children; these ran about naked, in the true Calmuc style, till ten years of age, when the boys got breeches, and the girls aprons. But this nuisance is at an end in the Imperial dominions, both in Germany and Hungary, where an order to suppress it was issued out by the emperor Joseph.
Before we dismiss the subject of dress, we may mention a laudable custom established among the Gipseys, in order to save their clothes when they have quarreled, and mean to fight. Before they proceed to action, a truce takes place for a minute or two, to give the combatants time to strip to their shirts, that their apparel may not suffer in the fray: then the storm breaks loose, and each lays on the other as hard as he can. The custom has this use in it, that whenever any body appears in a ragged coat, he may affirm, on his honour, that it was not rendered so in a Gipsey brawl.