In Hungary, as in all parts, they are addicted to horse-dealing; they are likewise tinkers, and smiths in a small way. The women are fortune-tellers, of course—both sexes thieves of the first water. They roam where they list—in a country where all other people are held under strict surveillance, no one seems to care about these Parias. The most remarkable feature, however, connected with the habits of the Czigány, consists in their foreign excursions, having plunder in view, which frequently endure for three or four years, when, if no mischance has befallen them, they return to their native land—rich; where they squander the proceeds of their dexterity in mad festivals. They wander in bands of twelve and fourteen through France, even to Rome. Once, during my own wanderings in Italy, I rested at nightfall by the side of a kiln, the air being piercingly cold; it was about four leagues from Genoa. Presently arrived three individuals to take advantage of the warmth—a man, a woman, and a lad. They soon began to discourse—and I found that they were Hungarian Gypsies; they spoke of what they had been doing, and what they had amassed—I think they mentioned nine hundred crowns. They had companions in the neighbourhood, some of whom they were expecting; they took no notice of me, and conversed in their own dialect; I did not approve of their propinquity, and rising, hastened away.
When Napoleon invaded Spain there were not a few Hungarian Gypsies in his armies; some strange encounters occurred on the field of battle between these people and the Spanish Gitános, one of which is related in the second part of the present work. When quartered in the Spanish towns, the Czigány invariably sought out their peninsular brethren, to whom they revealed themselves, kissing and embracing most affectionately; the Gitános were astonished at the proficiency of the strangers in thievish arts, and looked upon them almost in the light of superior beings: ‘They knew the whole reckoning,’ is still a common expression amongst them. There was a Czigánian soldier for some time at Cordoba, of whom the Gitános of the place still frequently discourse, whilst smoking their cigars during winter nights over their braséros.