In the midst of the combat, the tempest, which had for a long time been gathering, burst over Logroño, in lightning, thunder, darkness, and vehement hail.
A man of the town asserted that the last time he had seen Alvarez, the latter was far in advance of his companions, defending himself desperately against three powerful young heathen, who seemed to be acting under the direction of a tall woman who stood nigh, covered with barbaric ornaments, and wearing on her head a rude silver crown. { 69}
Such is the tale of the Bookseller of Logroño, and such is the narrative of the attempt of the Gitános to sack the town in the time of pestilence, which is alluded to by many Spanish authors, but more particularly by the learned Francisco de Cordova, in his _Didascalia_, one of the most curious and instructive books within the circle of universal literature.
THE Moors, after their subjugation, and previous to their expulsion from Spain, generally resided apart, principally in the suburbs of the towns, where they kept each other in countenance, being hated and despised by the Spaniards, and persecuted on all occasions. By this means they preserved, to a certain extent, the Arabic language, though the use of it was strictly forbidden, and encouraged each other in the secret exercise of the rites of the Mohammedan religion, so that, until the moment of their final expulsion, they continued Moors in almost every sense of the word. Such places were called Morerias, or quarters of the Moors.
In like manner there were Gitanerias, or quarters of the Gitános, in many of the towns of Spain; and in more than one instance particular barrios or districts are still known by this name, though the Gitános themselves have long since disappeared. Even in the town of Oviedo, in the heart of the Asturias, a province never famous for Gitános, there is a place called the Gitaneria, though no Gitáno has been known to reside in the town within the memory of man, nor indeed been seen, save, perhaps, as a chance visitor at a fair.
The exact period when the Gitános first formed these colonies within the towns is not known; the laws, however, which commanded them to abandon their wandering life under penalty of banishment and death, and to become stationary in towns, may have induced them first to take such a step. By the first of these laws, which was made by Ferdinand and Isabella as far back as the year 1499, they are commanded to seek out for themselves masters. This injunction they utterly disregarded. Some of them for fear of the law, or from the hope of bettering their condition, may have settled down in the towns, cities, and villages for a time, but to expect that a people, in whose bosoms was so deeply rooted the love of lawless independence, would subject themselves to the yoke of servitude, from any motive whatever, was going too far; as well might it have been expected, according to the words of the great poet of Persia, _that they would have washed their skins white_.