The Privosdni Bazaar is also much frequented by gipsies; for as they are all, without exception, able to work as smiths, they set up their tents where there is the greatest concourse of horses and waggons. The language of these gipsies is that of the Tartars, and their religion, if one can apply the word at all to them, is Mahomedan. The women and girls wear on their heads a red fez, ornamented with gold coins, and plait their hair into twenty tails, like the Tartar women. They smoke all day long as well as the men, and will not even lay aside their pipes while they fetch water. Their tents are the most miserable habitations in the world — a Lapland hut is a palace compared to them ; and certainly a more striking picture of laziness could not well be found than that of three or four stout fellows, who could build a house in a few days, creeping under a covering of reeds and giass laid over a few crossed sticks, and covered with a bit of torn sail-cloth probably stolen from a wreck. The father of a gipsy family is, as I have said, a smith, and the mother assists his work by blowing the fire, while she smokes her pipe, — the children being despatched into the neighbouring towns to beg. They have the reputation of being clever at sharpening instruments, and they have generally a number of scythes, hatchets, &c., sent for repair, lying by them whilst they sit with their feet in a hole to supply the want of a high anvU. Indifferent as these people are to the severities of the weather, they are by no means so to the enjojTnents of the palate, though their taste in these matters is somewliat peculiar. They prize amazingly the entrails of some animals, and one of their greatest delicacies is a hedgehog ; so much so, that they will spend on the purchase of one of them the produce of a whole day's toil. I once was suddenly surrounded by a whole troop of gipsy boys and girls crying out " Dai pan ! Dai pan V (Give, master, give !) and on receiving a small piece of money, though they were most of them all but naked, they all rushed to buy plums and sweetmeats, and then ran screaming and fighting up the street It happened that a waggon was going dovn, and the driver applied his whip to rid himself of the troublesome throng, when they all uttered a screech, spit at him, and then darted away, their black hair streaming in tlie wind. One of tlie eldest of tlic girls had a very young baby on her arm, whicli she put down in the dust Without ceremony whenever she wished to quarrel or fight. Notwithstanding their wild and savage appearance, they are not destitute of beauty ; they have fine black eyes, and well-proportioned figures.
The only manufactories which I was able to discover in Odessa, were a few rope walks and sorae places where macaroni was made. In the former, many ropes are made for the Turkish fleet, and I knew one ropeniaker who sent every year 20,000 poods of ropes to Constantinople. These ropes are sometimes made of the enormous thickness of a Berlin ell in diameter. The macaroni factories send their goods all over the Black Sea and the grassy sea of the steppes, where dried bread and ships' biscuits are often as necessary as on the wide ocean.
The schools of Odessa are not in a more flourishing state than the manufactures of the town, but to my surprise I found there were schools of some sort or other for almost every nation. Italian, German, Armenian, and Greek for children of the lower classes ; those of the higher classes nearly all visjt the Imperial Lyceum.
The few ships which belong to Odessa are exclusively the property of Greek houses. They are usually built in Greece, but sail under the Russian flag. The vessels built at Kherson are said to be excessively shght, and the inhabitants of the coast are competent judges on this point, for they are frequently employed in breaking up the wrecks cast away by the cojitinual storms. The hull of an English ship throws them quite into despair ; for they say that, notwithstanding the quantity of wood and iron contained in it, it gives them more trouble to break up than it is worth.
The rapidity of voyages from this port to England, as compared with those to other countries, would also seem to imply a superiority in English shipping. To Constantinople, a voyage is calculated to average 5 or 6 days ; to Smyrna, 15 ; to Messina, 20 to 25 ; to Algiers, 25 to 30 ; to Egypt, 30 to 35 ; to Naples, 25 to 30 ; to Trieste, 35 to 40 ; to Marseilles, 45 to 50 ; and to England, 60 to 70.