through the good-nature of Winifred’s aunt Mrs. Davies, the possessor of a crwth, and having been taught by her the unique capabilities of that rarely seen instrument, she soon learnt the art of fascinating her Welsh patrons by the strange, wild strains she could draw from it.  This obsolete six-stringed instrument (with two of the strings reaching beyond the key-board, used as drones and struck by the thumb, the bow only being used on the other four, and a bridge placed, not at right angles to the sides of the instrument, but in an oblique direction), though in some important respects inferior to the violin, is in other respects superior to it.  Heard among the peaks of Snowdon, as I heard them during our search for Winifred, the notes of the crwth have a wonderful wildness and pathos.  It is supposed to have the power of drawing the spirits when a maiden sings to its accompaniment a mysterious old Cymric song or incantation.

Among her own people it was as a seeress, as an adept in the real dukkering—­the dukkering for the Romanies, as distinguished from the false dukkering, the dukkering for the Gorgios—­that Sinfi’s fame was great.  She had travelled over nearly all England—­wherever, in short, there were horse-fairs—­and was familiar with London, where in the studios of artists she was in request as a face model of extraordinary value.  Nor were these all the characteristics that distinguished her from the common herd of Romany chies:  she was one of the few Gypsies of either sex who could speak with equal fluency both the English and Welsh Romanes, and she was in the habit sometimes of mixing the two dialects in a most singular way.  Though she had lived much in Wales, and had a passionate love of Snowdon, she belonged to a famous branch of the Lovells whose haunt had for ages been in Wales and also the East Midlands, and she had caught entirely the accent of that district.

Among artists in London, as I afterwards learnt, she often went by the playful name of ‘Lady Sinfi Lovell,’ for the following reason: 

She was extremely proud, and believed the ‘Kaulo Camloes’ to represent the aristocracy not only of the Gypsies, but of the world.  Moreover, she had of late been brought into close contact with a certain travelling band of Hungarian Gypsy-musicians, who visited England some time ago.  Intercourse with these had fostered her pride in a curious manner.  The musicians are the most intelligent and most widely-travelled not only of the Hungarian Gypsies, but of all the Romany race.  They are darker than the satoros czijanyok, or tented Gypsies.  The Lovells being the darkest of all the Gypsies of Great Britain (and the most handsome, hence called Kaulo Camloes), it was easy to make out an affinity closer than common between the Lovells and the Hungarian musicians.  Sinfi heard much talk among the Hungarians of the splendours of the early leaders of the continental Romanies.  She was told of Romany kings, dukes,