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Title: Dissertation on the Gipseys


Author: Heinrich Moritz Gottlieb Grellmann



Release Date: July 24, 2020  [eBook #62745]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)


***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DISSERTATION ON THE GIPSEYS***

Transcribed from the William Ballintine 1807 edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org, using scans from the British Library.

DISSERTATION
ON THE
GIPSEYS:

REPRESENTING THEIR

WITH

AN HISTORICAL ENQUIRY

CONCERNING THEIR

ORIGIN & FIRST APPEARANCE IN EUROPE.

FROM THE GERMAN OF
H. M. G. GRELLMANN.

LONDON:

PRINTED BY WILLIAM BALLINTINE,
Duke-street, Adelphi, Strand:

SOLD BY EFFINGHAM WILSON,
OPPOSITE THE CHAPTER COFFEE-HOUSE, ST. PAUL’S.

1807.

p. iiiADVERTISEMENT.

The following Dissertation has already appeared in an English dress, having been, some years since, translated by the late M. Raper, Esq. F.R.S. and A.S. for the purpose, as he states in his preface, of affording “such of his countrymen as were unacquainted with the German language an opportunity of learning from what part of the world it is probable the Gipseys came among us.”  The original work, and Mr. Raper’s translation, are burthened with many notes—Greek, Latin, French, German, English—shewing the sources whence the information was derived, most of which, for obvious reasons, are omitted in the present edition; such only being retained as were thought indispensable, or particularly interesting.

July, 1807.

p. vCONTENTS.

p. 1INTRODUCTION.

The Gipseys are a singular phenomenon in Europe; whether we contemplate their habitations, attend at their meals, or merely look in their faces, they always appear particular, and we are each moment struck with something new and extraordinary.

What appears most worthy of remark is, that neither time, climate, nor example, has, in general, hitherto, made any alteration.  For the space of between three and four hundred years, they have gone wandering about, like pilgrims and strangers: they are found in eastern and western countries, as well among the rude as civilised, the indolent as active, people: yet they remain ever, and in all places, what their fathers were—Gipseys.  Africa makes them no blacker, nor Europe whiter: they neither learn to be lazy in Spain, nor diligent in Germany: in Turkey, Mahomet, and among Christians, Christ, remain equally without adoration.  Around, on every side, they see fixed dwellings, with settled inhabitants; they, nevertheless, proceed in their own way, and continue, for the most part, unsocial wandering robbers.

When we search for similar cases, among all the different people who have quitted their mother p. iicountry, and inhabited a foreign one, we do not meet with a single instance that exactly agrees with that of the Gipseys.  History certainly does record accounts of people that have migrated, and remained the same in a strange country; but then this constancy has been on account of religion, either permitted by the regents, or maintained by their victorious arms: though this last circumstance has existed much less frequently than might be imagined.  Many instances have occurred in which, the people subdued being more enlightened than their conquerors, the latter have adopted the manners of the former.  The Romans became Greeks on the conquest of Greece; and the Franks assumed the manners of the Gauls when in possession of their country: the Mantcheous vanquished the Chinese; but Chinese customs prevailed over those of the Mantcheous.  How, then, does it happen that the Gipseys, who never either established their manners and customs by force, or obtained any toleration from governments under which they lived, remain unchanged, and resemble each other exactly, in every place?  There are two causes, to which this coincidence is principally owing: one is the place whence they originate, with their consequent mode of thinking; the other arises from the circumstances which have hitherto attended their situation.

The Gipseys are unquestionably of eastern origin, p. iiiand have eastern notions.  There is a principle inherent in uncivilised people, particularly those of Oriental countries, which occasions them to be strongly attached to their own habits: hence every custom, every conception, which has once been current among them, be it ever so pernicious or ridiculous, is invariably preserved; or any affection which has once predominated in their minds, retains its dominion even for ages.  Innovations do not easily succeed with people living in a state bordering on that of nature; the least deviation from custom is observed, and often resented with impetuosity.  For any new thing to take root it must either be introduced by cunning and force, or be attended with the most favourable circumstances.  This latter was the case with Christianity.  Providence had called Greeks and Romans into the east, and, by innumerable vicissitudes, had rendered that country ripe for further instruction: then came the great Sower—Christ scattered the seed, and it prospered.  Mahomet, on the contrary, before he became strong enough to enforce conviction with the sword, brought about his purpose by art: knowing that the weak side of his countrymen was their veneration for every thing handed down from their forefathers, he gave his new religion the colouring of antiquity.

Mahomet says, “We have swerved from the religion of our founder Abraham, and have introduced p. ivnovelties among us.  Abraham worshipped only one God; we have many Gods.  I am sent to retrench these novelties, and to bring you back to the religion of your forefathers.”  This was the first ground on which he went.  When the Ishmaelite would not acquiesce in the charge of having fallen off from Abraham’s religion, Mahomet proceeded: “Ye are illiterate people; ye have no books: the inhabitants of the neighbouring countries have books, which contain the religion of Abraham.”  The Arabians applied to the Jews and Christians, for information on this head; and as the event turned in favour of the pretended prophet, they yielded without contradiction.  Mahomet proceeded in teaching, and again appealed to the people with books: the Arabians, too, continued asking questions, being more tractable whenever his assertions were confirmed; but when the contrary happened, a dispute arose, in which the prophet could only get the better by defending the antiquity of his madness at the expence of truth, accusing both the Jews and Christians with having falsified their books.

The same means that helped Mahomet with the Arabians, have been, in latter times, very serviceable to the Jesuits, in China.  How would these cunning fathers have obtained admission for their religion among the Chinese, had they p. vnot referred to Confucius, in aid of their doctrines?  These are only instances of changes in religion; but the case is precisely the same in other things.  In the eastern nations, no improvement is adopted, be it of what kind it may, merely because it is an improvement.  The Chinese are acquainted with the use of glass; yet their mirrors are always made of metal, and their windows of oyster-shells.  Mechanical watches have been for ages used at the court of Pekin; but the bulk of the nation depend upon fire and water. [v]

It is evident from the above, that the Gipseys, by reason of their eastern origin, and consequent way of thinking, are not easily made to change their principles and habits.  When we further consider the circumstances under which these people have hitherto existed, we want nothing more to make us comprehend why they have remained, to the present time, what they were at their first arrival in Europe.

Figure to yourself a person, in whom custom, and deep-rooted affections, are the only, and at the same time strong, impulses to action; in whose soul no new unwonted thoughts arise, in consequence of his own reflections, nor find easy p. viadmittance when proposed by others:—leave this man entirely to himself; do not permit any of those means to be used which are requisite to give a new turn to his ideas, and deep-rooted prejudices:—he must necessarily remain the same; and his latest posterity will continue like him: this is exactly the case with the Gipseys.  Unused to reflect, fettered by habits, they arrived in our quarter of the globe.  No state has, hitherto, done any thing for the express purpose of instructing or reforming them; except the Empress Theresa, by her regulations, which were never put in execution.  On their first arrival, they procured passports, and free quarters, by their holy lies.  They dispersed, begged, deceived the common people, by fortune telling: they stole: and for a long time no attention was paid to them.  At last the evil grew too enormous; the complaints against them became so loud, that government was constrained to take official notice of them.  Exemplary punishments were judged necessary: hanging and beheading were not sufficiently efficacious; and it was then thought expedient to banish them;—a proceeding more likely to render them worse than better, and even in other respects liable to many objections; still the custom has prevailed, down to the latest times.  The neighbour, to whom these unpolished guests were sent, sooner or later, followed the same method p. viiof disengaging the evil, till, in the end, they were persecuted by almost all kingdoms and governments.  Many states afterwards relaxing in their severity, the Gipseys were suffered to creep in, a few at a time, and were permitted to remain quiet: yet every one of them stood in fear, innocent or guilty, lest he might be taken unawares, merely because he was Gipsey, and delivered over to the executioner.  They had been accustomed, in their own country, to live remote from cities and towns: now they became still more uniformly inhabitants of the forests, and outcasts; as, in consequence of the search which was made after them, or at least threatened to be made, they judged themselves to be more secure in deserts and concealment, than they would have been if frequenting places of established abode, and having free intercourse with the civilised inhabitants: whereby they were divested of the most, perhaps only, probable means of inducing them to change their manners.  And yet, had they not sequestered themselves from other people, or had they been more inclined to mix in society, it is not likely, without some direct interference of government, that they would have been rendered better.  There were two great obstacles to be surmounted:—first, by mere intercourse, it would have been, generally speaking, difficult to eradicate the prejudices and customs from their Oriental p. viiiminds: secondly, being Gipseys, people would not willingly have established any correspondence with them.  Let us reflect how different they are from Europeans: the one is white, the other black;—this clothes himself, the other goes half naked;—this shudders at the thought of eating carrion, the other regales on it as a dainty.  Moreover these people are famed, and were even from their first appearance in Europe, for being plunderers, thieves, and incendiaries: the European, in consequence, not merely dislikes, but hates them.  For the reasons above stated, the Gipseys have been, at different periods, driven from all the countries of Europe; and only a few simple people occasionally made a nearer acquaintance, in order to consult them on matters of superstition.

Such is the state of what has been done, and attempted, for the improvement of the Gipseys; whereas, so soon as it was discovered that they were strangers, who thought of nothing less than of returning into their own country, if any plan had been acted upon for their reformation, and only half the wise regulations left behind by the Empress Theresa in her states for the management of these people been adopted, and duly enforced, they would long ago have been divested of the rude nature of their ancestors, and have ceased to be the uncultivated branches of a wild stock.  On the contrary, having always been either left to themselves p. ixor persecuted, it could not be otherwise, but that they must remain for ever, and in all places, the same.

Perhaps it is reserved for our age, in which so much has been attempted for the benefit of mankind, to humanise a people who, for centuries, have wandered in error and neglect: and it may be hoped, that while we are endeavouring to ameliorate the condition of our African brethren, the civilisation of the Gipseys, who form so large a portion of humanity, will not be overlooked.  It cannot be denied, that, considering the multitude of them, their reform must be an object of very serious consideration to many states.  Suppose, according to a rough estimate, that the Gipseys in Hungary and Transylvania, including the Banat, amount to upwards of one hundred thousand; what a difference would it not make, in those countries, if one hundred thousand inhabitants, mostly loungers, beggars, cheats, and thieves, who now reap where they have not sown, consuming the fruits of others’ labour, were to become industrious useful subjects!  Their reformation would be a difficult task, as the attempts made by the Empress Theresa evinced:—a boy (for you must begin with children, and not meddle with the old stock, on whom no efforts will have effect) would frequently seem in the most promising train to civilisation; on a sudden his wild nature would p. xappear, a relapse follow, and he became a perfect Gipsey again.  But the measure is not, therefore, impossible: Was not the case precisely the same with the Saxons, whom Charles the Great converted to Christianity?  Let the state resolving to appropriate the Gipsey tribe only persevere in its endeavours; some effect will be gained on the second generation, and with the third or fourth, the end will certainly be accomplished.

By an attentive observation, we may perceive that the Gipseys are endued with very good capacities, which promise to make a profitable return, for much trouble bestowed upon them.  In the first Section one attempt, made on this speculation, is produced, and it is hoped it will be found sufficiently complete, to exhibit the leading features of their character.

The origin of the Gipseys has remained a perfect philosopher’s stone till a late period.  For more than two hundred years, people have been anxious to discover who these guests were, that, under the name of Gipseys, came, unknown and uninvited, into Europe, in the fifteenth century, and have chosen to remain here ever since.  No enquirer ever broached an opinion that met with his successor’s approbation; a fourth scarcely heard what a third had said, before he passed sentence and advanced something new.  We have no reason to wonder at the miscarriage of these enquiries, which p. xiwere neither more nor less than a collection of conjectures founded on imaginary proofs and partial speculation.—An author set to work, to discover a country whence the Gipseys came, or a people to whom they could belong; he found out a place which had been named, for instance, Zeugitana, or a people who bore some faint resemblance to the Gipseys.  As one coal lights another, so these two similarities became perfectly applicable to the people whose origin he was seeking; he stopped here, and published his discovery.

Several investigators laid their foundation on hearsay, and unauthenticated evidence; they then endeavoured to assist this testimony by modelling the extraneous circumstances which could not be passed over, in order to make them coincide; if, notwithstanding all this, difficulties still occurred, they borrowed Alexander’s sword, and cut the knot which no milder means could undo.

That this has been the mode of proceeding hitherto, will be frequently proved in the course of the work.  Even had the imagination not magnified any thing, nor modelled circumstances agreeably to its own fancy, yet the following, which is taken for granted, “that two people resembling each other in one or two particulars, must be descended from the same stock,” is an over-hasty conclusion.  In the first place, reject that the most different nations p. xiimay agree in some points; further, make the allowance for various parts of the world producing inhabitants of similar shape and colour;—What, then, remains to prove that the Gipseys are descended from any one of the people from whom they have been traced?

There are no records, or historical sources, leading to a direct discovery of the origin of the Gipseys; those which have been thought so, are not genuine.  Nothing, therefore, remains, but to seek the truth, through circuitous tracks; by this means, it may certainly be found.  A man must not go to tombstones, recently erected, in German church-yards, nor adduce a single custom, or the name of a country bearing a resemblance to that of Gipsey, as grounds of proof; and, on the other hand, overlook a hundred difficulties, or even positive contradictions.  But if the language of the Gipseys, their name, the conformation of their bodies and minds, their customs and religious principles, mark a country where it is possible for them to have been indigenous; when History and Chronology corroborate the supposition, and there is not any other country in the world to which the Gipseys, all these particulars taken together, could belong; then the country, where these circumstances meet, must, in all probability, be their true mother country.

Whether their Hindostan origin has so much in p. xiiiits favour, is more than we dare venture to affirm; as it is very possible for the judgment to be so deceived, that we may believe what does not, in fact, exist.  However, on perusing the subsequent pages, our readers will judge if, like our predecessors, we have erred, or have discovered the truth.

p. 1SECTION I.
DESCRIPTION OF THE GIPSEYS, THEIR MANNER OF LIFE, THEIR CUSTOMS AND PROPERTIES.

CHAPTER I.

Various Appellations of these People.

It is not uncommon for the same people to be called by different names, in different nations; such is the case with the Gipseys.  The French received their first accounts of them from Bohemia; which occasioned their giving them the name of Bohemians (Bohémiens); the Dutch, supposing they came from Egypt, called them Heathens (Heydens).  In Denmark, Sweden, and some parts of Germany, Tartars were thought of: the Moors and Arabians, perceiving the propensity the Gipseys have to thieving, adopted the name p. 2Charami (robbers) for them.  In Hungary, they were formerly called Pharaohites (Pharaoh nepek, Pharaoh’s people); and the vulgar, in Transylvania, continue that name for them.  The English do not differ much from these latter (calling them Egyptians—Gipseys); any more than the Portuguese and Spaniards (Gitanos).  The Clementines, in Smyrnia, use the appellation Madjub; and the inhabitants of the lesser Bucharia, that of Diajii.  The name of Zigeuner has obtained the most general adoption: the Gipseys are so called not only in all Germany, Italy, and Hungary (Tzigany), but frequently in Transylvania, Wallachia, and Moldavia (Cyganis).  Moreover the Turks, and other eastern nations, have no other than this name for them (Tschingenés); and perhaps the before-cited Diajii of the Bucharians may be the very same.  It has been said, they call themselves Moors; but that is false; Moor is only an adjunct, not the name of any people: it is really a pity, since this name would have been so fair a pretence to make Amorites of them, as some writers have done!  It is not by any means proved, that the modern Greeks called them Athingans; this opinion is supported more by the arbitrary assertions of some learned men, than by real facts: which is also the case with the rest of the catalogue of names that have been dispersed, in various treatises on the origin of the Gipseys; as will be hereafter demonstrated.

p. 3CHAPTER II.

On the Dispersion of the Gipseys, and their Numbers in Europe.

The numerous hordes of Gipseys, widely dispersed over the face of the earth, are incredible.  They wander about in Asia; in the interior part of Africa, they plunder the merchants of Agades; [3] and, like locusts, have overrun most of the countries of Europe.  America seems to be the only part of the world where they are not known; no mention appearing to be made of them by authors who have written on that quarter of the globe.  It would be superfluous to dilate on the history of those in Asia and Africa, as we have no minute accounts of them; we shall therefore confine ourselves to those in Europe.

There are but few countries, here, which are entirely free from Gipseys; although, for centuries, every state has been endeavouring to rid itself of them.  Under King Henry VIII, and in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, they suffered a general persecution p. 4in England: there are, nevertheless, great numbers still to be found there.  About thirty years ago, they even threatened to set the town of Northampton on fire, because the magistrates had arrested some of their young people, whose release they solicited in vain: several of the ringleaders were hanged: they had in the mean time shewn plainly, that their race was very far from being annihilated.  It is not uncommon, in the county of Bedford particularly, to see them lying in byplaces, to the number of forty or fifty together: but they are cautious how they travel about in companies, and are rarely seen in towns or villages but by one at a time.

Spain, especially the southern provinces, contains so many of these people, that they rove about in large troops, threatening to plunder and murder travellers whom they happen to meet in lonely places: at a distance from the cities, and where no place of refuge is near, danger is always to be apprehended.  Swinburne rates their number very high; he asserts, that the loss of the Gipseys would immediately be perceived by the apparent diminution of population.  Now as Spain contains eleven millions of people, how considerable a draft must there be to render it perceptible!  Twiss also mentions a great many, but sums up a determinate number, 40,000; which is certainly considerable, but probably twice twenty, or even twice forty, p. 5thousand too few;—unless we charge Swinburne, and others, with having greatly exaggerated;—even admitting, that he means to be understood as speaking of the southern provinces only.

In France, before the revolution, there were but few, for the obvious reason, that every Gipsey who could be apprehended, fell a sacrifice to the police.  Lorrain and Alsatia were indeed exceptions; they being very numerous there, especially in the forests of Lorrain.  Here they seem to have met with milder treatment; yet, according to the assurances of a traveller, many of them were to be found in the gaols of Lorrain.  They increased the more in this district, in consequence of their having been very assiduously looked after, and driven from the dominions of a late Duke of Deuxponts, whither his successor would not suffer them to return.

They were universally to be found in Italy, insomuch that even Sicily and Sardinia were not free.  But they were most numerous in the dominions of the church; probably because there was the worst police, with much superstition: by the former they were left undisturbed, and the latter enticed them to deceive the ignorant, as it afforded them an opportunity of obtaining a plentiful contribution by their fortune-telling, and enchanted amulets.  There was a general law throughout Italy, that no Gipsey should remain more than two nights p. 6in any one place: by this regulation, it is true, no place retained its guest long; but no sooner was one gone, than another came in his room: it was a continual circle, and quite as convenient to them as a perfect toleration would have been.  Italy rather suffered than benefited by this law; as, by keeping these people in constant motion, they would do more mischief there than in places where they were permitted to remain stationary.

They are very scarce in many parts of Germany; as well as in Switzerland and the Low-countries.  A person may live many years in Upper Saxony, or in the districts of Hanover and Brunswic, without seeing a single Gipsey: when one happens to stray into a village, or town, he occasions as much disturbance as if the black gentleman with his cloven foot had appeared; he frights children from their play, and draws the attention of the older people; till the police officers get hold of him, and make him again invisible.  In other provinces, on the contrary, particularly on the Rhine, a Gipsey is a very common sight.  Some years ago there were such numbers of them in the dutchy of Wirtemburg, that they seen lying about every where: but as, according to custom, they either lived by thieving, by fortune-telling or other tricks, plundering the illiterate people of their money, the government ordered detachments of p. 7soldiers to drive them from their holes and lurking-places throughout the country; and then transported the congregated swarm, in the same manner as they were treated by the Duke of Deuxponts, as before related.

In Poland and Lithuania, as well as in Courland, there is an amazing number of Gipseys.  Their wayvode in Courland is distinguished from the principals of hordes in other countries; being not only very much respected by his own people, but, even by the Courland nobility, is esteemed a man of high rank, and is frequently to be met with at entertainments and card parties in the first families, where he is always a welcome guest.  His dress is uncommonly rich, in comparison with others of his tribe; generally silk in summer, and constantly velvet in winter.  The common Gipseys, on the contrary, are, in every particular, exactly like their brethren in other countries: even with regard to religion, they shew the same levity and indifference;—they suffer their children to be several times baptised; now they profess themselves to be Catholics, then Lutherans, and presently after nothing at all.

That they are to be found in Denmark, and Sweden, is certain, but how numerous they are in those countries we cannot affirm; and therefore proceed to the south-east of Europe.

The countries in this part seem to be the general p. 8rendezvous of the Gipseys: their number amounts in Hungary, according to a probable statement, to upwards of 50,000; and in the districts of the Banat, Grisellini assures us, that when Count Clary occupied the situation of president, they were reckoned at 5500: yet they appear to be still more numerous in Transylvania.  It is not only Mr. Benko, a German writer, who says they swarm upon the land like locusts, but we have also certain calculation, wherein their numbers are estimated at between 35 and 36,000.

Cantemir says, the Gipseys are dispersed all over Moldavia, where every baron has several families of them subject to him: in Wallachia, and the Sclavonian countries, they are quite as numerous.  In Wallachia and Moldavia they are divided into two classes—the princely, and bojarish: the former, according to Sulzer, amounts to many thousands; but that is trifling, in comparison with the latter, as there is not a single bojar in Wallachia who has not at least three or four of them for slaves; the rich have often some hundreds each, under their command.

Bessarabia, all Tartary, Bulgaria, Greece, and Romania, swarm with them; even in Constantinople they are innumerable.  In Romania, a large tract of Mount Hæmus, which they inhabit has acquired from them the name Tschenghe Valkan (Gipsey Mountain).  This district extends from p. 9the city Aydos, quite to Philippopolis, and contains more Gipseys than any other province in the Turkish empire.

From what has been advanced, the reader will be enabled to form some conception, how considerable a class of people the Gipseys are in Europe; independent of their numbers in Egypt, and some parts of Asia.

If we could obtain an exact estimate of them in the different countries, or if the unsettled life of these people did not render it extremely difficult, perhaps impossible, to procure such information, the immense number would probably greatly exceed what we have any idea of.  At a moderate calculation, without being extravagant, they might be reckoned at between 7 and 800,000.  What a serious matter of consideration when we reflect, that the greatest part of these people are idlers, cheats, and thieves!  What a field does this open for the contemplation of governments!—But more of this in another place.

p. 10CHAPTER III.

The Properties of their Bodies.

Had the Gipseys made but a temporary appearance, and we could only be acquainted with them from the publications of former centuries, it would be difficult to entertain any other idea than that they were a herd of monsters and beelzebubs.  We find in those books frequent mention of a savage people, black horrid men.  But now that they have continued to our time, and we have an opportunity of seeing, with our own eyes, how they are formed, and what appearance they make, they are so fortunate as to have authors who commend their beauty, and take great pains to set forth their advantages; though many, indeed most of the moderns, their colour and looks being the same, perfectly agree with the writers of past centuries, in their accounts of them.  Both parties may be in the right, when we consider, that what appears beautiful in the eyes of one person, is possibly ugly and deformed in the eyes of another: this depends entirely upon habit and familiarity.  For this reason, the dark brown, or olive coloured, skin of the Gipseys, with their white teeth appearing between their red lips, may be a disgusting sight to an European, unaccustomed to such objects.  Let us only ask, As children, p. 11have we not, at some time or other, run affrighted from a Gipsey?  The case will be entirely altered, if we divest ourselves of the idea that a black skin is disagreeable.  Their white teeth; their long black hair, on which they pride themselves very highly, and will not suffer to be cut off; their lively black rolling eyes;—are, without dispute, properties which must be ranked among the list of beauties, even by the modern civilised European world.  They are neither overgrown giants, nor diminutive dwarfs: their limbs are formed in the justest proportion.  Large bellies are, among them, as uncommon as hump-backs, blindness, or other corporeal defects.  When Grisellini asserts that the breasts of the Gipsey women, at the time of their nursing, increase to a larger size than the child they support, it is an assertion destitute of proof, and parallel with many other arguments he adduces to prove the Gipseys are Egyptians.  Probably he may have confounded himself, by thinking of the Hottentots; the circumstance above mentioned being true of them, though not of the Gipseys.  Every Gipsey is naturally endued with agility, great suppleness in, and the free use of, his limbs: these qualities are perceptible in his whole deportment, but in an extraordinary degree whenever he happens to be surprised in an improper place: in the act of thieving, with a stolen goose or fowl in his hand, he runs off so nimbly, that, p. 12unless his pursuer be on horseback, the Gipsey is sure to escape.  These people are blessed with an astonishingly good state of health.  Neither wet nor dry weather, heat nor cold, let the extremes follow each other never so quickly, seems to have any effect on them.  Gipseys are fond of a great degree of heat; their supreme luxury is, to lie day and night so near the fire, as to be in danger of burning: at the same time they can bear to travel in the severest cold bareheaded, with no other covering than a torn shirt, or some old rags carelessly thrown over them, without fear of catching cold, cough, or any other disorder.

By endeavouring to discover the causes of these bodily qualities of the Gipseys, we find them, or at least some of them, very evidently arising from their education and manner of life.  They are lean; but how should they be corpulent? as they are seldom guilty of excess in eating or drinking; for if they get a full meal to-day, they must not repine should they be under the necessity of keeping fast to-morrow and the next day.  They have iron constitutions, because they have been brought up hardily.  The pitiless mother takes her three-months-old child upon her back, and wanders about in fair or foul weather, in heat or cold, without troubling her head what may happen to it.  When a boy attains the age of three years, his lot becomes still harder.  While an infant, and his age reckoned by p. 13weeks and months, he was at least wrapped up closely in rags; but now, deprived even of these, he is, equally with his parents, exposed to the rigour of the elements, for want of covering: he is now put to trial how far his legs will carry him, and must be content to travel about, with, at most, no other defence for his feet than thin socks.  Thus he grows up, and acquires his good health by hardship and misery.  We may as easily account for the colour of the Gipsey’s skin.  The Laplanders, Samoieds, as well as the Siberians, likewise, have brown yellow-coloured skins, in consequence of living, from their childhood, in smoke and dirt, in the same manner as the Gipseys: these would, long ago, have been divested of their swarthy complexions, if they had discontinued their filthy mode of living.  Only observe a Gipsey from his birth, till he reaches man’s estate; and you must be convinced that their colour is not so much owing to their descent, as to the nastiness of their bodies.  In summer, the child is exposed to the scorching sun; in winter, it is shut up in a smoky hut.  It is not uncommon for mothers to smear their children over with a black ointment, and leave them to fry in the sun or near the fire.  They seldom trouble themselves about washing, or other modes of cleaning themselves.  Experience also shews us, that the dark colour of the Gipseys, which is continued from generation to generation, is more the effect of p. 14education, and manner of life, than descent.  Among those who profess music in Hungary, or serve in the Imperial army, where they have learnt to pay more attention to order and cleanliness, there are many to be found whose extraction is not at all discernible in their colour; though they had, probably, remained to the age of twelve or fourteen years under the care of their filthy parents; and must necessarily, when they first adopted a different mode of life, have borne the marks of the dirt contracted during this period.  How much less, then, should we be able to distinguish a Gipsey if taken when a child from its sluttish mother, and brought up under some cleanly person!  By the same reasoning we may account for their white teeth and sound limbs; namely, from their manner of life.  The former are evidences of their spare diet: the latter prove them to have been reared more according to the dictates of nature, than those of art and tenderness.

p. 15CHAPTER IV.

On their Food and Beverage.

Those Gipseys who are more connected with civilised people are not remarkable in their diet; though it is to be observed of them, that they are by no means particular in their cookery.  The others, on the contrary, have their table furnished in a very irregular and extraordinary way.  Sometimes they fast, or at best have only bread and water to subsist upon: at other times they regale on fowls and geese.  The greatest luxury to them is, when they can procure a roast of cattle that have died of any distemper.  It is the same to them, whether it be the carrion of a sheep, hog, cow, or other beast, horse-flesh only excepted: they are so far from being disgusted with it, that to eat their fill of such a meal is to them the height of epicurism.  When any person censures their taste, or shews surprise at it, they answer, “The flesh of a beast which God kills, must be better than that of one killed by the hand of man:” they therefore embrace every opportunity of getting such dainties.  That they take carrion from the laystalls, as is affirmed of the Gipseys in Hungary, is not probable, any more than that they eat horse flesh.  But if a beast out of a herd die, and they find it before it p. 16become rotten and putrefied; or if a farmer give them notice of a cow dead in the stable; they proceed, without hesitation, to get possession of the booty.  They are particularly fond of animals that have been destroyed by fire; therefore, whenever a conflagration has happened, either in town or country, the next day the Gipseys, from every neighbouring quarter, assemble, and draw the suffocated, half consumed, beasts out of the ashes.  Men, women, and children, in troops, are extremely busy, joyfully carrying the flesh home to their dwellings: they return several times, provide themselves plentifully with this roast meat, and gluttonise in their huts as long as their noble fare lasts.  Their manner of dressing this delicious food is curious:—they boil or roast what is intended for the first day; if they have more than they can devour at once, the remainder is either dried in the sun, or smoked in their huts, and eaten without any further preparation.

Something might here be introduced concerning their relish for human flesh, and the instances which some years ago happened in Hungary might be adduced as proofs, [16] were it not likely to be objected, p. 17that these examples are at variance with common experience, as well as with the old accounts handed down to us concerning these people.  We shall, therefore, not insist on this accusation: but entirely give up the point of Gipseys being men-eaters, except just hinting, that it would be expedient for governments to be watchful.  But the instances in Hungary do not appear, by any means, so casual and uncommon as people may imagine.—What, according to the strictest examination, has been done, not by one, but many; not by ten, but even two hundred, and perhaps by thousands; not yesterday and to-day, but many years back; finally, not by the whole body together, but single parties by themselves, in different places: Shall these things be deemed only casual excesses?  Should it be asserted, in addition to this, that eating human flesh is in practice and allowed, in the country whence they originate; we might with greater probability mention this shocking fact, of feeding on human flesh, as a prevailing custom among the Gipseys.  This circumstance is expressly mentioned in histories: which assure us, that p. 18among the particular class of people from whom the Gipseys sprung, it is a long-established custom for the nearest relations and friends to kill and eat each other.  It is unnecessary to bring proof of it in this place, as it belongs to the second section: let it suffice just to have hinted the matter, in order that it may be known towards what people we are to look for the origin of the Gipseys.  As to the objection, that among all the crimes with which they have been charged, in the older writings, eating human flesh is not positively alledged against them, it may be obviated by more than one answer.  In the first place, let it be observed, history relates, and the event in Hungary confirms, that they murder one another; further, consider their wandering mode of life; lastly, that they generally abide in byplaces: and all may be easily accounted for.  A hundred fathers may sacrifice their children to their voluptuousness, and the crime still remain concealed.  The absent person is not missed; as nobody watches over a family continually in motion, and every-where a stranger.  Just as unlikely is it, that information should be given to government.  There is no reason to suppose any of their own people would think it their duty to inform; as, not being contrary to their usual practice, they do not esteem it wrong.  It is very possible for them to have destroyed many other people, without the circumstances being recorded in the courts of p. 19justice, or noticed in the annual publications.  Who ever thought to enquire of them after any traveller that, far distant from his own country, might have fallen into their hands and been cut off?  Or how are the remains of the poor victim to be traced, if they devour what is eatable, and burn the bones? [19]

p. 20Those Hungarian wretches have, according to their own account, for twelve years gratified their horrid cravings, undiscovered by the magistrates, in a country where the police is by no means bad: perhaps they might have continued unsuspected p. 21for ever, had they not laid their unlucky hands on the people of the country, thereby bringing on a strict enquiry, and rendering the discovery more easy.  Nor do the older writings seem to be entirely silent on this head; at least there is an appearance of something of the kind in them.  Many authors mention the Gipseys stealing people, and accuse them particularly of lying in wait for young children.  Others again deny this, saying, that the Gipseys have brats enough of their own, and therefore have not the least reason to covet strange children.  How does the matter look, if we suppose they did not want to rear these children, but to sacrifice them to their inordinate appetite?—and the Hungarian intelligence expressly says, they were particularly fond of young subjects.  What renders the truth of this accusation in the old writings suspicious, is, that before even a single Gipsey had set his foot in Europe, the Jews lay under the same imputation.  Perhaps in this, as in many other instances, the calumny invented against the Jews might be afterwards transferred to the Gipseys.  This alone considered, the imputation of kidnapping children might become doubtful; but then occurs the weighty circumstance, that it has been judicially proved in England; and, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, an act of parliament was passed on the occasion.  Enough of this; let people reason upon the cannibal appetite p. 22of the Gipseys as they please, there will always remain ground for suspicion.

After having shewn how little delicate they are in satisfying their appetites, we should scarcely expect to find them squeamish with regard to articles of diet that are highly esteemed among civilised people.  But Griselini gives a long catalogue of things which, he says, are disagreeable to a Gipsey’s palate; among which, he particularly mentions beans and onions, red bream, pearch, lampreys, with every kind of wild-fowl.  Whereas the fact is, Gipseys not only eat beans and onions, but are very fond of them; and as for the red bream, pearch and lampreys, pheasants, partridges, &c. their only reason for abstaining from them is, the difficulty of procuring them: in which they are not singular; many other people being in the same predicament.

The Gipseys are not much accustomed to baking of bread; that is an article which they usually buy, beg or steal, or go entirely without.  If by chance they do bake, the business is performed quite in the eastern method:—a wood fire is made on the ground, which soon becomes embers; in the mean time the mother kneads her dough, forms it into small cakes, lays them on the hot ashes, and thus they are baked.

To eat with a knife and fork, is no part of a Gipsey’s politeness; nor is a table or plate p. 23thought necessary: even a dish is frequently dispensed with.  The whole kitchen and table apparatus consists of an earthen pot, an iron pan (which is also used as a dish), a knife, and a spoon.  When the meal is ready, all the family sit around the pot or pan, the boiled or roast is divided into pieces, on which they fall-to; their teeth and fingers serving them for knives and forks, as does the ground for table and plates.

The common beverage of the Gipseys is water; now and then beer, when it costs them nothing.  Wine is too expensive, nor is it particularly grateful to them.  The case is very different when brandy comes in question, of which they are immoderately fond.  They feel great pleasure in intoxicating themselves; which being easiest and soonest effected with brandy, it is in their esteem the only liquor worth purchasing: all they can earn goes that way: and whenever by chance they become possessed of a penny, it is expended at the first house where brandy is to be met with.  Every christening, wedding, or other occasion of rejoicing, is solemnised with brandy: if they have plenty of it, they, as it were, drive the world before them; each trying, by screaming or holloing, to express his felicity and consummate happiness.

But, however great the thirst the Gipseys have for brandy, it is even exceeded by their immoderate love of tobacco.  This is not, as might be supposed, p. 24peculiar to the men; for the women sometimes exceed them in it: and they not only smoke it, but chew and swallow the very leaves and stalks, with great avidity.  That it may sooner reach its place of destination, and stimulate the gums and tongue more forcibly, they use a pipe not longer than ones finger: this pipe is made of wood, for economical reasons—as it absorbs the moisture, and thereby becomes a very great Gipsey delicacy; for having smoked it as long as they choose, they gnaw it with astonishing greediness, till not a splinter remains.  It is immaterial, whether the pipe be smoked by the person himself or another, to bring it to the proper degree of perfection: he accepts it, as a valuable present, from any body; and is so chary of it, that it frequently lasts him many days.  The Gipsey will abstain from food for more than a day, when he can procure a leaf of tobacco, or a piece of his pungent pipe, which he chews, drinks a little water, and is happy.  This surely exceeds every thing that has been related of the most famous smoker!

p. 25CHAPTER V.

On the Dress of the Gipseys.

It cannot be expected that the description of the dress of a set of people whose whole economy belongs to the class of beggars, should exhibit any thing but poverty and want.  The first of them that came to Europe appeared ragged and miserable—unless we perhaps allow their leaders to have been an exception;—in like manner their descendants have continued for hundreds of years, and still remain.  This is particularly remarkable in the countries about the mouth of the Danube, which abound with Gipseys; namely, Transylvania, Hungary, and Turkey in Europe, where they dress even more negligently than in other parts.

The Gipseys consider a covering for the head as perfectly useless: the wind will not easily blow his hat off, who never wears any thing of the kind, excepting when he has a mind to make a figure, and even then a rough cap usually supplies its place.  During the winter, if the female Gipseys do not knit socks, which those in Moldavia and Wallachia do, with wooden needles, he winds a couple of rags round his feet, which in summer are laid aside as unnecessary.  He is not better furnished with linen, as the women neither spin, p. 26sew, nor wash.  For want of change, what he once puts on his body, remains till it falls off of itself.  His whole dress often consists of only a pair of breeches and a torn shirt.

We are not to suppose, from what is said above, that the Gipseys are indifferent about dress; on the contrary, they love fine clothes to an extravagant degree: the want proceeds from necessity, which is become with them a second nature, forgetting that labour and care are the means to procure clothes, as well as nourishment.  Whenever an opportunity offers of acquiring a good coat, either by gift, purchase, or theft, the Gipsey immediately bestirs himself to become master of it: possessed of the prize, he puts it on directly, without considering in the least, whether it suits the rest of his apparel.  If his dirty shirt had holes in it as big as a barn door, or his breeches were so out of condition that one might perceive their antiquity at the first glance; were he unprovided with shoes, stockings, or a covering for the head; neither of these defects would prevent his strutting about in a laced coat, feeling himself of still greater consequence in case it happened to be a red one.  Martin Kelpius therefore says, that the Gipseys in Transylvania spend all their earnings in alehouses and in clothes.  It would excite laughter in the sternest philosopher, to see a Gipsey parading about, with a beaver hat, a silk or red cloth coat, at the same time his p. 27breeches torn, and his shoes or boots, if perchance he have either, covered with patches.

Benko, also, assures us, that this kind of state is common in Transylvania; and adds, the Gipseys are particularly fond of clothes made after the Hungarian fashion, or which had been worn by people of distinction.  The habits and properties of the Gipseys in Hungary are precisely the same.  The following passage, which appeared in the Imperial Gazettes, is very much to the purpose: “Notwithstanding these people are so wretched, that they have nothing but rags to cover them, which do not at all fit, and are scarcely sufficient to hide their nakedness, yet they betray their foolish taste and vain ostentation whenever they have an opportunity.”

In Transylvania, some of them wear the Wallachian dress; but in Hungary they are so attached to the habits of the country, that a Gipsey had rather go half naked, or wrap himself up in a sack, than he would condescend to wear a foreign garb, even though a very good one were given to him.  Green is a favourite colour with the Gipseys; but scarlet is held in so great esteem by them, that a man cannot appear abroad in a red habit, though worn out, without being surrounded by a crowd old and young, who, in the open street, are solicitous to purchase of him, be it coat, pellisse, or breeches.  Unless severely pinched by the cold, or p. 28in case of the greatest necessity, they will not deign to put on a boor’s coat: they rather choose to buy for their own use cast-off clothes; and if they happen to be ornamented with lace or loops, they strut about in such dresses, as proudly as if they were not merely lords of the district, but of the whole creation.  Thus all the money they can spare, is expended in obtaining a sort of clothes not at all becoming their station, and which answer no other purpose, but to betray their weak silly notions, and expose them to the ridicule of the more sensible part of mankind.  They do not pay the least regard to symmetry, nor care what reasonable people think of their dress: provided they can only get something shining to put on, that will catch the eye, they give themselves no concern if the rest of their clothing be very bad, or though they be nearly in a state of nudity.  It is no uncommon spectacle to see a Gipsey parading the streets in an embroidered pellisse, or laced coat decorated with silver buttons, with a dirty ragged shirt, barefooted, and without a hat; or with a pair of embroidered scarlet breeches on, and perhaps no other covering but half a shirt.

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 p. 29regardless 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 p. 30seen 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.

p. 31CHAPTER VI.

On the Family Economy of the Gipseys.

That these people are still the rude unpolished creatures that nature formed them, or, at most, have only advanced one degree towards humanity, is evinced, with other circumstances, by their family economy.

Many of the Gipseys are stationary, having regular habitations, according to their situation in life.  To this class belong those who keep public-houses in Spain; and others in Transylvania and Hungary, who follow some regular business; which latter have their own miserable huts near Hermanstadt, Cronstadt, Bistritz, Grosswaradein, Debrezin, Eperies, Karchau, and other places.  There are also many slaves, to particular bojars, in Moldavia and Wallachia, who do not wander any more than the others.  But by far the greatest number of these people lead a very different kind of life: ignorant of the comforts attending a fixed place of residence, they rove from one district to another in hordes, having no habitations but tents, holes in the rocks, or caves; the former shade them in summer, the latter screen them in winter.  Many of these savage people, particularly in Germany and Spain, do not even carry tents with them, but p. 32shelter themselves, from the heat of the sun, in forests shaded by the rocks, or behind hedges: they are very partial to willows, under which they erect their sleeping place, at the close of the evening.  Some live in their tents (in their language called tschater) during both summer and winter; which indeed the Gipseys generally prefer.  In Hungary, even those who have discontinued their rambling way of life, and built houses for themselves, seldom let a spring pass, without taking advantage of the first settled weather, to set up a tent for their summer residence; under this each one enjoys himself, with his family, nor thinks of his house till the winter returns, and the frost and snow drive him back to it again.

The wandering Gipsey, in Hungary and Transylvania, endeavours to procure a horse; in Turkey, an ass serves to carry his wife, a couple of children, with his tent.  When he arrives at a place he likes, near a village or city, he unpacks, pitches his tent, ties his animal to a stake to graze, and remains some weeks there: or if he do not find his station convenient, he breaks up in a day or two, loads his beast, and looks out for a more agreeable situation, near some other town.  Indeed, it is not always in his power to determine how long he will remain in the same place; for the boors are apt to trouble him, on account of fowls and geese he has made free with: it sometimes happens, when he is very p. 33much at his ease, they sally out with bludgeons or hedge-stakes, making use of such forcible arguments, that he does not hesitate a moment to set up his staff a little farther off: though, in general, the Gipseys are cunning enough, when they have purloined any thing, or done mischief, to make off in time before the villagers begin to suspect them.

For their winter huts, they dig holes in the ground, ten or twelve feet deep; the roof is composed of rafters laid across, which are covered with straw and sods: the stable, for the beast which carried the tent in summer, is a shed built at the entrance of the hollow, and closed up with dung and straw.  This shed, and a little opening rising above the roof of their subterranean residence, to let out the smoke, are the only marks by which a traveller can distinguish their dwellings.  Both in summer and winter, they contrive to have their habitation in the neighbourhood of some village, or city.  Their favourite mode of building is against a hillock: the holes in the level ground being only used in cases of necessity, when there is no rising ground near the spot they have chosen to pass the winter on.  A Hungarian writer thus describes their method of constructing the second sort of huts: “They first dig a hollow, about a fathom broad, far enough into the hillock to bring their floor on a level with the rest of the plain, in order to form a firm upright wall, for the back of the p. 34building.  Into the wall they fix a beam, about six feet from, and parallel to, the floor; this beam reaches as far as the intended depth of the house, seldom exceeding seven or eight feet.  One end being fast in the wall, the other rests on, and is fixed to, a pillar or post driven into the ground.  When that is done, they lay boards, balks, or such other wood as they can find, against it on each side, in form of a pointed roof, which, viewed from a distance, exhibits a front in the shape of an equilateral triangle.  The business is finished by covering the whole building with straw, sods, and earth, to secure its inhabitants from the rain, snow, and cold.  They always contrive, when they can, to place their edifice so as to front either the rising or mid-day sun; this being the side where the opening is left for a door to go in and out at, which is closed at night, either with a coarse woollen cloth or a few boards.”

Imagination will easily conceive how dismal and horrid the inside of such Gipsey huts must be to civilised humanity.  Air and daylight excluded, very damp, and full of filth, they have more the appearance of wild beasts’ dens, that of the habitations of intelligent beings.  Rooms or separate apartments are not even thought of; all is one open space: in the middle is the fire, serving both for the purpose of cooking and warmth; the father and p. 35mother lie half naked, the children entirely so, round it.  Chairs, tables, beds or bedsteads, find no place here; they sit, eat, sleep, on the bare ground, or at most spread an old blanket, or, in the Banat, a sheep-skin, under them.  Every fine day the door is set open for the sun to shine in, which they continue watching so long as it is above the horizon; when the day closes, they shut their door and consign themselves over to rest.  When the weather is cold, or the snow prevents them opening the door, they make up the fire, and sit round it till they fall asleep, without any more light than it affords.

The furniture and property of the Gipseys have been already described; they consist of an earthen pot, an iron pan, a spoon, a jug, and a knife; when it happens that every thing is complete, they sometimes add a dish: these serve for the whole family.  When the master of the house is a smith by trade, as will be hereafter mentioned, he has a pair of bellows to blow up his fire, a small stone anvil, a pair of tongs, and perhaps a couple of hammers; add to these a few old tatters in which he dresses himself, his knapsack, some pieces of torn bed-clothes, his tent, with his antiquated jade, and you have a complete catalogue of a nomadic Gipsey’s estate.

Very little can be said respecting the domestic employment of the women.  The care of their p. 36children is the most trifling concern: they neither wash, mend their clothes, nor clean their utensils: they seldom bake: the whole of their business, then, is reduced to—dressing their food and eating it, smoking tobacco, prating, and sleeping.  They continue during the whole winter in their hut; but at the first croaking of the frogs, they pull down their house, and decamp.

Such is the condition of the Gipseys who wander about in Hungary, Turkey, and other countries; being no-where, or rather every-where, at home.  The remainder of these people who have reconciled themselves to a settled mode of living, are in much better circumstances, and infinitely more rational, than those just described.  It will be expected, that those Spanish Gipseys who are innkeepers, and entertain strangers, are more civilised; and it also holds good with regard to those in Hungary and Transylvania who have different ways of gaining a livelihood.  Their habitations are conveniently divided into chambers; and are furnished with tables, benches, decent kitchen furniture, and other necessaries.  The few who farm, or breed cattle, have a plough and other implements of husbandry; the others, what is necessary for carrying on their trade; though even here you are not to expect superfluity: habitations, clothes, every thing, indicate that their owners belong to the class of poor.  They are very partial to gold p. 37and silver plate, particularly silver cups; which is a disposition they have in common with the wandering Gipseys: they let slip no opportunity of acquiring something of the kind; and will even starve themselves to procure it.  Though they seem little anxious to heap up riches for their children, yet these frequently inherit a treasure of this sort, and are obliged in their turn to preserve it as a sacred inheritance.  The ordinary, travelling Gipseys when in possession of such a piece of plate, commonly bury it under the hearth of their dwelling, in order to secure it.  This inclination to deprive themselves of necessaries, that they may possess a superfluity, as well as many other of their customs, is curious, yet appears to be ancient; and it was probably inherent in them when they were first seen by Europeans.

p. 38CHAPTER VII.

Their Occupations and Trades.

On considering the means to which the Gipseys have recourse to maintain themselves, we shall perceive the reason why poverty and want are so generally their lot; namely, their excessive indolence, and aversion from industry.  They abhor every kind of employment which is laborious or requires application; and had rather suffer even hunger and nakedness, than obviate these privations on such hard terms.  They therefore either choose some profession which requires little exertion, allowing them many idle hours; or addict themselves to unlawful courses, and vicious habits.

Working in iron, is the most usual occupation of the Gipseys.  In Spain, very few follow any regular business; but among these few, some are smiths: on the contrary, in Hungary this profession is so common among them, that there is a proverb—‘So many Gipseys, so many smiths:’ the same might be said of those in Transylvania, Wallachia, Moldavia, and all Turkey in Europe; at least such workers in fire are very numerous in all those countries.  This occupation seems to have been a favourite with them from the most distant periods, as appears not only by Bellonius’s account, p. 39but by an older record, of an Hungarian king Uladislaus, in the year 1496, mentioned by the Abbé Pray, in his Annals, and Friedwaldsky, in his Mineralogy, wherein it is ordered, that every officer and subject, of whatever rank or condition, do allow to Thomas Polgar, leader of twenty-five tents of wandering Gipseys, free residence everywhere, and on no account to molest either him or his people; because they had prepared musket bullets, and other military stores, for the Bishop Sigismund, at Fünfkirchen.  Another instance occurred in the year 1565, when Mustapha, Turkish regent of Bosnia, besieged Crupa; the Turks having expended their powder and cannon balls, Gipseys were employed to make the latter, part of iron, the rest of stone cased with lead.

The Gipseys of our time are not willing to undertake heavy work; they seldom go beyond a pair of light horse-shoes: in general, they confine themselves to small articles, such as rings, jews-harps, and small nails: they mend old pots and kettles, make knives, seals, needles, and sometimes work trifles in tin or brass.

Their materials, tools, apparatus, all are bad, and of the most inferior kind.  Their common method of proceeding is, to collect some pieces of rusty iron, old nails, broken horse-shoes, and such-like, which they fuse and shape to their purpose.  The anvil is a stone; the other implements p. 40are, a pair of hand-bellows, a pair of pincers, a hammer, a vice, and a file: these are the tools which a nomadic Gipsey carries with him in his perambulations.  Whenever he is disposed to work, he is at no loss for fuel: on his arrival at a station where he purposes remaining a few days, or perhaps weeks, he takes his beast, loads him with wood, builds a small kiln, and prepares his own coals.  In favourable weather, his work is carried on in the open air; when it is stormy, or the sun too powerful, he retires under his tent.  He does not stand, but sits down on the ground, cross-legged, to his work; which position is rendered necessary, not only by custom, but by the quality of his tools.  The wife sits by to work the bellows, in which operation she is sometimes relieved by the elder children; the little ones sit, naked as they were born, round the fire.  The Gipseys are generally praised for their dexterity and quickness, notwithstanding the wretched tools they have to operate with.  When any piece of work requires much time to finish, they are apt to lose their patience, and in that case become indifferent whether it be well executed or not.  They never submit to labour so long as they have got a dry crust, or any thing else to satisfy their hunger.  They frequently receive orders to fabricate different articles; but if not, no sooner are a few nails, or some other trifles, manufactured, than p. 41man, woman, and children, dislodge, to convey their merchandise, from house to house, for sale, in the neighbouring villages: their traffick is carried on sometimes for ready money, sometimes by barter for eatables or other necessaries.

Another branch of commerce much followed by the Gipseys is horse dealing, to which they seem to have been attached from the earliest period of their history.  In those parts of Hungary where the climate is so mild that horses may lie out all the year, the Gipseys avail themselves of this circumstance to breed, as well as deal in, those animals; by which they sometimes not only procure a competence, but grow rich.  Instances have been known on the Continent of Gipseys keeping from fifty to seventy horses each, and those the best bred horses of the country; some of which they let out for hire, others they sold or exchanged, as occasion offered.  But this description of Gipsey horse-dealers is not very numerous; for the greatest number of them deal only in blind worn-out jades, which they drive about to different markets, to sell or barter.  When the dealer is not fortunate enough to find a chap for his nag, he leads him to the collar-maker, who values the hide, and takes him off his hands for a few groschens.  In order to prevent being reduced to this necessity, the slyest tricks are practised to conceal the animal’s defects.  In Spain, therefore, Gitano and Gitaneria p. 42(Gipsey and Gipseyism) are become familiar expressions to imply a cheater in horses, with the deceptions he makes use of.  In the year 1727 they had become so infamous in Sweden, that the subject was thought of sufficient consequence for the consideration of the diet, and their total expulsion was voted to be a necessary measure.  The following trick is frequently played in Hungary, and the adjacent country, to make a horse appear brisk and active:—the rider alights at a small distance from the place where he means to offer his horse for sale, and belabours him till he has put the whole muscular system in motion with fright; he then mounts again, and proceeds.  The poor beast remembering the blows he has received, jumps about, or sets out full speed, at the least signal; the buyer, entirely ignorant of the preparatory discipline the animal has undergone, supposes this to be natural vivacity, and in hopes that good feeding, with care, will render him still more lively, strikes a bargain: but the next day he has the mortification to discover that he has bought a jade, on which all his care will be thrown away, as the beast has not a leg to stand upon.  In Suabia, and on the Rhine, they have another device:—they make an incision in some hidden part of the skin, through which they blow the creature up, till he looks fleshy and plump; they then apply a strong sticking-plaster, to prevent the air from p. 43returning.  If what Wolfgang Franz assures us be true, they sometimes make use of a trick with a live eel, to this blown-up horse, that he may not only appear in good condition, but spirited and lively.  It might be thought, that, on account of these and such-like roguish proceedings, nobody would ever venture to deal with a Gipsey for a horse, were not the possibility proved by the fact itself.  But we see instances of this infatuation in other transactions: it is well known that every Jew will cheat, whenever he has an opportunity; yet these people have lived by trade, ever since their dispersion from Babel.  Then, these frauds do not always happen: the Gipseys too sell their horses cheap; and as poor people cannot afford to pay dear for them, they must buy where they can; and thus the Gipseys are enabled to continue their traffick.

To the two professions before mentioned as commonly followed by the men, may be added, those of carpenters and turners: the former make watering-troughs and chests; the latter turn trenchers, dishes, make spoons and other trifling articles, which they hawk about.  There are others who make sieves, or maintain themselves by cobbling shoes.  Many of these, as well as the blacksmiths and whitesmiths, find constant employment in the houses of the better sort of people, for whom they work the year round.  They are not paid in p. 44money; but, beside other advantages, find a certain subsistence.  Those who are not thus circumstanced, do not wait at home for customers, but, with their implements in a sack thrown over their shoulders, seek business in the cities or villages: when any one calls, they throw down the bundle, and prepare the apparatus for work, before the door of their employer.

The Gipseys have a fixed dislike to agriculture; and had rather suffer hunger, or any privation, than follow the plough, to earn a decent livelihood.  But, as there is no general rule without an exception, so, beside the slaves to the bojars in Moldavia and Wallachia, who are constrained to apply to it, there are some in Hungary who are cultivators by choice.  Since the year 1768, the Empress Theresa has commanded that the Hungarian and Transylvanian Gipseys should be instructed in husbandry; but these orders have been very little regarded.  At this time there are so few of them farmers, in those parts, that they are undeserving of notice; though in Spain, and other European countries, they are still more scarce, as it would be difficult to find one who had ever made a furrow in his life.

Formerly, Gipseys were commonly employed in Hungary, and in Transylvania almost universally, for hangmen and executioners.  They still perform the business of flayers in Hungary, and of executioners in p. 45different parts of Transylvania.  Their assiduity in torturing, their cruel invention in tormenting, are described by Toppeltin to be so shocking, that the Gipseys seem eminently calculated for works of barbarity.  They do not follow flaying as a regular profession any-where; it is merely a casual occupation, in addition to their usual employment.  Whenever a beast dies near where they happen to be, it is a fortunate circumstance if there be no skinner in the place; not because they can make much of the skin, which they always leave with the owner for a trifling consideration, but they are thus enabled to procure a plentiful provision of flesh for the family.

Such are the employments of the men.  We shall now proceed to shew the particular methods the women have of obtaining support.  It was formerly, and still is, the custom, among the wandering Gipseys, especially in winter, not for the man to maintain the wife, but the wife the husband.  This is not precisely the fact in summer, when the men have the before-recited occupations; nor among those who have a regular settlement; but the women always endeavour to contribute their share towards the maintenance of the family: some deal in old clothes; others frequent brothels, which is commonly the case in Spain, and still more so in Constantinople, and all over Turkey.  There are others, in Constantinople, who make and sell brooms; but p. 46this trade is followed by those chiefly who are too old to get a livelihood by their debauchery.  Dancing is another means they have of obtaining contributions: they generally practise this when begging, particularly of men, in the streets; or when they enter houses, to ask charity.  Their dancing is the most disgusting that can be conceived, always ending with fulsome grimaces, or the most lascivious attitudes and gestures: nor is this indecency confined to the married women, but is rather more practised by young girls, travelling with their fathers, who are also musicians, and who, for a trifling acknowledgement, will exhibit their dexterity to any body who is pleased with these unseemly dances.  They are trained up to this impudence from their earliest years, never suffering a passenger to pass their parents’ hut, without endeavouring to obtain something by frisking about naked before him.

Respecting fortune telling, with which the female Gipseys impose on people’s credulity, in every district and corner of Europe, little need be said.  Yet it is extraordinary, that women, generally too not till they become old, should be so sharpsighted as to discover, in every person’s hand they are permitted to inspect, the events of futurity!  There are some instances of men being thus gifted; but so few, that they are only exceptions to a general rule.  It is, therefore, to be ascribed to the Gipsey women p. 47alone, that faith in divination still exists in the minds of millions of people.  It is true, Europe was not originally beholden to the Gipseys for this faith, it being deeply rooted in the ignorance of the middle age, when they arrived and brought it with them also.  The science of divination here, was already brought to a much greater degree of perfection than among them: rules were invented to tell lies from the inspection of the hand; whereas these poor wretches were esteemed mere bunglers.  During the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth century the Gipseys were considered as only a supernumerary party; there being men of great learning, who not only read lectures in college on the divine art of chiromancy, but wrote many books, vilifying these people, and endeavouring to spoil their market by exposing their ignorance.  But those enlightened men are no more; their knowledge is deposited in the dead archives of literature: and probably, if there were no Gipseys, with them would also have died the belief in chiromancy, as has happened in regard to astrology, necromancy, oneirocritica, and the other offsprings of imbecile fancy.  By the Gipseys alone will this deceit be kept alive, till every Gipsey is constrained to acknowledge some country, and to have some ostensible mode of gaining a livelihood.  We can only pity the poor weak deluded beings, who pay their groschen or kreutzer, their shilling p. 48or sixpence, for a few unmeaning words!—as if it were possible for people to instruct us concerning our future fortune in life, who are ignorant of their own; being unable to determine whether a day or two hence, they may still be telling fortunes, or be taken before the magistrates, and hanged for theft.

In addition to the chiromantic deception of the Gipsey women, they also—though not exclusively, as the men likewise often profess the same talent—cure bewitched cattle, discover thefts, and possess nostrums of various kinds, to which they ascribe great virtues.  These nostrums consist principally of roots, and amulets made of unfermented dough, marked with strange figures, and dried in the air.  Griselini says, that, in the Banat of Temeswar, they sell certain small stones, chiefly a kind of scoriæ, which they say possess the quality of rendering the wearer fortunate in love, play, &c.  Were that true, why deliver to others what they have so much occasion for themselves?  Why do they beg and steal, when, with the assistance of these stones, they might honourably acquire riches, and good fortune?  Yet these stones are purchased with avidity, not only in the Banat, but in Germany.  People use their quack medicines; call the Gipsey woman into the stable, to exorcise their bewitched cattle, without suspecting any trick or deception.  So the open-hearted farmer, p. 49in Suabia and Bavaria, has recourse to the Gipseys on many occasions, employing them as doctors for man and beast; and constantly, in cases of supposed enchantment, flies to the Gipsey: this circumstance happens most frequently among those of the common people who pretend to have the least belief in witches and witchcraft.  Whenever a cow does not feed kindly, something is immediately suspected; and the Gipsey woman is called, who is often so successful as to remove the impediment.  She goes into the stable, orders the cow to be shewn to her, and, after desiring every one else to go out, remains a few minutes alone with it: having finished her operations, she calls in the master, acquaints him with the beast’s recovery, and behold it eats heartily!  How happens this?  Was it not a piece of enchantment, wherein the Gipsey really acted the magician?  Certainly not.  The fraud is this:—When the cattle are feeding abroad, the Gipsey woman takes advantage of the keepers absence to entice some of them, with a handful of fodder, to follow her; she then smears them, over the nose and mouth, with some filthy composition, which she has ready in the other hand.  From that moment the creature loaths all kinds of food and drink.  When the Gipsey is called in to apply a remedy, the whole skill required, is to cleanse the animal’s nose and mouth from the stuff she had put on a day or two before: p. 50by this means the true smell is restored, and the cow being hungry, it is not surprising she should fall-to greedily.  From this single instance, a judgment may be formed of other cases.

The more common Gipsey occupations, wherein the men and women take an equal share, are—in Spain, keeping inns; principally music in Hungary and Turkey; and gold-washing in Transylvania, the Banat, Moldavia, and Wallachia.  The Gipseys, formerly, were concerned in smuggling; and probably still are, although it is not mentioned by late writers.

Both male and female Gipseys attend at entertainments with their music, and often shew great proficiency in the art: besides some wind instrument, they have generally a violin; and many of them have attained so great perfection on that instrument, as to be employed in the chapels of the nobility, and admired as great masters.  Barna Mihaly, in the country of Zips, who distinguished himself, about the middle of the last century, in the chapel of the cardinal Count Emerick von Cschaky, was an Orpheus of this kind.  The cardinal, who was a judge of music himself, had so great a regard for him, that he had his likeness taken by one of the most capital painters.  Instances of the kind are not wanting in the other sex: it is well known that a Gipsey girl, at fourteen years of age, was so famous as a fidler, that p. 51the greatest and most fashionable people in Hungary were accustomed to send twenty or thirty miles for her, to play at their balls.  There are likewise very many scrapers; these are generally such as have learned of other scrapers, at their own expense.  This kind of musicians travel about, with the dancers before mentioned; or play to the peasants, who, not having much taste, always make them welcome at their weddings, or dances.  They scratch away on an old patched violin, or rumble on a broken base, neither caring about better instruments, nor minding to stop in tune; being what they are, more for want of application than capacity.  Others practise vocal music; and some have acquired considerable fortunes, particularly in Spain, by singing.

Goldwashing, in the rivers, is another occupation, by which many thousand Gipseys, of both sexes, procure a livelihood, in the Banat, Transylvania, Wallachia, and Moldavia.  As this is only a summer employment, they are under the necessity of finding some other means of supporting themselves during the winter.  It is not permitted for every one, without exception, to be a goldwasher: in Transylvania, such only can follow the employment, who have leave from the office of Mons; [51] and these only enjoy the privilege under p. 52certain restrictions.  In Wallachia and Moldavia, none of the bojars’ slaves, thence called bojaresk (bojar Gipseys), are suffered to meddle with goldwashing; that being a liberty granted only to those who, like other subjects, are immediately under the prince, denominated domnesk (princely Gipseys): which are also subdivided into three classes; the first named Rudar; the second Ursar; and the third Lajaschen.  The Radars alone have the licence above mentioned; the others are obliged to seek a different means of obtaining support.  Each person is forced to pay a certain tribute to government.  The goldwashers in Transylvania and the Banat pay four guilders annually, which is discharged in gold-dust: the same sum is due from every Gipsey, though many evade the contribution.  When the time for payment approaches; they contrive to keep out of the way, particularly the Hungarian Gipseys.  The tribute collected in Wallachia and Moldavia does not go into the public treasury, but belongs to the princesses for pin-money.  In Cantemir’s time, that in Moldavia produced yearly one thousand six hundred drachms: and the consort of the Wallachian hospodar Stephen Rakowitza, in the year 1764, received from her Rudars, two hundred and forty in number, twelve hundred and fifty-four drachms;—a sum, according to General von Bauer and Sulzer, amounting to one thousand and three drachms, p. 53fine gold.  What the Gipseys in Wallachia and Moldavia get more than their head-money, goes to the grand armasch, at two lion-guilders the drachm: this he afterwards sells again, at a higher price, according with its real value; as General von Bauer believes, for his own profit, not for that of the prince.  The goldwashers in the Banat and Transylvania dispose of their share at the royal redemption-office, in Zalatnya.  The earnings of these people vary with time and at different places; during heavy rains and floods they are usually most successful: besides, their profit is more or less, according to the quality of the river they wash in.  At the most favourable times, viz. at the floods, Griselini calculates their daily gain not to exceed three groschens.  If we understand, as we certainly ought, that this sum is not earned by each person, but by a whole family, the statement will agree, pretty nearly, with Mr. Dembscher’s account: he says, “In the year 1770 there were, in the districts of Uj-Palanka, Orsova, and Caransebes, upwards of eighty goldwashers, all of whom had families, and followed the business, with their wives and children; yet this number of hands delivered in only six or seven hundred ducats worth of gold.”  Take half of the doubtful seventh hundred; deduct three hundred and twenty guilders, head money, from the gross sum; divide the remainder p. 54among eighty families, and each will receive yearly thirty-two guilders: allot to each day, in the summer half-year, its proportion, and it will be found very little more or less than three groschens.  As before stated, the labour of two hundred Rudars produced, in the year 1764, twelve hundred fifty-four drachms: General von Bauer adds, this sum was exactly the half of what was collected, over the whole country, in the same year.  Now as these Gipseys were under the necessity of parting with their twelve or thirteen hundred drachms, which remained after the capitation tax was paid, to the grand-armasch, at the rate of two lion-guilders per drachm, they earned still less than those in the Banat; although the rivers in Wallachia contain a sufficient plenty of gold to have enabled them to make ten times that advantage, did not their laziness prevent them.  The Transylvanian rivers yield the most gold: there are annually, from eight to ten hundred weight separated from their sand, which are brought to Zalatnya, to be disposed of.  As this quantity is not obtained by Gipseys only, but together with the Wallachians, and we have no account of the gross number of goldwashers, how many of them are Gipseys, nor what proportion they have of these eight hundred weight, it is impossible to ascertain the profits of the Transylvanian Gipsey goldwashers.  That they are better off than those p. 55in the Banat and other places, is certain, from the circumstance of the rivers abounding more with gold, than elsewhere.

It may not be uninteresting in this place to give the process of goldwashing, in the words of those who, as mineralogists, have superintended the work.  The account communicated by the Councellor von Kotzian, concerning the goldwashing in the Banat, is as follows: “The operation consists in, first, providing a board of lime-wood, about one fathom long, and half a fathom broad; being hollowed at the upper end, in the form of a dish, from which are cut ten or twelve channels, in an oblique direction.  This board is fixed in an inclined position so as to form an angle of forty-five degrees with the horizon.  The sand containing the gold, being laid in the hollow at the top of the board, a quantity of water is then poured upon it, which carries off the lighter parts; such as are more heavy they shove down by hand: what remains in the channels, or furrows, is discharged into an oblong tray, carried to the straining-trough, and the gold which remains picked clean out.  The whole of this work is performed in so careless a manner, that much pure gold is lost: it is, moreover, to be lamented, that the Gipseys get only the gold which is perfectly separated from the sand, but by no means any that sticks to p. 56the ore, which they throw away, though there is gold in it.”

As it seems evident, from the foregoing statement, that this method is very inadequate to the purpose, and that consequently much gold must be wasted, we are the more surprised when another author, in the following words, assures us of the contrary:—“So negligent and careless as the work of the Gipseys appears at first sight, just as effectual it is proved when put to the test.  Daily practice gives to these people a degree of discernment, without which another person would think they must lose a great deal.  I convinced myself in the following manner: When they had finished their washing on the board—for which they commonly used from fifteen to twenty troughs of coarse stuff—I divided the washed stuff into three parcels; the ten or fifteen uppermost furrows always contained the most gold, the second division not more than an eighth part as much, but the last fifteen to twenty furrows scarcely three grains.  I have also narrowly examined the refuse, and very seldom found any traces of gold in it.”

The art of goldwashing is brought to much greater perfection in Transylvania.  In the description of the process adopted in that country, it is said that all the rivers, brooks, and even the pools which the rain forms, produce gold: p. 57of these the river Aranyosch is the richest, insomuch that the historians have compared it to the Tagus and Pactolus.  Excepting the Wallachians, who live by the rivers, the goldwashers consist chiefly of Gipseys.  They can judge with the greatest certitude where to wash to advantage.  The apparatus used by them for this work is a crooked board, four or five feet long, by two or three broad, generally provided with a wooden rim on each side; over this board they spread a woollen cloth, and scatter the gold-sand, mixed with water, upon it: the small grains of the metal remain sticking to the cloth, which they afterwards wash in a vessel of water, and then separate the gold by means of the trough.  When larger particles of sand are found in their washing, they make deeper channels in the middle of their crooked boards, to stop the small pieces as they roll down: they closely examine these small stones, and some are frequently found to have solid gold fixed in them.

Those we have mentioned are the customary professions and occupations of Gipseys, in the different countries and states of Europe.  But people must not imagine that their smiths’ shops are continually resounding with the hammer; nor that those of other professions are so attentive to their callings, as to provide even a daily subsistence, not to think of a comfortable maintenance.  p. 58Their consummate laziness, on the contrary, as before observed, occasions so many idle hours in the day, that their family is often reduced to the greatest distress; for which reason, begging or stealing is by far a more common method, than diligence or assiduous application to business, for quieting the cravings of hunger.  If we except soldiers, who are kept in order by the discipline of the corporal, with some of the Transylvanian goldwashers, who apply to music—and, living separate from their own caste, in constant habits of intercourse with people of a better sort, have thereby acquired more civilised manners, and learned the distinction, if not between right and wrong, at least between social honour and disgrace—the remainder are, in the most unlimited sense, arrant thieves.  In fact, working at any trade, or employment, seems to be merely a disguise, in order the better to enable them to carry on their thieving practices; as the articles which they prepare for sale in the cities and villages, furnish an excellent excuse for sneaking into houses, to pry where there is any thing which they may appropriate to themselves.  This kind of artifice is particularly the province of the women, who have always been reckoned more dextrous than the men in the art of stealing.  They commonly take children with them, who are tutored to remain behind, in the outer part of the house, to purloin what they can, p. 59while the mother is negotiating in the chamber.  It is generally the women’s office to make away with the boor’s geese and fowls, when they are to be found in a convenient place.  Should the creature make a noise when seized, it is killed and dressed for the consumption of the family; but if, by chance, it have strayed so far from the village, that its crying cannot give any alarm, they keep it alive to sell at the next market town.  Winter is the time when the women generally are most called upon to try their skill in this way: during that season, many of the men remain in their huts, sending the women abroad to forage.  They go about in the guise of beggars—a character they well know how to support—and commonly carry with them a couple of children, miserably exposed to the cold and frost; one of these is led by the hand, the other tied in a cloth to the woman’s back, in order to excite compassion in well-disposed people.  Whole troops of these Gipsey beggars are met with in Spain; and the encounter is by no means pleasant, as they ask alms in a manner, and with such importunity, as if they thought you could not deny them.  They also tell fortunes; and impose on the credulous with amulets.  Besides all this, they seldom return to their husbands without some pilfered booty.  Many writers confine the thefts of the Gipseys to small maters, and will not allow that they are ever guilty of violence.  p. 60This is not only denied by the testimony of others, but absolutely contradicted by some recent instances.  It is true that, on account of their natural timidity, they do hesitate to commit a robbery which appears to be attended with great danger, nor do they often break open houses by night: they rather confine themselves to petty depredations, than, as they think, rush voluntarily into destruction by a great and dangerous action.  Yet we have more than one proof, that they make no scruple to murder a traveller, or plunder cities and villages.

p. 61CHAPTER VIII.

On their Marriages and Education.

There are not, perhaps, any other people among whom marriages are contracted with so little consideration, or solemnised with so little ceremony, as among the Gipseys.  No sooner has a boy attained the age of fourteen or fifteen years, than he begins to perceive that something more than mere eating and drinking is necessary to him.  Having no fear of consequences, nor being under any restraint from his parents, he forms a connection with the girl he most fancies, of twelve, or at most thirteen, years old, without any scruple of conscience, whether she be his nearest relation, or an entire stranger; but it is to be observed, that a Gipsey never marries a person who is not of the true Gipsey breed.  God’s commandments are unknown to him; and human laws cannot have much influence over one who lives in a desert, remote from the observation of any ruling power.  The term of courtship is very short, often only long enough for the parties to communicate their mutual inclination.  They do not wait for any marriage ceremony, as it is a matter of no consequence to them, whether it be performed afterwards, or not at all.  Yet they do not seem to be entirely indifferent about matrimony, p. 62not on account of conforming to any institution, but from a pride they have in imitating what is done by other people, lest they should appear to be inferior to them.  As the very early age of the parties, or some other irregularity, might meet with objections from a regular clergyman, they frequently get one of their own people to act the priest, and tack the decent couple together.  A marriage being thus accomplished, the man provides a stone for an anvil, a pair of pincers, a file, and hammers away as a smith; or works at some other trade, he may have just learned from his father: then begins his peregrination.  Should his wife commit a fault at a future time, he gives her half a dozen boxes on the ear; or very likely, for some trifling cause, turns her off entirely.  Her conduct must, in general, be very much regulated by his will; and she is obliged to be more attentive to him than to herself.  When the woman lies-in, which happens frequently, these people being remarkably prolific, the child is brought forth, either in their miserable hut, or, according to circumstances, it may be in the open air, but always easily and fortunately: a woman of the same kind performs the office of midwife.  True Gipsey like, for want of some vessel, they dig a hole in the ground, which is filled up with cold water, and the new-born child washed in it.  This being done, it is wrapped up in some old rags, which the motherly foresight has taken care to provide.  p. 63Next comes the christening, at which ceremony they prefer strangers, for witnesses, rather than their own caste: but what kind of folks their guests are, may be collected from the mode of entertaining them.  When the christening is over, the father takes the sponsors to an alehouse, or if none be near, to some other house, where he treats them with cakes and brandy.  If he is a little above the lowest state of misery, and has a mind to be generous, other things are provided; but he does not join the company, being employed in serving his guests.  Thus the affair ends.  The lying-in woman passes her short time of confinement, seldom exceeding eight days, with her child, in the hut, or under a tent, in the smoke by the fire.  Refreshments are often sent from the godfathers and godmothers; yet they are sometimes so uncivil, that they do not hesitate to quarrel with them or even to discharge them from the trust, if they think the present too small, or do not like the provisions.  When this happens, they have another christening, in some other place; nay, sometimes even a third.

Gipsey women, as already mentioned, frequently smear their children over with a particular kind of ointment, and then lay them in the sun, or before the fire, in order that the skin may be more completely parched, and their black beauty thereby increased.  They never use a cradle, nor even p. 64possess such a piece of furniture; the child sleeps in its mother’s arms, or on the ground.  When the lying-in is over, the Gipsey woman goes to church, and thence, immediately, either to begging or stealing.  While the child remains in her arms, perhaps imagining that people will be less severe in their chastisements, she is more rapacious than at other times, and takes whatever she can lay her hands on.  If she cannot escape without a beating, she endeavours to screen herself by holding up the child to receive the blows, till she finds an opportunity of retiring imperceptibly, and running away.

When the child gets a little stronger, and has attained the age of three or four months, the mother seldom carries it on the arm, but at her back; there it sits, winter and summer, in a linen rag, with its head over her shoulder.  If she have more children, in course of time, which is generally the case, as this race of beings is so prolifick, she leads one or two by the hand, while such as are older run by her side; and thus attended, she strolls through the villages and into houses.  Notwithstanding their dark complexion, and bad nursing, writers are unanimous in stating, that these children are good-looking, well shaped, lively, clever, and have fine eyes.  The mother plaits their black hair on the crown of the head, partly to keep it out of their face, and partly for ornament.  This p. 65is all she ever does towards decorating her offspring; for in summer the children wear no clothes till ten years of age, and in winter they are forced to be content with a few old rags hung about them.

No sooner is the child, whether boy or girl, capable of running about, than it is taught to dance; which talent consists in jumping on one foot, and constantly striking behind with the other.  As the young Gipsey grows up, all kinds of postures are added, in hopes of diverting, and thereby to obtain a reward from persons who happen to pass the parents’ habitation.  What the children are further taught, especially by their mothers, is the art of stealing, which they often put in practice, as before related.  Instruction or school is never thought of; nor do they learn any business, except perhaps to blow the fire when the father forges, or to assist in goldwashing.

By the twelfth or thirteenth year, a boy acquires some knowledge of his father’s trade; and then becomes emancipated from parental authority; as he now begins to think of forming his own separate connections.  The Gipseys, in common with uncivilised people, entertain unbounded love for their children: this is a source of the most unpardonable neglect.  Gipsey children never feel the rod; they fly into the most violent passion, and at the same time hear nothing from their parents but flattery and coaxing.  In return, they act, as is commonly p. 66the consequence of such education, with the greatest ingratitude.  This excessive fondness for their children is, however, attended with one advantage:—when they are indebted to any person, which is frequently the case in Hungary and Transylvania, the creditor seizes a child, and by that means obtains a settlement of his demand; as the Gipsey will immediately exert every method to discharge the debt, and procure the release of his darling offspring.

To the beforegoing account of Gipsey marriages, and education, there are but few exceptions; comprised in a small proportion of them who have fixed habitations.  The character of people being formed by the instruction they receive in their early years, can it then be thought surprising that Gipseys should be idlers, thieves, murderers, and incendiaries?  Is it probable, that man should become diligent, who has been educated in laziness?  Can it be expected those should leave every person in possession of his own property, whose father and mother have taught them to steal, from their earliest infancy?  Who can have a general idea of fair dealing, that knows not right from wrong, nor has ever learned the distinction between good and evil, virtue and vice?  Punishments inflicted on others, for their crimes, have no effect upon one who is not sufficiently attentive to take warning by the examples of strangers: and when, by his own experience, p. 67he is taught not to lay hands on the property of others, he is become so hardened, that the milder punishments leave no lasting impression; while the more severe ones, which reach the life, cannot have any effect on him, and are, as before observed, totally disregarded by his fellows.  So long therefore as the education of the Gipseys continues to be what it is, we cannot hope that they should leave off their vile practices and filthy habits.

p. 68CHAPTER IX.

On their Sickness, Death, and Burial.

We have before had occasion to mention the constant good health of these people; and it is fact, that they do enjoy it more uninterruptedly, and perfectly, than persons of the most regular habits, and who pay the greatest attention to themselves.  They get no cold nor defluxions, from the inclemency of the air.  They are not subject to rashes; even poisons, or epidemical disorders, have no effect upon them.  Any prevailing sickness penetrates sooner into ten habitations of civilised people, than it finds its way under a Gipsey’s tent, or into his hut.  They are equally liable to the small-pox and measles with other people, though with infinitely less danger; and they are subject to a disorder in the eyes, occasioned by the continual smoke and steam in their huts, during the winter season: excepting these complaints, the Gipseys, in general, experience little inconvenience till the time comes that Nature demands her own back again, and entirely destroys the machine.  Though this be not always at a great age, it is generally at an advanced period; it being very uncommon for a Gipsey to die early in life, or during his childhood.  Their love of life is excessive; yet they hardly ever take p. 69the advice of a physician, or use medicines, even in the most dangerous maladies.  They generally leave every thing to nature, or good fortune: if they do any thing, it is, to mix a little saffron in their soup, or bleed and scarify themselves; having observed that their horses use bleeding, as a remedy for disorders.  When the sickness indicates danger, and that the universal enemy to life is really in earnest, the Gipsey breaks out into sighs and lamentations, on account of his departure; till at last he gives up the ghost, in his usual place of residence—under a tree, or in his tent.

The preparations for death are usually regulated according to a person’s religious principles; but the Gipsey, who neither knows nor believes any thing concerning the immortality of the soul, or of rewards and punishments beyond this life, for the most part dies like a beast—ignorant of himself and his Creator, as well as utterly incapable of forming any opinion respecting a higher destination.

The Gipsey’s decease is instantly succeeded by the most frantic lamentations: parents, in particular, who have lost their children, appear inconsolable.  Little can be said of their burials; only, that on those occasions the cries and bewailings are redoubled, and become very violent.  When the leader of a horde dies, things are conducted more quietly.  His own people carry him, p. 70with great respect, to the grave, where each one appears earnest and attentive; although at the same time employed in a manner to excite laughter.

This is the mode of proceeding when a Gipsey dies a natural death.  But it often happens that he loses his life by violent means—not by his own hands for self-murder and infanticide are equally unheard of among them.  No Gipsey ever puts a period to his own existence on account of vexation, anxiety, or despair; as, besides his unbounded love of life, care or despair is totally unknown to him.

Even in the greatest distress, the Gipsey is never troubled with low spirits; ever merry and blythe, he dies not till he cannot help it: this often happens on the gallows, attended with scenes ridiculous as the most ludicrous imagination could invent.  One man requested, as a particular act of grace, that he might not be hanged with his face towards the high road; saying, “Many of his acquaintance passed that way, and he should be very much ashamed to be seen by them hanging on a gallows.”  At another time the relations of a Gipsey who was leading to execution, perceiving, by the discourse and gestures of the criminal, how unwillingly he advanced, not having the least inclination to be hanged, addressed themselves to the magistrates and officers of justice, with the following p. 71wise remonstrance: “Gentlemen, pray do not compel a man to a thing for which you see he has no desire nor inclination.”  Such scenes happen at almost every Gipsey execution, which are proofs that these people are quite deficient in thought or consideration.

p. 72CHAPTER X.

Political Regulations peculiar to the Gipseys.

When the Gipseys first arrived in Europe, they had leaders and chiefs, to conduct the various tribes in their migrations.  This was necessary, not only to facilitate their progress through different countries and quarters of the globe, but to unite their force if necessary, and thereby enable them to make a more formidable resistance when opposed: and likewise to carry any plan, they might have formed, more readily into execution.  We accordingly find, in old books, mention made of knights, counts, dukes, and kings.  Krantz and Munster mention counts, and knights, in general terms, among the Gipseys; other people give us the very names of these dignified men: Crusius cites a duke Michael; Muratori a duke Andreas; and Aventinus records a king Zindelo: not to speak of inscriptions on monuments, erected in different places, to the memories of duke Panuel, count Johannis; and a noble knight Petrus, in the fifteenth century.  But no comment is requisite to shew how improperly these appellations were applied.  Though the Gipsey chiefs might be gratified with these titles, and their dependants probably esteemed them people of rank, it was merely p. 73a ridiculous imitation of what they had seen and admired among civilised people.  Nevertheless, the custom of having leaders and chiefs over them prevails to this time, at least in Hungary and Transylvania; probably it may also still exist in Turkey, and other countries where these people live together in great numbers.

Their chiefs—or waywodes, as they proudly call them—were formerly of two degrees in Hungary.  Each petty tribe had its own leader; beside which, there were four superior waywodes, of their own caste, on both sides the Danube and Teisse, whose usual residences were at Raab, Lewentz, Szathmar, and Kaschau: to these the smaller waywodes were accountable.  It would appear extraordinary that any well-regulated state should allow these people a distinct establishment in the heart of the country, did not the Hungarian writers assign a reason: viz. that in the commotions and troubles, occasioned by the Turkish wars, in former centuries, they were, by means of their waywodes, more easily summoned, when occasion required, and rendered useful to the community.  But the Gipseys in Hungary and Transylvania were permitted to choose, from their own people, only the small waywodes of each tribe.  The superior waywodes, to whom the Gipseys, in many districts, were subject, have existed till within a few years; but they were appointed by the court, and p. 74always selected from the Hungarian nobility.  The appointment was by no means despicable; as each Gipsey was bound to pay the superintendent under whom his tribe was classed, a guilder annually, of which one half was demanded at Easter, the other half at Michaelmas.  In order to render the levying this tax more certain, the magistrates, in all towns, cities, and villages, were ordered to be assisting to the collectors, where necessary; to protect them also from any violence that might be offered by the Gipseys.  These superior waywodes are now no longer appointed, except a single one in Transylvania, who has authority over the goldwashers in those parts.  But the Gipseys still continue the custom, among themselves, of dignifying certain persons, whom they make heads over them, and call by the exalted Sclavonian title—waywode.  To choose their waywode, the Gipseys take the opportunity when a great number of them are assembled in one place, commonly in the open field.  The elected person is lifted up three times, amidst the loudest acclamations, and confirmed in his dignity by presents; his wife undergoes the same ceremony.  When this solemnity is performed, they separate with great conceit, imagining themselves people of more consequence than electors returning from the choice of an emperor.  Every one who is of a family descended from a former waywode p. 75is eligible; but those who are best clothed, not very poor, of large stature, and about the middle age, have generally the preference.  Understanding or wise conduct is of no consideration: therefore it is easy to distinguish the waywode from the multitude, by observing his size and clothing.  The particular distinguishing mark of dignity, is a large whip, hanging over the shoulder.  His outward deportment, his walk and air, also plainly shew his head to be filled with notions of authority.

It is uncertain how far the waywode’s sway over his subjects extends.  A distinction must here be made, whether the state gives him any power, and what he assumes or derives by custom from his caste.  It were ridiculous to suppose that the state should, on any occasion, appoint this sort of illustrious personage a judge.  In Transylvania, indeed, the magistrates do interfere with regard to the fellow whom this or that horde has elected chief, and impose an obligation on him; but it is only that he should be careful to prevent his nimble subjects from absconding, when the time arrives for them to discharge their annual tribute at the land-regent’s chamber.  He has no right to interfere in disputes or quarrels which the Gipseys have among themselves, or with other people, further than to give notice of them to the regular courts of the district where they happen to be.  p. 76In this point of view, what Toppeltin and others after him assert, that the waywodes have little or no power over their own people, is perfectly correct: but if we attend to their actions, the affair carries a very different appearance.  Whenever a complaint is made, that any of their people have been guilty of theft, the waywode not only orders a general search to be made, in every tent or hut, and returns the stolen goods to the owner, if they can be found, but punishes the thief, in presence of the complainant, with his whip.  Certainly it is not by any written contract that he acquires his right over the people, for no such thing exists among them, but custom gives him this judicial power.  Moreover he does not punish the aggressor from any regard to justice, but rather to quiet the plaintiff, and at the same time to make his people more wary in their thefts, as well as more dextrous in concealing their plunder.  These discoveries materially concern him, since by every detection his income suffers; as the whole profit of his office arises from his share of the articles that are stolen.  Every time a Gipsey brings in a booty, he is obliged to give information to the arch-Gipsey of his successful enterprise; and then render a just account of what and how much he has stolen, in order that the proper division may be made.  In this proceeding the Gipsey considers himself bound to give a fair and true detail; though in p. 77every other instance he does not hesitate to commit the grossest perjury.  We may therefore judge how precarious success is likely to be, when a waywode is applied to for the recovery of stolen goods.  The Gipseys are cunning enough to hide what they have pilfered, in such a manner, that out of a hundred searches the complainer hardly once accomplishes his desire.  It does not at all forward the cause, that the waywode knows who the thief is: his interest requires him to dissemble.  Thus, though he does not steal himself, the Spanish proverb is a very true one: “The Count and the Gipsey are rogues alike.”  For which reason people seldom apply to so suspicious a judge.  If a thief is caught in the fact, the owner takes his property, and gives the offender his proper reward, or else delivers him over to the civil power for correction.  Here ensues a truly laughable scene: As soon as the officer seizes on, and forces away the culprit, he is surrounded by a swarm of Gipseys, who take unspeakable pains to procure the release of the prisoner.  They endeavour to cajole him with kind words, desiring him to consider this, that, and the other, or admonish him not to be so uncivil.  When it comes to the infliction of punishment, and the malefactor receives a good number of lashes, well laid on, in the public market-place, an universal lamentation commences among the vile crew; each stretches p. 78his throat, to cry over the agony his dear associate is constrained to suffer.  This is oftener the fate of the women than of the men; for, as the maintenance of the family depends most upon them, they more frequently go out for plunder.

p. 79CHAPTER XI.

On the Religion of the Gipseys.

These people did not bring any particular religion with them from their native country, by which, as the Jews, they could be distinguished among other persons; but regulate themselves, in religious matters, according to the country where they live.  Being very inconstant in their choice of residence, they are likewise so in respect to religion.  No Gipsey has an idea of submission to any fixed profession of faith: it is as easy for him to change his religion at every new village, as for another person to shift his coat.  They suffer themselves to be baptised in Christian countries; among Mahometans to be circumcised.  They are Greeks with Greeks, Catholics with Catholics, and again profess themselves to be Protestants, whenever they happen to reside where protestantism prevails.

From this mutability, we may conceive what ideas they have, and thence deduce their general opinions of religion.  As parents suffer their children to grow up without education or instruction, and were reared in the same manner themselves, so neither have any knowledge of God or morality.  Few of them will attend to any discourse p. 80on religion: they hear what is said with indifference, nay rather with impatience and repugnance; despising all remonstrance, believing nothing, they live without the least solicitude concerning what shall become of them after this life.  An instance, quoted by Toppeltin, will fully illustrate this matter: One of the more civilised Gipseys in Transylvania took the resolution of sending his son to school: leave being obtained from the government, the lad was admitted, and was going on very well, under his teachers’ hands.  The child died; whereupon the relations applied to the magistrates and clergy for permission to give the young man Christian burial, he being a student at the time of his death.  On this occasion the priest asked, whether they believed the deceased would rise again at the last day?—“Strange idea!” they answered; “to believe that a carcase, a lifeless corpse, should be reanimated, and rise again!—In our opinion, it would be no more likely to happen to him, than to the horse we flayed a few days ago.”  Such are the opinions of the greatest part of these people with regard to religion; it naturally follows, that their conduct should be conformable to such ideas and conceptions.  Every duty is neglected, no prayer ever passes their lips: as little are they to be found in any assembly of public worship; whence the Wallachian adage—p. 81“The Gipsey’s church was built with bacon, and the dogs ate it.”  The religious party from which a Gipsey apostatises, as little loses a brother believer, as the one into which he goes acquires one.  He is neither Mahometan nor Christian; for the doctrines of Mahomet and of Christ are alike unknown or indifferent to him, producing no other effect than that in Turkey his child is circumcised, and baptised in Christendom.  The Turks are so fully convinced of the little sincerity the Gipseys entertain in regard to religion, that although a Jew, by becoming a Mahometan, is freed from the payment of the charadsch, the Gipseys are not, at least in the neighbourhood of Constantinople.  They are compelled to pay this polltax even though their ancestors, for centuries back, had been Mahometans; or though they should actually have been a pilgrimage to Mecca: the privilege of wearing a white turban is the only advantage their conversion gives them over unbelieving Jews and Gipseys.

Such is the respect paid by the Gipseys to moral institutions, in every country where they are found.  It is true that in this, as well as in other things, there may be exceptions, but they are very rare; by much the greatest part of them are as above described.  Wherefore the more ancient, as well as the more modern, writers p. 82agree, in positively denying that the Gipseys have any religion; placing them even below the heathens.  This sentence cannot be contradicted; since, so far from having a respect for religion, they are adverse to every thing which in the least relates to it.

p. 83CHAPTER XII.

Their Language, Sciences, and Arts.

Besides that the Gipseys understand and speak the language of the country where they live, they have a general language of their own, in which they always converse with each other.  Writers differ in opinion concerning this language, being undecided whether it be really that of any country, and who are the people from whom it originates.  Some pronounce it a mere jargon, others say it is gibberish.  We can by no means agree with the supporters of the first opinion, as the only ground for the assertion is barely, that they do not know any other language correspondent to that of the Gipseys.  But they do not seem to have considered how extravagant a surmise it is, to believe a whole language an invention; that too of people rude, uncivilised, and hundreds of miles distant from each other.  This opinion is too absurd to employ more time to controvert it.  Neither can the Gipsey language be admitted for gibberish; unless by those who know nothing of the former, or are totally ignorant of the latter, which is corrupt German; whereas the former has neither German words, inflexions, nor the least affinity in sound.  No German, were he to listen p. 84a whole day to a Gipsey conversation, would comprehend a single expression.  A third party allow that the language of the original Gipseys was really vernacular, and that of some country; but assert it to be so disguised and falsified, partly by design of the Gipseys themselves, partly by adventitious events, through length of time, and the continual wandering of these people, that it is entirely new formed, and now used by the Gipseys only.  This opinion contains much truth; but carries the matter too far, in not allowing that any traces remain to prove any particular dialect to be the Gipseys’ mother tongue.  Perhaps the great Büsching means the same thing, when he says, “the Gipsey language is a mixture of corrupt words from the Wallachian, Sclavonian, Hungarian, and other nations.”  Among these, the best-founded notion may be, that it is the dialect of some particular country, though no longer so pure as in the country whence it originated.  This opinion meets the greatest concurrence of the learned: and will, we hope, be fully proved in another part of this book, where the subject will be again discussed, more fully, in order to corroborate the other proofs of the origin of this people.  It will then be certified, in what country this is the native mother tongue.  This is a point concerning which most writers think differently.  Sometimes the Gipseys are Hebrews, then Nubians, p. 85Egyptians, Phrygians, Vandals, Sclavonians, or, as opinions vary, perhaps some other nation.

It appears extraordinary, that the language of a people who have lived for centuries among us, and has been matter of enquiry almost ever since, should still remain an affair of so much uncertainty.  Gipseys are to be found every-where, and might be very easily examined, as closely and often as any body pleased, about their language.  It would have been attended with no great trouble, to have made so near an acquaintance as to bring them to converse with variety of people, and thereby, by means of comparison, to have attained some degree of certainty.  This observation sounds plausibly; but on a closer examination the case is found to be very different.  First, it is not so easy as people may imagine, to gain much information from the Gipseys concerning their language.  They are suspicious, apprehending an explanation might be attended with danger to themselves; and are therefore not very communicative.  To this must be added, their natural levity, and consequent seeming inattention to the questions put to them.  A writer, who had frequent experience of this behaviour, expresses himself to the following effect: “Suppose any person had an inclination to learn the Gipsey language, he would find it very difficult to accomplish his purpose.  Intercourse with p. 86these people is almost insufferable; and very few of them have sense enough to teach any thing, or even to give a proper answer to a question.  If you ask about a single word, they chatter a great many, which nobody can understand.  Others have equally failed of success, not being able, by any means whatever, to obtain from them the paternoster in their own language.”  Secondly, suppose the language of the Gipseys had been perfectly understood soon after their arrival in Europe, variety of opinions would nevertheless have been maintained among the learned.  It would still have been necessary, in order to ascertain truth, to have revised the original languages of all the inhabitants both in and out of Europe, or at least a general sketch of them.  By such a review, the Gipseys’ mother tongue might easily have been discovered.  But many there are, as Büttner, Schlözer, Gibelin, and Bachmeister, who have taken great pains in the minute investigation of the languages, as well as manners, of different people, and reckon those they have learned by dozens.  How was it, indeed, possible for the learned of former centuries to be competent to the enquiry, as they had not the aids which now so copiously occur to the historical etymologist?  Many dialects have been discovered, and our knowledge of others greatly increased, within the last fifty or sixty years.  During that term, the p. 87treasures of the farthest north have been opened; and the most eastern idioms become more familiar to us: we even know how the Otaheitian expresses himself.  All this information did not exist before; knowledge in this science was much more confined than at this period: nor was it possible for the most learned man, so circumstanced, to point out the country in which the Gipsey language was spoken.

The Gipseys have no writing, peculiar to them, in which to express their language. [87]  Writing, or reading, is, in general, a very uncommon accomplishment with any of them; nor must either of these attainments be at all expected among the wandering sort.  Sciences and the refined arts are never to be looked for amongst people whose manner of living and education are so irregular.  Twiss does, indeed, mention, that the Spanish Gipseys have some knowledge of medicine and surgery; but woe betide the person who confides in their skill!  It is absurd to suppose that they are possessed of any secret for extinguishing fire: superstition formerly gave the Jews credit for this art; in process of time, the Gipseys also were believed to be gifted with it.  Music is the only p. 88science in which the Gipseys participate, in any considerable degree: they likewise compose, but it is after the manner of the eastern people, extempore.  In Wallachia, no other people possess this talent; and, like the Italian improvisatori, they always accompany their verses with singing and music.  The quality of the poetry of these ready composers may be appreciated, when it is known that the rhyme is the part most considered: to accomplish this, they are frequently guilty of the most glaring solecisms in grammar; besides their ideas are usually of the most obscene kind, and these expressed in the gross style of rude unpolished people.  It is not necessary, therefore, to be a master, to hold their art in the greatest contempt. [88]

p. 89CHAPTER XIII.

Character and Capacities of the Gipseys; whether they are an Advantage or a Detriment to States.

Imagine a people of childish thoughts, whose minds are filled with raw indigested conceptions, guided more by sense than reason, and using understanding and reflection only so far as they promote the gratification of any particular appetite;—and you have a perfect sketch of the general character of the Gipseys.

They are lively; uncommonly loquacious; fickle to an extreme, consequently inconstant in their pursuits; faithless to every body, even of their own caste; void of the least emotion of gratitude, frequently returning benefits with the most insidious malice.  Fear makes them slavishly compliant [89] when under subjection; but having nothing to apprehend, like other timorous people, they are cruel.  A desire of revenge often causes them to take the p. 90most desperate resolutions.  Thus they vowed no less than death against a respectable German prince who died not many years ago, because, on account of their misdeeds, he had persecuted and driven them from his territories.  They even went so far as to offer a reward among themselves (probably something considerable) to whoever would deliver him to them, either alive or dead.  Nor did they give up this insolent design, till some of them, who talked too openly about it in the Darmstadt dominions, were taken, and being delivered up to the parties concerned, paid the forfeit of their lives for their good intentions.

To such a degree of violence is their fury sometimes excited, that a mother has been known, in the excess of passion, to take her small infant by the feet, when no other instrument has readily presented, and therewith strike the object of her anger.  They are so addicted to drinking, as to sacrifice what is most necessary to them, that they may gratify their taste for spirituous liquors.  They have likewise, what one would little expect, an enormous share of vanity, which is evidenced in their fondness for fine clothes, and their gait and deportment when dressed in them.  It might be supposed that this pride would have the good effect of rendering the Gipsey cautious not to be guilty of such crimes as subject him to public shame: but here his levity of character is rendered conspicuous, for p. 91he never looks either to the right or to the left in his transactions; and though his conceit and pride are somewhat humbled during the time of punishment, and while the consequent pain lasts, these being over, he no longer remembers his disgrace, but entertains quite as good an opinion of himself as before.  The Gipseys are loquacious and quarrelsome in the highest degree, though they seldom make much noise in their huts, in which they generally keep quiet enough: but in the public markets, and before alehouses, where they are surrounded by a number of spectators, they bawl, spit at each other—catch up sticks and cudgels, vapour and brandish them over their heads—throw dust and dirt—now run from each other, then back again, with furious gestures and threats.  The women scream, drag their husbands by force from the scene of action; these break from them again, and return to it: the children, too, howl piteously.  After a short time, without any person’s interference, when they have cried and made a noise till they are tired, and without either party having received any personal injury, the affair finishes itself, and they separate, with as much ostentation as if they had performed the most heroic feats.

Thus the Gipsey seeks honour! of which his ideas seldom coincide with those of other people, and sometimes deviate entirely from propriety: we may therefore assert, what all, who have made observations p. 92on these people agree in, that honour and shame are to them totally indifferent.  We establish this decision by comparing Gipsey notions with our own: trying their dealings and conduct by this standard, they will often appear ridiculous, frequently even infamous.

Nothing can exceed the unrestrained depravity of manners existing among these people, particularly the softer sex.  Unchecked by any idea of shame, they give way to every desire.  The mother endeavours, by the most scandalous arts, to train her daughter for an offering to sensuality; and the latter is scarcely grown up, before she becomes the seducer of others.  Let the dance, formerly mentioned, be called to mind; it will then be unnecessary to adduce fresh examples, of which regard for decency will not permit a detail.

Their indolence has been already quoted.  Laziness is so natural to them, that were they to subsist by their own labour only, they would hardly have bread for two of the seven days in the week.  This disposition increases their propensity to stealing and cheating—the common attendants on idleness.  They seek and avail themselves of every opportunity to satisfy their lawless desires.  Thomasius endeavours to propagate a notion, that this habit has grown upon the latter Gipseys by degrees, in opposition to the practice of those who first arrived, quoting Stumpf for his authority, who talks p. 93of Christian discipline and order among the original Gipseys; he assures us, too, that they paid ready money for all they wanted; but this testimony does not deserve attention: the Gipseys in Stumpf’s time were the same as they are at this day, nor are they differently described by any of the old writers.

This is a lamentable enumeration of evil and ruinous properties in the Gipsey’s character, which applies not only to a few individuals, but to by far the greatest number of these people.  Scarcely any virtue could exist in a soul so replete with vices.  What at first sight appears less censurable, or perhaps even amiable, in them is, their habitual content in their situation.  They have no care about futurity; they are unacquainted either with anxiety or solicitude: and pass through every day lively and satisfied.  But this, in itself commendable resignation, is as little to be accounted a virtue among the Gipseys as among the Iroquois, and proceeds from the excessive levity of their dispositions.

Let us now take a view of the natural qualities, and capacities, of the Gipseys.  Here they will appear to advantage.  Observe them at whatever employment you may, there always appear sparks of genius.  It is well known, and no writer omits to remark, what artful curious devices they have recourse to in perpetrating any cheat or robbery: but this is not the only particular in which they shew p. 94brains and capacity.  The following extract from an Hungarian author, who was an attentive observer of these people, contains corroborating instances:

“The Gipseys,” he says, “have a fertile imagination in their way, and are quick and ready at expedients, so that in many serious doubtful cases they soon recollect how to act, in order to extricate themselves.  We cannot, indeed, help wondering, when we attend to and consider the skill they display in preparing and bringing their works to perfection, which is the more necessary, from the scarcity of proper tools and apparatus.  They are very acute and cunning in cheating or thieving: and when called to account, for any fraud or robbery, fruitful in invention and persuasive in their arguments to defend themselves.”

At Debrezin, as well as at other schools in Hungary and Transylvania, there have been several lads admitted for instruction.  Cleverness is observable in all, with no despicable talents for study.  If another proof should be wanting, let us advert to their skill in music.  That no Gipsey has ever signalised himself in literature, notwithstanding, according to the foregoing accounts, many of them have partaken of the instruction to be obtained at public schools, is no contradiction to the point in question.  Their volatile disposition and unsteadiness will not allow them to complete any thing p. 95which requires perseverance or application.  Frequently the bud perishes before it blows; or if it proceed so far that fruit appears, it commonly falls off and rots ere it attains maturity.  In the midst of his career of learning, the recollection of his origin seizes him; a desire arises to return to, what he thinks, a more happy manner of life; this solicitude increases; he gives up all at once, turns back again, and consigns over his knowledge to oblivion.  Such is the reason why the Gipsey race has never produced a learned man, nor ever will so long as these principles are retained.

It appears certain that the Gipseys are not deficient in capacity; and it seems equally decided that they have throughout a wicked depraved turn of mind.  Their skill and ingenuity might render them very profitable subjects to the state, but their disposition makes them the most useless pernicious beings.  They are not fit for agriculture, nor any other art which requires industry; on the contrary, they are burthensome from their begging, they do mischief by their various impositions, besides, being thieves and robbers, they destroy the security of a state.  The goldwashers, in Transylvania and the Banat, are the only considerable exceptions; these Gipseys are considered the best of the caste; they have no intercourse with those of their own nation, nor do they like to be called Gipseys, but Bräschen, and in the Hungarian language Aranyasz p. 96(gold collectors).  Their employment not being profitable, they are generally poor and necessitous; yet seldom beg, and it is still more rare for them to steal.  Content with their scanty subsistence, they sift gold sand in summer; in winter they make trays and troughs, which they sell in an honest way.  These properties render them, not only harmless, but serviceable to government; as they annually produce large sums, which, but for them, would remain in the earth.  What pity it is, that so small a part should be well inclined, in proportion to the multitude, in Transylvania and elsewhere, who live in the manner above described!  There remains perhaps one more profession, in which a state might reap advantage from the Gipseys, viz. that of a military life.  This seems to be doubted in Spain, as no Gipsey there, even were he so inclined, can become a soldier.  In other countries, people think differently.  For example, in the two Hungarian regiments, the Orosaish and the Julaish, nearly every eighth man is a Gipsey.  In order to prevent either them or any other persons from remembering their descent, it is ordered by government, that as soon as a Gipsey joins the regiment, he is no longer to be called by that appellation.  Here he is placed, promiscuously with other men; and by this wise regulation, may be systematically rendered useful.  But whether he would be adequate to a soldier’s station, unmixed p. 97with strangers, in the company of his equals only, is very doubtful.  His healthy robust body, active on every occasion; at the same time so inured to hardship, that he can defy hunger, thirst, heat, cold, and other inconveniences; makes him extremely well qualified for a military life: on the other hand, his innate properties seem incompatible with his profession, and he has little of the essential requisite for a serviceable soldier.  How could a regiment composed of people without heart or courage, who would be overcome with fear and dismay on the least appearance of danger, who would give up every thing, and only think of saving themselves by flight, ever perform any great action?  Or how could we expect, from their levity, and unspeakable want of foresight, that they should avail themselves to the utmost of any advantage with proper precaution and judgment?  The following incident, taken from the Hungarian annals, may serve as proof, whether this suspicion be or be not well founded.—In the year 1557, during the troubles in Zapoly, the castle of Nagy Ida, in the county of Abauywar, was in danger of being besieged and taken by the imperial troops.  Francis von Perenyi, who had the command, being short of men, was obliged to have recourse to the Gipseys, of whom he collected a thousand; these he furnished with proper means of defence, and stationed them in the outworks, keeping his own p. 98small compliment of men to garrison the citadel.  The Gipseys imagined that they should be perfectly free from annoyance behind their entrenchments, and therefore went courageously to their posts.  Every thing was in order when the enemy arrived, and the storm commenced.  The Gipseys, behind their fortifications, supported the attack with so much more resolution than was expected, returning the enemy’s fire with such alacrity, that the assailants, little suspecting who were the defendants, were actually retreating.  They had hardly quitted their ground, when the conquerors, elated with joy on their victory, crept out of their holes, crying after them, “Go and be hanged, you rascals!  Thank God we had no more powder and shot, or we would have played the very devil with you!”—“What!” replied the retiring besiegers, as they turned about, and, to their great astonishment, instead of regular troops, discovered a motley Gipsey tribe, “are you the heroes! is it so with you!” immediately wheeling about to the left, sword in hand, they drove the black crew back to their works, forced their way after, and in a few minutes totally subdued them.  Thus the affair ended.  In this manner Gipseys would frequently trifle away by heedlessness, what they might have secured by good fortune and alacrity, if they were permitted to act in separate corps.

There are many instances recorded in the annals p. 89aof former centuries, [89a] of Gipseys having been employed in military expeditions: but seldom, or rather never, were they thought of as solders.  At Crupa, 1565, they prepared cannon balls for the Turks: still earlier, in 1496, they served Bishop Sigismund at Fünfkirchen in the same manner.  In the thirty-years war, the Swedes likewise had a body of Gipseys in their army.  And when, in 1686, Hamburgh was besieged by the Danes, there were three companies of them in the Danish army.  Their destination was not so much to stand to their arms, as to perform other services; they were chiefly employed in flying parties, to burn, plunder, or lay waste, the enemy’s country.  As these are the operations most suitable to their genius, they are now by the Turks destined to such purposes, and incorporated with the Sains Serdenjesti, and Nephers.

Such is the assistance which has hitherto been derived from the Gipseys in war; whence we experience the possibility of their being rendered serviceable, although the strict watch necessary to be kept over them, on account of their propensity to be guilty of excesses and irregularities, would be exceedingly troublesome.

But, in order to bring the advantages and disadvantages attending them to a fair discussion, it must not be forgotten, that at the very time one part of these people might be rendered beneficial, p. 90viz. in time of war, another part would have it in their power to do more mischief; by reason of the disorder which then prevails, when the relaxed attention of the magistrates makes them more daring in their depredations.  Besides, what is still worse, they are very convenient for the enemy to use as machines for treachery.  What they were in former times accustomed to practise very commonly, they still continue whenever they have an opportunity.  They have been generally decried, in early ages, as traitors and spies: perhaps this accusation may be too far extended, but it is not without foundation.  A Gipsey possesses all the properties required to render him a fit agent to be employed in traitorous undertakings.  Being necessitous, he is easily corrupted; and his misconceived ambition and pride persuade him that he thus becomes a person of consequence: he is at the same time too inconsiderate to reflect on danger; and, artful to the greatest degree, works his way under the most difficult circumstances.

This accusation may be proved by more than one instance.—Count Eberhard, of Wirtemberg, with a train of forty people, made a pilgrimage to Palestine in the year 1468: and, as Crusius says, fell into the hands of the Sultan of Egypt, through the treachery of the Gipseys.  Further, during the troubles excited by John Zapolya, in Hungary, in the sixteenth century, sundry spies and delegated incendiaries p. 91were taken, which proved to be Gipseys.  In 1602 Count Basta, the imperial general, who besieged the city of Bistritz in Transylvania, when he wanted to circulate a letter among the besieged, effected it by means of a Gipsey.

They have been sometimes still more dangerous to a country, by harbouring other spies, who, under the disguise of Gipseys, made excursions, surveying cities and countries, without being noticed.  An example of this kind is recited in the Adventures of a certain French engineer, Peter Durois; which is a circumstance, in the records of Louis XIV. perhaps as much unknown as it is remarkable.  It relates, that at Padock (Patak), in Upper Hungary, a great fire happened, through the carelessness of the Gipseys; by which not only the little city adjoining the fort was burnt, but the beautiful Bruderhoff was also reduced to ashes: on which occasion seven supposed Gipseys were taken into custody, one of whom was the French engineer above mentioned.  This person had travelled about with them during nine years: he had sketches of all the principal fortifications in the whole Roman empire, and the imperial hereditary dominions, taken in the most concise manner, with remarks where each place was least defensible.—This affair has still another voucher, who says, “in the month of June of the year 1676, the Gipseys fired this little city (Patak), together with the church.  p. 92With these Gipseys was found a French engineer, named Peter Durois, who had been nine years in this disguise, and received considerable remittances from France.  He was taken by the imperialists, and there were found upon him plans of almost all the cities of Upper Hungary, and the German empire.”

Thus these people, in whatever point of view they are considered, are found to cause incalculable damage and mischief, without, in general, returning the smallest profit or benefit to the state in which they reside.

p. 93CHAPTER XIV.

Concerning the Toleration of the Gipseys by the different States of Europe.

From the inherent bad and pernicious qualities of the Gipseys, the question arises, What a government can do with them?  The evil they occasion has long been a subject of serious consideration, and various means of security have been devised.  As banishment was a mode punishing formerly often resorted to, nothing could be more natural than that it should likewise be exercised against the Gipseys.  The clergy and politicians inveighed strongly against the toleration of these people; and their exile was actually resolved upon in most countries of Europe.

About the end of the fifteenth century, their persecution commenced in Spain.  King Ferdinand, who esteemed it a good work to expatriate useful and profitable subjects—Jews, and even Moorish families—could much less be guilty of an impropriety in laying hands on the mischievous progeny of the Gipseys.  The edict for their extermination was published in the year 1492.  But, instead of passing the boundaries, they slunk into hiding-places, and shortly after appeared every-where in as great numbers as before.  The emperor Charles V. p. 94persecuted them afresh; as did Philip II. also.  Since that time they have nestled in again, and were left unmolested till about twenty years ago, when they were threatened with another storm; but it blew over, without taking effect.

In France, Francis I. passed an edict for their expulsion; and at the assembly of the States of Orleans, in 1561, all governors of cities received orders to drive them away with fire and sword.  Nevertheless, in process of time they had collected again, and increased to such a degree, that in 1612 a new order came out for their extermination.

In Italy, their situation has been equally precarious.  In the year 1572 they were compelled to retire from the territories of Milan and Parma; and at a period somewhat earlier they were chased beyond the Venetian jurisdiction.

England first endeavoured to disburthen itself of them in the year 1531, under Henry VIII: but as the act passed for that purpose fell into disregard, a new one was published in the reign of Elizabeth.

They were not allowed the privilege of remaining unmolested in Denmark, as the code of Danish laws specifies: “The Tartars (Gipseys) who wander about every-where, doing great damage to the people, by their lies, thefts, and witchcraft, p. 95shall be taken into custody by every magistrate.”

Sweden has not been more favourable, having at three different times attacked them.  A very sharp order for their explusion came out in the year 1662.  The diet of 1723 published a second: and that of 1727 repeated the foregoing, with additional severity.

They were excluded from the Netherlands under pain of death, partly by Charles V. and partly afterwards by the United Provinces in 1582.

Finally, the greatest number of sentences of exile have been pronounced against them in Germany.  As well imperial decrees, as those of particular princes, have been repeatedly issued, for removing these people.  The beginning was made, under Maximilian I. at the Augsburgh diet in 1500; where the following article was drawn up: “Respecting those people who call themselves Gipseys, roving up and down the country—By public edict, to all ranks of the empire, according to the obligations under which they are bound to Us and the Holy Empire, it is strictly ordered, that in future they do not permit the said Gipseys (since there is authentic evidence of their being spies, scouts, and conveyers of intelligence, betraying the Christians to the Turks) to pass or remain within their territories, nor to trade or p. 96traffic; neither to grant them protection nor convoy.  And that the said Gipseys do withdraw themselves, before Easter next ensuing, from the German dominions, entirely quit them, nor suffer themselves to be found therein: as in case they should transgress after that time, and receive injury from any person, they shall have no redress, nor shall such person be thought to have committed any crime.”  The same business occupied the attention of the diet in 1530, 1544–48–51; and was also again enforced in the improved police regulation of Frankfort in 1577.

Several princes were however so little attentive to these orders of the empire, that, instead of endeavouring to drive out the Gipseys, they, on the other hand, furnished them with passports and safe-conducts: others, on the contrary, and by far the greatest number, exerted themselves to the utmost to clear their states of this vermin, and some still continue the same watchfulness.

Hence it appears how universally the opinion was adopted, that banishing the Gipseys was the only method to be secure from their malignity.  Perhaps there is not one civilised state, Hungary and Transylvania excepted, where this remedy has not been tried: but whether it be as expedient as it has been hitherto general, is much to be doubted.

In the first place, it had very little effect, and p. 97that little was only temporary.  Even if every civilised nation had driven out the Gipseys at the same time, Europe could not have been entirely cleared of them, so long as they preserved an asylum in Turkey.  Now, as experience evinces there is no country in which a constant equal attention is paid to the execution of the laws, they would, in more or less time, have again insinuated themselves into the neighbouring countries; from these into others; and recommenced where they had left off.  But a general extermination never did happen: for the law for banishing them passed in one state before it was thought of in the next, or when a like order had long become obsolete and sunk into oblivion.  These desirable guests were, therefore, merely compelled to shift their quarters to an adjoining state, where they remained till the government began to clear them away; upon which the fugitives either retired back whence they came, or went on progressively to a third place, thus making a continual revolution.

Secondly, this remedy was premature: endeavouring to exterminate was the same as if a surgeon should proceed directly to the amputation of a diseased limb, because it created inconvenience to the rest of the body.  Whereas the first enquiry ought to be, Whether the disorder were of such a nature, as not to be removed but by entire separation?  This is a desperate course, and should only p. 98be adopted when no other can be efficacious.  Though it be proved that the Gipseys had occasioned ever so much mischief, it was not impossible that they might cease to be such pernicious beings: at least there had never been any trial made, by which this impossibility could be ascertained.  Men may be formed to any thing.  Had proper means been used for their civilisation, it is highly probable the event would have proved that they were not incapable of becoming better.  If several Gipseys, at different times, have voluntarily emerged from their savageness, how much more likely is it that the remainder might have been altered, had they received such aids as their necessities required?—But expelling the Gipseys entirely was not merely a premature step; it was,

Thirdly, a wasteful one.  This may perhaps appear strange, but is indisputable, so long as the state maxim holds good—that a numerous population is the most advantageous.  It is allowed that a state would not lose any thing by the Gipseys, as Gipseys; on the contrary, it would be a gainer, because an obstacle to the general welfare would be removed: but this is not the matter in question.  If the Gipsey do not know how to make use of the faculties with which nature has endowed him; let the state teach him, and keep him in leading-strings till the end is attained.  And though the root of this depravity lie so deep, p. 99that it cannot be removed in the first generation, a continuation of the same care will, in the second and third descent, be sure of meeting its reward.  Now let us reflect on a Gipsey when he has discontinued his vagrant mode of living—consider him with his fecundity and numerous family, who by being reformed are made useful citizens—and we shall perceive how great a want of economy it was to throw him away as dross.

Nearly the same idea has occurred to other authors; at least they so far agree in what has been advanced, that they advise rendering the Gipseys useful: only the means they recommend are liable to powerful objections.  They think the state might make public slaves, or penitentiaries, of these people, and put them to all kinds of work.  But such dependants, even supposing them to be employed in the most beneficial way, are always a nuisance and burthen to a state.  Besides, in the above scheme, there is no proposal made for the bettering these people: they must, therefore, remain under the restraint of convicts, from generation to generation.  And, if allowed to increase, what could be done at last with this multitude and their brood?  Would not whole districts be required, merely to turn the thousands of these wretches into?  Moreover, what an expense and inconvenience to superintend them!  Plausible, therefore, as that proposal p. 100appears at the first glance, little will it stand the test of a closer examination.

Banishment was not the proper method to be adopted; nor would it have been adviseable to make them penitentiaries or galley-slaves: but care should have been taken to enlighten their understandings, and to mend their hearts.

However, what has been hitherto omitted, there is still time enough to execute.  Few, or scarcely any, of the larger states are so entirely cleared of Gipseys, that these people may not here and there be found by hundreds, in most countries by thousands.  The periods when the first sentences of banishment were pronounced, were too unphilosophical for any preferable mode of punishment to be suggested: but it may be expected, from a more informed age, that better maxims will be adopted.  We send apostles to the East and West, to the most distant parts of the earth, and, as will be hereafter shewn, into the very country whence the Gipseys migrated, in order to instruct the people who know not God.  Is it not inconsistent for men to be solicitous for the welfare of their fellow-creatures in distant regions, and to throw off and leave to chance those who, equally wretched, have brought their errors home to us?  If it be a good work, to teach religion and virtue to such as are ignorant of their Creator, why not begin with those nearest to p. 101us? especially as neglect, in this particular, is attended with detriment to society in general.  The Gipseys have been long enough among civilised people, to prove that they will not be allured, by the mere example of others, to free themselves from the fetters of old customs and vices.  In order to accomplish that end, foreign and more effectual help is requisite.  It were vain to hope for any considerable progress with those who are grown up; it would be sufficient, by compulsion, to make them quit their unsettled manner of life, and, by instruction and teaching, to convey a glimmering of light to their understanding, and produce some amelioration of the heart.  Proper care being taken of the education of the children, society would be more likely to have its endeavours crowned with success.

p. 102CHAPTER XV.

Essay on the Improvement of the Gipseys.

It would be a lamentable case, if the before-mentioned regulations were merely pious wishes.  Let us hope something better!  The work has been commenced;—a great empress, Theresa, laid down a plan to win over these poor unfortunate people to virtue and the state.  But it is to be regretted, that the execution of her wise dispositions, respecting the Gipseys in Hungary, seems to have been entrusted to people inadequate to the task.

What was done, in her time, towards the accomplishment of this work, may be seen by the following article, extracted from the Newspaper already often quoted, called Anzeigen aus den Kayserl. Königl. Erbländern (Intelligence from the Hereditary Imperial Royal Dominions): “Since the year 1768, several decrees regarding these people have been published in the country (Hungary), and the strictest orders dispatched to the several districts in consequence.  They were prohibited from dwelling in huts or tents; from wandering up and down the country; from dealing in horses; from eating animals which died naturally, and carrion; and from electing their own wayda or p. 103judge.  It was intended to extirpate the very name and language of these folks, out of the country.  They were no longer to be called Gipseys, but New Boors (Uj Magyar); not to converse any longer with each other in their own language, but in that of any of the countries in which they had chosen to reside.  Some months were to be allowed, after which time they were to quit their Gipsey manner of life, and settle, like the other inhabitants, in cities or villages; to build decent houses, and follow some reputable business.  They were to procure boors’ clothing, to commit themselves to the protection of some territorial superior, and live regularly.  Such as were fit for soldiers, to be enlisted into regiments.”  Nevertheless, although these regulations were calculated entirely for the good of these people and the state, the greatest part were not in the smallest degree benefited by them.  The effect which was produced gave occasion, in the year 1773, for these orders not only to be repeated, but made more rigid; and as even this measure would not answer the end, it was then thought necessary to proceed to extremity with them.  Wherefore it was ordered, That no Gipsey should have permission to marry, who could not prove himself in condition to support a wife and children: that from such Gipseys who had families, the children should be taken away by force, removed p. 104from their parents, relations, and intercourse with the Gipsey race, to have a better education given them.  A beginning was made in some places; and where they would not comply voluntarily, they were compelled to submit to the decree.  At Fahlendorf in Schütt, and in the district of Pressburg, all the children of the New Boors (Gipseys) above five years old, were carried away in waggons during the night of the 21st of December, 1773, by overseers appointed for that purpose; in order that, at a distance from their parents or relations, they might be more usefully educated, and become accustomed to work.  Those boors who were willing to receive and bring up these children, were paid eighteen guilders yearly from government.  On the 24th of April, 1774, between five and six o’clock in the morning, the children of the Gipseys, which had been growing up from December of the foregoing year, were again removed from Fahlendorf in Schütt and Hideghid, for the purpose of being put under the same course of discipline as the others.  Among the children taken away on this occasion, was a girl fourteen years old, who was forced to submit to be carried off in her bridal state.  She tore her hair for grief and rage, and was quite beside herself with agitation: but she recovered a composed state of mind; and, in 1776, in Fasching, obtained permission to accomplish her marriage.

p. 105So far our intelligence quoted from the Gazettes; by which we may see how prudently every thing was concerted.  It is true, the means here used are compulsory; but such measures were necessary, and the only ones capable of insuring success.  Moreover, it may at the same time be observed, although the publisher of this information endeavours to conceal it, how little these salutary regulations were put in force: there were scarcely two places in the kingdom, where even an endeavour was made to give them proper effect.  This supineness must have been unknown to the emperor Joseph, or he would certainly have again enforced them, to all chiefs and governors, at the same time that he gave orders for their being observed in Transylvania.

The tenor of the decree just mentioned, which was published in the year 1782, was consonant with the intention of Theresa with regard to the Hungarian Gipseys, namely, that those also in Transylvania should become better men, and more useful inhabitants.  For the accomplishment of which, it prohibits their wandering about and living under tents; requires that they become settled, and put themselves under some territorial chief.  In order to strike immediately at the root of the evil, necessary and minute directions are given for the improvement of their religious ideas p. 106and opinions, and, by correcting their vicious habits, for rendering them good citizens.  First, with respect to religion, they must

1.  Not only be taught the principles of religion themselves, but send their children early to school:

2.  Prevent, as much as possible, their children from running about naked, in the house, the roads, and streets, thereby giving offense and disgust to other people:

3.  In their dwellings, not permit their children to sleep promiscuously by each other, without distinction of sex:

4.  Diligently attend at church, particularly on Sundays and holidays, to give proof of their Christian disposition:

5.  Put themselves under the guidance of spiritual teachers, and conduct themselves conformably to the rules laid down by them.

Secondly, with regard to their temporal conduct and better mode of living, they are bound

1.  To conform to the custom of the country, in diet, dress, and language: consequently to abstain from feeding on cattle which have died of distempers; not to go about in such unseemly dresses; and to discontinue p. 107the use of their own particular language:

2.  Not to appear any more in large cloaks, which are chiefly useful to hide things that have been stolen.

3.  No Gipsey, except he be a goldwasher, shall keep a horse: also the goldwashers

4.  Must refrain from all kinds of bartering at the annual fairs.

5.  The magistrates of every place must be very attentive, that no Gipsey waste his time in idleness: but at those seasons when they have no employment, either for themselves or any landholder, recommend them to some other person, with whom they shall be compelled to work for hire.

6.  They are to be kept, particularly, to agriculture; therefore

7.  It is to be observed, where possible, that every territorial lord who takes any Gipseys under his jurisdiction, do allot them a certain piece of ground to cultivate:

8.  Whoever is remiss in his husbandry, shall be liable to corporal punishment:

9.  They shall only be permitted to amuse themselves with music, or other things, when there is no field work to be done.

Such were the regulations wisely adopted by the p. 108emperor Joseph, for the purpose of civilising, and rendering good and profitable citizens, upwards of eighty thousand miserable wretches, ignorant of God and virtue.  It must be regretted that similar measures have not been used in the other countries of Europe, where these people still remain wandering in error, and scarcely deserving to be considered as human beings.

p. 109SECTION II.
ON THE ORIGIN OF THE GIPSEYS.

CHAPTER I.

The first Appearance of Gipseys in Europe.

No record is to be found, stating in what year, or in what part of Europe, Gipseys made their first appearance.  But it is to be premised, what will afterwards be investigated, that they did not originate in our quarter of the globe; on the contrary, that they strayed hither, as oriental strangers, either from Egypt, Asia Minor, or some other part: we shall then examine, whether it be not possible, by means of what is related in old writings concerning the first observance of them in different countries, to follow the track so as to ascertain where and when they first set foot on European ground.

Mention is made of them in Germany so early as the year 1417, when they appeared in the vicinity of the North Sea.  A year afterwards we find them also in Switzerland and the country of the Grisons.  In 1422 they likewise appeared in Italy.  p. 110It is unknown what was the earliest period at which they were observed in France and Spain: but their appearance in these countries must have been of later date than in Germany, as is proved in respect to France, by the name Bohemians, which they bear there.  In regard to Spain, Cordova, in order to contradict some surmises about the Gipseys’ mother country, uses the argument, that they were known in Germany prior to either Spain or Italy.  The French make the first mention of them in 1427, when they straggled about Paris, having arrived there on the 17th day of August in that year.

From what country did they come into Germany?—Muratori thinks, from Italy: but how unfounded this opinion is, appears clearly from their coming to that country after they had been in Germany.  The Bologna Chronicle ascertains the time when Italy became acquainted with these people.  The horde therein mentioned, which arrived in that city on the 18th of July, 1422, consisted of about a hundred men; whose leader’s, or (as they called him) duke’s, name, was Andreas.  They travelled from Bologna to Forli, intending to proceed to pay the Pope a visit at Rome.  Muratori founds his judgment on this chronicle, not knowing that Gipseys are spoken of in the German prints five years earlier.

Still less true is what Majolus asserts, that they p. 111came from Spain, and first entered the German territories in the year 1492, when they were driven out of Spain by Ferdinand the Catholic.  Hungary is certainly the country whence they came into Germany.  Not only the time confirms this conjecture, as we find them in Hungary in 1417, the very same year in which they were first observed in Germany, but Aventin expressly mentions Hungary among the countries from which he supposes them to come.

In this state our examination rests, in regard to whether they came immediately into Germany, or first appeared stationary in some other place.

That Poland should be the country which harboured the first Gipseys, and that they spread thence into Wallachia, Transylvania, and other countries, is a mere arbitrary surmise.  The writer (J. G. Eccard) who advances this opinion, appeals to Münster’s intelligence, but that does not contain a syllable in confirmation of it.  Others, with the greatest confidence, maintain that Wallachia and Moldavia, where they also wandered about in 1417, are the places in which they made their first appearance in Europe.  Cantemir, on the contrary, is very undecided, saying, “Whence, or at what time, this nation arrived in Moldavia, neither do they know themselves nor is there any mention made in our annual publications.”  However, the second opinion seems to approach very near the p. 112truth, but does not point out the particular province in which the Gipseys were first observed;—Of what use would that be?  But one information, compared with other circumstances, is of so much assistance here, that we may, without hesitation, pronounce Turkey to be the country whence these eastern guests found their way to us.  This is probable—First, because Aventin expressly makes Turkey their original place of rendezvous: secondly, as this explains why the south-east parts of Europe are most crowded with Gipseys, as before stated (vide p. 7).  It happened in Turkey, as in every other place through which they passed, that many of these wanderers remained behind; now, as all that came to Europe passed by this route, whether at once or in different divisions, it was possible, indeed a necessary consequence, that a greater number should continue here, than in the different countries where their hordes were much divided and diminished.

The time when they arrived, has been as little certified, as the particular place where they landed.  Perhaps, the before-quoted chronicle of Bologna may afford some insight into this matter.  It relates, as appears by the context, from the mouth of the leader of the horde which it describes, that these people had been five years wandering about in the world, previously to their arrival at Bologna.  Now, if this account is to be depended on, they p. 113cannot have arrived in Europe earlier than the year 1417.  But before attaching credit to this relation, we are to consider, whether the author of it be deserving of credit.  To place any confidence in Gipsey narrations, in general, would be very imprudent; as there are too many proofs that their sayings are mere nonsense, and contradictory prattle: but the case in question seems to be an exception.  All the inconsistency and falshoods which the Gipseys reported, concerning whence they came, with the reasons for their wandering, have an end in view.  But with regard to time, if they knew, they are more to be trusted, as no injury could be expected to result from the knowledge of a mere date.  Now, the inference to be drawn is, that the leader of a horde might not only know how long he had retired from Egypt, or Asia Minor, and travelled about in Europe, as the time had been short; but it may also be supposed, that he said what he knew.  In the mean time, we will compare this cited term, of five years, with other circumstances, and see whether they make for or against our argument.  The first enquiry would be, Whether there are any earlier authentic accounts of their appearance in Europe, than 1417?  But we do not find such any-where. [113]  The second question p. 114to be decided is, Whether, if they were not seen towards the Black Sea before 1417, they could in one year’s time have reached the North Sea?  This doubt requires little consideration.  A year was quite sufficient for people like the Gipseys, who never tarried long in a place, to have migrated even far beyond where they were found.  Again, if they were not in Moldavia and Wallachia earlier than the year 1417, and yet appeared during the same year in the neighbourhood of the North Sea, what great difference would it make if they came from a province next beyond Moldavia or Wallachia, travelling a few miles further to arrive at the same place?  It is therefore very credible that 1417 was the period of their arrival.

Although, immediately after their coming into Germany, they spread so rapidly, that in 1418 their names were recorded in the annual publications of almost every part of the country, yet particular places seem to have been favoured by them.  Thus, in Bavaria they were not noticed till 1433; and they must have very quickly withdrawn p. 115themselves from these parts, as six years afterwards it was remarked, as somewhat new and extraordinary, that in this year (1439) the Gipseys, a pack of scoundrels, a vagrant gang, were come into that country, with their king, whose name was Zundl.

They did not travel together, but in different hordes, each having its leader, sometimes called count: at other times their leaders were dignified with the titles of dukes or kings of Lesser Egypt.  One horde which arrived at Augsburgh in 1419, although it consisted of only seventy men, had even two of these dukes, beside some counts, with them.  But what sort of creatures these great men among the Gipseys were, has been explained in another place.  (Vide p. 72, & seq.)

If Stumpf be right, the number of these people must have been very considerable.  Those alone who came into Switzerland in 1718, women and children included, were estimated at 14000.  But here he, or his authority, seems to have greatly miscounted.  It is true, that he likewise remarks, they did not keep all together, but went about in separate parties; notwithstanding this, his account is much to be doubted.  By what is to be found concerning particular hordes, there were none which exceeded one or at most two hundred.  That which went to Augsburgh in 1419 consisted of but seventy men: therefore if they had been p. 116so numerous as Stumpf asserts, there must have been at least a hundred such hordes dispersed through Switzerland.  It was at this time (1418) that Gipseys were first seen at Zurich; they were a swarm, whose leader’s name was Michael.  Four years had elapsed before they were known at Basil—part of the very horde of this Michael.  Would not some other tribe have got to Basil before these, if they had been so numerous?  Thomasius adopts this number of 14000 without suspicion, and understands it to comprehend the whole multitude all over Germany; but then he does not appear to have quoted Stumpf’s testimony in the sense it was meant.  Many hordes of them must certainly have arrived, as they spread every-where so prodigiously; but to persist in any nearer investigation of their numbers, would be only useless trouble.

Their possessions were, as at present, small, and their whole arrangement singular; besides which, according to the Eastern custom, they hung ragged clothes about them, instead of other garments.  Their leaders only were exceptions.  Several had horses, asses, or mules, with them, on which they loaded their tents, and effects, with the whole family into the bargain.  They had also dogs in their train, with which Kranz asserts they used illegally to destroy game: but probably the dogs were kept not so much for that purpose, as to take fowls and geese.

p. 117CHAPTER II.

On the Sanctity, Passports, and Difference, of the former from the latter Gipseys.

At the first arrival of the Gipseys in Europe, it was generally believed that they were Egyptians and pilgrims, constrained to wander on account of religion.  This mistake originated from their own relation; but when required to give a more circumstantial detail of the reasons for their pilgrimage, they varied very much from each other.  Some of them declared that they were compelled to make this emigration as an atonement for their forefathers having, for some time, apostatised from the Christian faith: others asserted that the king of Hungary had seized their country, and imposed on them this penance of wandering.  A third party represented that God had signified to them the necessity of this pilgrimage, by an universal sterility in their country.  They supposed this punishment to have been inflicted on account of sin committed by their ancestors, in refusing to receive the infant Jesus, when carried by his Mother and Joseph to Egypt, as an asylum from the persecution of Herod.  The term of their pilgrimage was to be seven years.

No evidence is necessary to determine that these p. 118were mere fables; and it is astonishing that men should be found to adduce long-winded proofs of the origin of these people, grounded on no better authority than such idle tales.  We have not now any positive grounds remaining, to shew how these legends were invented, or what gave rise to them; but the real truth seems to be merely, that upon being asked whence they came, they answered from Egypt; and there is no reason existing to deny their having come from that country.  Now priests, monks, or perhaps other people, might wonder why they should quit a place to which the holy family had fled for refuge, unless their forefathers had been guilty of some transgression on that occasion; but, be this as it may, all that could be said, with regard to the origin of their legends, would be only mere conjecture.  Let it therefore suffice to say, they chose to be considered everywhere as pilgrims; and this profession met with the more ready belief, as it coincided with the infatuation of the times.

The credulity with which people cherished the idea that the Gipseys were real pilgrims and holy persons was attended with the consequence, that they were not only tolerated, but, if the information on this head may be relied on, they everywhere received assistance, with express safe-conducts.  These safe-conducts are mentioned in several old writings.  Münster declares, not p. 119merely, in general terms, that they carried about with them passports and seals from the Emperor Sigismund and other princes, by means of which they had free passage through different countries and cities, but that he had himself seen an attested copy of such a letter, in the possession of some Gipseys at Eberbach.  Besides Kranz, Stumpf, and Guler, Laurentius Palmirenus also agrees in this statement; but the latter writer is guilty of a mistake, in confounding the Emperor Sigismund with Sigismund king of Poland.  The Gipseys at Bologna, likewise, shewed an instrument from Sigismund; but he appears to have granted this to them, not as emperor, and in Germany, but in Hungary, and as king of Hungary.  A pass of another king of Hungary, Uladislaus II. which the Gipseys obtained chiefly on account of their supposed sanctity and pilgrimage, might be quoted.  They were not destitute in Transylvania, if it be true, as asserted, that they received this sort of letters of protection from the princes of the house of Bathory.  Wehner says, that the Gipseys in France likewise quoted ancient privileges, granted to them by the former kings of that country.  Crusius, Wurstisen, and Guler, mention papal permissions, which these people acquired, for wandering, unmolested, through all Christian countries, so long as the time of their pilgrimage lasted.

p. 120This is the information we find, dispersed here and there, concerning the privileges and passes of the Gipseys.  To how much, or how little, are we to give credit?  Thomasius believes every thing as it stands.  Ahasuerus Fritsch, on the contrary, declares all to be lies, and the Gipseys’ own invention.  Appearances are certainly equivocal, as none of these instruments are even verbally handed down to us, so that they can be properly proved; except that of Uladislaus II. which does not belong to this question.  Moreover, it has been frequently experienced, that the Gipseys, using the pretence of such safe-conducts, have committed all manner of excesses, and when desired to produce them, had either nothing to shew, or such kind of papers as did not at all resemble what are usually given from a public office.  It cannot be denied that they have practised deceit, but it is impossible to assert, with certainty, that the whole was fallacy.  If the contents of that passport to be found in Muratori is conceived in such terms as to allow the horde which possessed it to wander about seven years, to rob and steal every-where, without any person being permitted to bring them to justice, such a letter seems to carry falshood on the very face of it, as no sensible prince could ever grant such a one.  But what shall we say, if it be found that these words do not so much convey the sense of the p. 121instrument, as a crafty explanation of the author, on recollecting the many irregularities practised by the Gipseys, who availed themselves of this freedom to travel about every-where unmolested.  Further, with respect to the passport which Münster perused at Eberbach, although every person must look upon the reasons given by the Gipseys for their emigration as fictions, yet we cannot entirely reject it.  How could it benefit them, being old and having lost its validity many years ago?  Why did not the horde to which it belonged carry with them some writing that might afford them present protection?  If they had been guilty of any knavery about this letter, why was it just of that kind as could only serve, incontrovertibly, to prove they were cheats?  These documents would certainly not have been found among them, had they not been transmitted, from their parents and ancestors, as things of value.  Supposing this matter to have been invented by themselves, it is difficult to conceive why they should confine their privileges to seven years, and not rather leave them unlimited.  But there are other proofs of the authenticity of such letters.  First, they were looked upon as pilgrims; and it was quite conformable to the custom of those superstitious times to grant to pilgrims, as holy people, all sorts of passes, and safe-conducts.  Secondly, we must believe that this did happen with the Gipseys, when p. 132we read with what chagrin Aventin mentions their thefts and excesses, concluding thus: “Robbing and stealing are prohibited to others, under pain of hanging or beheading, but these people have licence for them.”  When, thirdly, in the decree of the diet at Augsburgh anno 1500, all ranks of people in the empire are strictly enjoined, in future, not to permit the people called Gipseys to travel through their countries and districts, nor to grant them any further ‘protection and convoy,’ it certainly implies that people had formerly granted them such protection and convoy.  Whoever has still any doubts remaining, may read, fourthly, in a decree of the empire of fifty years later date, a regular complaint preferred on account of the passports granted by various princes to the Gipseys, and which are, by that diet, declared to be null and void.  All these circumstances together will not, it may be presumed, allow the shadow of a doubt to remain, that such letters of convoy have been really granted to the Gipseys. [132]

p. 133The Gipseys’ golden age lasted a considerable time; but when about half a century had elapsed, and people began to look at them with a watchful eye, the old prejudices gave way.  They endeavoured to prolong the term, by asserting, that their return home was prevented by soldiers stationed to intercept them, and by wishing to have it believed that new parties of pilgrims were to leave their country every year, otherwise their land would be rendered totally barren.  All this was of no avail; people saw too clearly, that, instead of holy pilgrims, they were the mere refuse of humanity: upon which followed the sentences of banishment, we have before mentioned.

Before we proceed to other matters, it will be proper to say a few words respecting an assertion in some writings, that the latter Gipseys differ very widely from those who went about during the first seven years, both with respect to their conduct and descent.  Stumpf, for instance, and others after him, relate, that these first Gipseys were very orderly and decent, did no harm to any one, but paid ready money for what they consumed; for which purpose they received fresh remittances constantly: and at the expiration of seven years they returned home.  Afterwards an idle desperate crew united, who, when the Gipseys were withdrawn, took their place; and, by blackening their faces, at the same time using the like outlandish garments, endeavoured p. 134to persuade the world that they were the identical Egyptians.

This is all related with so much appearance of veracity, that, at the first view, no doubt would seem to remain of its truth; wherefore Thomasius readily adopted the whole, and founded his system about the Gipseys upon it: but upon closer examination, we shall find that the statement is totally void of foundation.

This proceeding, we acknowledge, is recorded in four different annual publications; but all the four amount to only a single testimony, which rests entirely upon Stumpf, from whom the other three have drawn their assertions.  Let it remain, as Thomasius will have it, an old manuscript account or chronicle; it is still evident that the favourable description of the ancient Gipseys originates from the same prejudice as first produced their passports.  And even these passports may have contributed to recommend the first Gipseys.  They have had so much effect on Thomasius, that all the good he has given the above-mentioned primitive Gipseys credit for, has been principally owing to them.

When Stumpf, or rather his authority, mentions, with other circumstances, that the earlier Gipseys received remittances from time to time out of their own country, it was a necessary addition, to support the editor’s opinion: as the reader, who was p. 135to believe that these people did not steal, but paid money for every thing they wanted, would have been sceptical had he not been informed beforehand where the money came from, in order to provide for their necessities, in an honest way, during the term of seven years.

With regard to the latter Gipseys, they were certainly lineal descendants from the former: who were undoubtedly, equally with these, thieves, cheats, and vagrants.  The uprightness and honesty falsely allowed to the Gipseys, in the manuscript chronicle which Stumpf copied, might, even before Stumpf’s time, have induced the continuator of this chronicle to believe, on finding his cotemporary Gipseys lived very differently from what had been represented of their predecessors, that the former were not the true Egyptians: he accordingly wrote down his surmise, not by way of conjecture, but as positive truth, and Stumpf, in his Annual Register, afterwards quoted it as such.  Whoever does not allow this, but considers the latter Gipseys in the light that Stumpf represents them, must be ready to answer, when called upon to solve, the following doubt:—How was it possible that a collection of rascals assembled in Europe, supposing that with respect to complexion and clothing they should be able to transform themselves into real Gipseys, could at once acquire foreign countenances, speak a foreign language, and, both in p. 136constitution and turn of mind, become perfectly oriental; and at the same time contract a taste and desire for carrion, which remain with them to this day?  It cannot be denied but that some depraved people have associated themselves with the Gipseys: but particular instances are not proofs of general maxims.

p. 137CHAPTER III.

Presumed Origin of the Gipseys.

It would be equally useless, prolix, and revolting, to reconsider the multitude of conjectures which the questions—“What race of people are the Gipseys?” and—“Where are we to look for their true mother country?” have occasioned.  The greatest part of them are of such a nature, that they need only be heard to be totally rejected.  We shall nevertheless produce some examples, as an excuse for passing over the rest in silence.

Various conjectures have been formed, and coincidences have been searched for, to obtain a solution of these queries.  Some persons adverted to this or that name only of the Gipseys, without attending to other circumstances.  Because they were likewise called Gipseys (Cingani), they must immediately derive their origin from the Grecian heretics, called Athingans: then again they must have wandered from the African province formerly called Zeugitana. [137]  Another time they are supposed to be the fugitives driven from the city Singara, in Mesopotamia, by Julian the Apostate: others again transplanted them to Mount Caucasus, and made p. 138them Zochori; or to the Palus Mæotis, making them descendants from the Ziches. [138]  Some people imagined that instead of Zigeuner, they should be called Zigarener, which they thought a corruption of Saracener, and they must certainly be Saracens.  Another writer (to return to Africa) conducts them from the Mauritanian province Tingitane, and supposes them to be the Canaanites, who, being driven out by Joshua, settled here.  Still another brings them from Mauritania, and, to corroborate his opinion by the name, calls them descendants of Chus; as he thinks nothing can have a greater affinity in sound, than Zigeuner and Chusener.  Herbelot judges the coast of Zengebar to be their mother country.  Bellonius, on the contrary, looks for them in Bulgaria and Wallachia, where their ancestors are said to have lived, under the name Sigynner.  Cordova stumbled on Zigere, formerly a city of Thrace, which he assigns as their native soil.  Some people fancied they had heard that the Gipseys called themselves More, and often used the name amori among one another (not amori, but Discha more—Get out, fellow!) and now they are Amorites!

Another party, besides this or that appellation p. 139for the Gipseys, considered their unsettled way of life, or selected some particular circumstance from their manners, by which they decided concerning their origin.  Wherefore they were sometimes torlaques, faquirs, or kalendars; [139] sometimes the remains of Attila’s Huns, at other times the Avari, who were vanquished by Charles the Great: then again Petschenegers, who played their last stake in the twelfth century; or perhaps a mixture of all kinds of rascally people gathered together, having collectively no certain country, as their name Zigeuner indicates, signifying, ‘to wander up and down;’—for which reason, it is said, our German ancestors denominated every strolling vagrant Zichegan.  By several writers they have been p. 140thought inhabitants of the Alps and Pyrenées; others suppose them to be Cain’s descendants, who, on account of the curse denounced against their stock, have been compelled to lead a wandering vagrant life.  Because they pretend to tell fortunes, some have supposed them to be Chaldeans, or some Syrian religious sect.  Brodæus formed his judgment from their clothes, in which he thought he discovered a resemblance to the Roman toga; and thence he imagined they were natives of Wallachia, descendants from the colony sent by Trajan into Dacia to keep this newly-conquered country steady in its allegiance.  And, according to his assertion, people in Germany do really call them Wahlen (he writes Walachen), that is to say, Italians.

All these opinions are merely conjecture; it would therefore be useless to proceed with the list of them: but it may be proper to cite a few which seem to have a greater appearance of probability.  Let us begin with Wagenseil.  He considers the Gipseys to be German Jews; who about the middle of the fourteenth century, to escape the dreadful persecution which raged against them all over Europe, especially in Germany, secreted themselves in forests, [141] deserts, and subterraneous caverns.  p. 141In these hiding-places they remained above half a century, not making their appearance again till the period of the Hussites: as the Hussish heresy then engrossed the public attention, with regard to the Jews all was safe.  But not daring to declare themselves, they fell on the device of saying, that their respect for the Mosaic law would not permit them to become Christians, at the same time styling themselves, in general terms, Egyptian pilgrims.  Those who did not yet know what they were, nor whence they came, from their wandering about (einherzichen) called them Gipseys (Zigeuner).  To establish this supposition respecting the origin of the Gipseys, he refers to their p. 142language, which he says is a mixture of German and Hebrew, quoting, in proof of his assertion, near fifty words, which are evidently Hebrew.  He then asks, Whence should the Gipseys have gotten so many Hebrew words into their language, if they were not Jews; at a time too when Hebrew was unknown to all other nations?—This opinion bears infinitely more the appearance of truth, than any one of those before cited.  It must also have been deemed incontrovertible by the learned author, as he mentions it, in the introduction to his treatise, with great confidence, and as much self-congratulation as if he had discovered the philosopher’s-stone.  Notwithstanding all this, the confutation is so short and easy, that very few words are sufficient to overturn the whole system; which rests entirely on the language:—the words quoted are taken from a gibberish vocabulary; but gibberish is not the Gipsey language. . . .  What relates to the Jewish persecution is very just; but all the rest are mere, and frequently inconsistent, conjectures, founded on it by the learned writer.

A later opinion is, that the Gipseys are a horde of Tartars, which separated from the multitude under Timur, when he invaded western Asia, about the year 1401.  The supposed proofs are:—First, because the Mongols (Mongols and Tartars are here reckoned one and the same people) are just as nomadic as the Gipseys.  Secondly, because these p. 143have sometimes declared themselves to be Tartars.  Thirdly, because the Gipsey king mentioned by Aventin, whose name was Zundel or Zindelo, a Mongol chan, was a descendant from the great Zingis: as Zindelo is a very easy change from Zingis.  Fourthly, because among the several states into which the Mongol empire was divided after the death of Zingis, one was called Dsongar, and the members of it Dsongari, which agrees perfectly with Zingari.  Fifthly, because the Tartar and Gipsey languages have a great affinity to each other; for during a late war between Russia and the Porte, a commander of Crim Tartars, by name Devlet Gueray, signalised himself very much; and this Devlet is perhaps derived from Devla, the Gipsey appellation for the Deity, and may be a name under which the Tartars reverence any thing respectable.  Sixthly, and lastly, because the time of Timur’s expedition agrees very well with the first appearance of the Gipseys.—This is an opinion founded on six points; and one might add, in further conformation of it, that this hypothesis will reasonably determine how the Gipseys, such poor wretches in general, came to be so well stored with gold and silver at their first arrival in Europe, as Stumpf and others assert.  If they were part of Timur’s followers, it was very likely to be plunder taken from the people they had conquered.

Of all these grounds, that adduced from the p. 144favourable concurrence of chronological events has the most weight, but proves neither more nor less than the bare possibility of the thing.  With respect to the first point, it is not so clearly established.  The Tartars are herdsmen, and the quality of the pasture for their cattle implies a fixed residence.  Gipseys, on the contrary, are ignorant as to tending cattle, nor have they the smallest idea about breeding them.  Further, whether they are Tartars, because they represent themselves as such, or have been declared such by other people; whether Zindelo is a Mongol chan, because his name is easily derived from Zingis; whether the language of the Tartars bears a near affinity to that of the Gipseys, because a native of Tartary was found whose name, Devlet, is perhaps derived from the Gipsey word Devla, and as that word among the Gipseys signifies God, it may possibly among the Tartars signify something like it;—all this must be left to the reader’s discretion.  If such assertions are admitted for proofs, then the Gipseys must be Bohemians, because they are called so in France.  Thus Chiflet must have been of Gipsey or Tartar descent, because his name may possibly be derived from Devla or Devlet.  The Franks, too, are probably derived from the Trojans, because Pharamond, their king’s name, may be formed from Priamus.  Dsongari and Zingari compared with each other do coincide, except that the latter p. 145is only the Latin termination given by the learned.  But, besides all this, if the Gipseys must be Tartars at all events, where are the Tartars’ broad faces?—Where is their courage?—Where are the zealous religious principles with which the Tartars honour the Deity, and, upon occasion, fight for him?  Finally, with regard to language, this contradicts rather than supports the opinion we are discussing.  The language of the Tartars is Turkish; that of the Gipseys is quite different, as will be hereafter proved.

As these and the like arguments rather controvert the Tartar origin of the Gipseys, so can we as little agree with Mr. Pray, in supposing them to be [Tartars] of Asia Minor, from the Countries of the ancient Zichen, whose name the Gipseys are said to bear; nor with an older writer, Ekhard, who contends that they are Circassians, terrified from their habitations by Timur’s Mongols.  Mr. Pray brings nothing further in support of his surmise, than the similarity of sound in the names Zigianer (Zichen or properly Zygier) and Zigeuner; together with the circumstance, that the latter appeared among us soon after Timur’s expedition into Asia Minor.  Ekhard, on the contrary, who in like manner unites the names Zigeuner and Circassier—by endeavouring to prove that these, as possessors of the countries belonging to the Zichen, were by authors indifferently styled Circassier, Zygier, and p. 146Zichen—adds moreover, that the Circassian complexion was a brown yellow, exactly like that of the Gipseys; that they both suffer their hair to hang loose over the shoulders; that in their diet and clothes they are both equally dirty; and lastly, that among the Circassians, you meet with astrology, and all kinds of witchcraft, precisely the same as among the Gipseys.  But this comparison, were it even better founded than it is, would only prove that you may make what you please of the Gipseys.  Upon the same ground, they might just as well be supposed to be allied to the people of Otaheite, or any other uncivilised nation in any quarter of the globe.  And yet the author draws this conclusion from it, that one egg is not more like another than the Circassian and the Gipsey; and he may confidently assert, that all who before his time have been of a different opinion, were mistaken.

We ought long ago to have spoken of the reputed Egyptian descent of the Gipseys; but as that has been a very current, and almost universally received, opinion, it merits a chapter by itself.

p. 147CHAPTER IV.

On the Egyptian Descent of the Gipseys.

The belief that Gipseys are of Egyptian origin, is parallel with the existence of these people in Europe.  It arose from the report circulated by the first of them who arrived here that they were pilgrims from Egypt; and this statement has not only been universally adopted by the common people, but has also, here and there, obtained credit among men of learning.  Had this opinion not been received at a time when every thing was taken upon trust without examination; had it not been propagated every-where by the first Gipseys, and obtained the sanction of time in following ages; it would have been impossible for it to have gained such general acceptation, or to have maintained itself even to the latest times.

Till the seventeenth century, the Egyptian descent of the Gipseys rested entirely on tradition.  Thomasius was the first who endeavoured to establish this matter on satisfactory evidence.  Those who, since him, have supported the same opinion, are principally the Englishman Salmon; and, lately, Signor Griselini.  Before their vouchers are produced, it will be proper to mention that p. 148Thomasius speaks only of the Gipseys who travelled about Europe during the first seven years after their arrival; for he thinks that, after seven years were elapsed, these, excepting a very few, returned home again, and after their retreat the present set was produced, as has been already described.  In this particular, he differs entirely from the other two writers, making the latter Gipseys a distinct race of people from those who first arrived.  On the contrary, Salmon, as well as Griselini, consider the Gipseys that are now wandering in Europe, and with truth, as lineal descendants of the former, consequently bring them all from Egypt.

Thomasius says: “The first Gipseys never would allow themselves to be any people but Egyptians; asserting always, that the Lesser Egypt was their mother country: and they deserve credit, as they were an honourable worthy set of people.”  One observation will be sufficient in reply:—Among the oldest writers who, prior to Stumpf, mention the Gipseys, not one seems to be acquainted with their worth.  But Thomasius himself discovered the weakness of his first argument, and therefore hastens to another.  “Be this as it may,” he proceeds, “they were in the earliest times, when doubtless something more certain was extant, always looked upon as Egyptians: so that it does not become us, who p. 149live two hundred years later, positively to reject what was at that time generally assented to.”  Our author was not aware that this kind of reasoning proves too much; for by the same mode of arguing, every antiquated error, every ridiculous superstition, may be defended.  If this be admitted, Satan gets his cloven foot again, of which modern unbelief had bereft him.  Thus, Christian Thomasius acted unjustifiably when he laid violent hands on witches and sorcerers, and put an end to their existence, though credited from the highest antiquity.  Thomasius imagines there were other proofs, beside the Gipseys’ own assertions, that they were Egyptians; this supposition, however, not only has nothing to support it, but is openly contradicted by Aventin, Kranz, and Münster.  It is not authenticated because the chronicles universally mention it as a saying of the Gipseys, whenever they speak of their coming from Egypt.  It is confuted by Aventin, who rejects their Egyptian descent; at the same time he alledges, that they wished to be thought from that country.  In his time, nothing was known concerning them, but what came from their own mouths: and those who thought them Egyptians, rested their belief entirely on the veracity of their informants.  This is collected with greater certainty from Kranz and Münster; for these declare expressly, that every thing which could be discovered, by any other p. 150means than their own assertions, contradicted rather than confirmed their Egyptian descent.  Yet Thomasius has more proofs; he cites the resemblance between the Gipseys and the inhabitants of the Lesser Egypt, whence they say they came.  But many people lay this difficulty in his way, that the name of Lesser Egypt is not to be found in any system of geography, but is a mere invention of the Gipseys.  He rests his opinion on that of Vulcanius, who looks upon Nubia to be the Lesser Egypt, and thinks, for what reason does not appear, that the Nubians themselves called their country by that name.  These are the similarities:—Nubians, as well as Gipseys, confess themselves Christians; both lead a wandering life, and both are of a dark brown complexion: to which some resemblances in shape between the Gipseys and Egyptians are introduced in general terms.  Whether there be any affinity in their languages he leaves undetermined, because, he says, he knows nothing about it.  That the name of Zigeuner is the same as Egyptian, and the former is derived from the latter, he proves in the following ingenious manner: “The Spaniards—who, instead of Egyptaner, call them Gitanos—have cut off the first syllable.  Our forefathers, who exceeded the Spaniards in the art of mangling names, have rejected two syllables, and, instead of Egyptianer, first called them Cianer, afterwards, in order to fill p. 151up the chasm between i and a, Ciganer.  Further, as we, instead of Italianer, say Italiener, we have also changed Ciganer into Cigener; and at last, as people in Upper Germany are very fond of diphthongs, Cigeuner, or Zigeuner, has been produced.”  Now, if any thing can be proved by all this, in the same manner the several opinions quoted in the former chapter are likewise established.  And yet, after all, who will say, that, instead of Egyptier, Egyptianer, whence Cianer, Ciganer, and thus progressively through all the changes, Zigeuner may be produced?  With regard to the denomination of Lesser Egypt, ranked under the list of Gipsey fables, and brought as evidence to overset Thomasius’s system, because Egypt never was divided into Greater and Smaller, it is nevertheless a true geographical name, though certainly not to be found in the treatises on geography: it however appears in the title of a Turkish emperor.  A declaration of war, made by Achmet IV. against John Casimir, king of Poland, in 1652, begins with the following words: “I sultan, a king and son of the Turkish emperor, a soldier of the God of the Greeks and Babylonians—king of the Greater and Lesser Egypt.”  The Gipseys have therefore, in this instance, been falsely accused of a fiction: but whether by this Lesser Egypt, Lower Egypt be understood, cannot be determined.

p. 152Salmon believes the Gipseys to be Mamelukes, who were obliged to quit Egypt in 1517, when the Turkish emperor conquered this country, and thereby put an end to the Circassian government.  They are reputed to have acquired the name of Zigeuner, or in the Turkish language Zinganies, from a Captain Zinganeus, who was very active in opposing the Turks.  How all this is proved, will best appear from his own words: “They had no occasion for any testimony to shew they were of Egyptian descent.  The blackness of their skin clearly indicated from what part they came.  What confirms me, in my belief of this intelligence, concerning the origin of the Gipseys, is an act of Parliament, passed in the twenty-seventh year of the reign of Henry VIII.—that is, fourteen years after the victory obtained by Selim emperor of the Turks over Egypt—in which are the following words: Whereas certain outlandish people, who do not profess any craft or trade, whereby to maintain themselves; but go about, in great numbers, from place to place, using insidious underhand means to impose on his Majesty’s subjects, making them believe that they understand the art of foretelling to men and women their good or ill fortune, by looking in their hands, whereby they frequently defraud people of their money; likewise are guilty of thefts and highway robberies: it is hereby ordered, that p. 153the said vagrants, commonly called Egyptians, in case they remain one month in the kingdom, shall be proceeded against as thieves and rascals, and on the importation of any such Egyptian, he (the importer) shall forfeit 40l. . . . for every trespass.”  He then quotes another act, passed during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, wherein the Gipseys are also called Egyptians.

From the blackness of their skins, therefore, with the official use of the name Egyptian, Salmon first draws the inference that they were really Egyptians: then, because the first decree published against the Gipseys in England was fourteen years after Selim’s conquest of Egypt, that they were Mamelukes.  There is not any connection to be discovered in either conclusion.  The Parliament used in the act the word Egyptian, because it was universally current in England.  Whether the Gipseys were Egyptians or not, was a question of learning, totally irrelevant with the intention of the order; nor could it be determined by any juridical decree.

There is still less reason for supposing them Mamelukes who had travelled from Egypt on its being taken by Selim in 1517, and tracing their name from one of their leaders: as both they and their name were known in Europe at least a hundred years preceding the fall of Gäwry; or before p. 154Tumanbai, the latest hope of the Mamelukes, was hanged. [154]

Griselini advances numerous reasons in support of his opinion, and would certainly go a great way towards determining the Egyptian origin of the Gipseys, if, as in most investigations, more did not depend upon the quality than the number of the proofs.  Yet he does not suppose them to be genuine Egyptians; and for this reason, because the greatest number of those resemblances which he has sought between Egyptians and Gipseys, intended p. 155to prove the latter descended from the former, are not applicable to the question.  Besides, he finds himself under the necessity of looking for foreign helps; and what he cannot make coincide with the Egyptians, he meets with among the Ethiopians and Troglodytes: these he introduces promiscuously, kneads the whole together, and determines the Gipseys to be a mixture of Ethiopians, Egyptians, and Troglodytes.  This very circumstance, even before his reasons are considered, p. 156renders the matter very suspicious.  By the same means, it would not be very difficult to shew that the Italians are, in part, on account of their nastiness, Ostiacks; in part, because of their superstition, and admiration of magnificent edifices, Egyptians; and lastly, in part, for their dastardly treacherous revenge, Chinese.

Griselini begins his comparisons with the disposition of the Gipseys.  He says,—

“They are inclined to melancholy, and are desperate in the first emotions of their anger:—Ammianus Marcellinus describes the Egyptians, of his time, in nearly the same terms.

“With regard to religion,” he proceeds, “the Gipseys of the Banat always conform to that which prevails in the village, be it the Roman-catholic or the Illyrian Greek.  They have not the least comprehension of either; in which ignorance they perfectly resemble the Wallachians—except that they observe the strict fasts of the Greek church with more exactness.  The Wallachians separate from their wives only during the last days of the great fasts: the Gipseys, on the contrary, avoid their society from the beginning to the end; also on the Ascension of the Blessed Virgin, in Advent, and especially all vigils.—Apuleius, and other writers of antiquity, take particular notice of the Egyptian fasts, whose p. 157strictness consisted chiefly in this, that the man held himself obliged to refrain from his consort’s bed.

“But, beside these solemn fasts, the Gipseys of the Banat observe a degree of temperance, and a choice in their diet, even on those days when all kinds of food are permitted.  They abstain from frogs and tortoises; wherein they accord with the Wallachians, Räizes, and other Christians of the Greek church.  Moreover, they refrain from some kinds of river fish, viz. the red-scaled bream, perch, and lampreys; of which it is known that, among the Egyptians, the race of Likopolis and Tagaroriopolis refused to taste.  The Gipseys are adverse to all feathered game, and particularly to birds of prey.  The stork, when he deigns to build on their wretched huts, is highly esteemed by them:—one of these birds, like its relation ibis, was an object of worship, with other symbolical Egyptian deities.

“Of four-footed animals, the Gipseys are most fond of swine’s flesh, particularly salted.—The Egyptians likewise consumed a great number of these creatures, though they looked upon their herds and keepers to be unclean.

“The Gipseys hang up large onions in their dwellings, but do not eat them.—Besides that the Egyptians honoured them, as well as many other vegetables, we are informed by Diodorus p. 158Siculus, that by the regulations relating to diet, observed in the different Egyptian provinces, onions were prohibited in some, but allowed in others.

“Like the old Egyptians, the Gipseys cannot bear the smell of beans; although their neighbours, the Wallachians, eat them with pleasure.

“When I was at Denta, in the district of Csakowa, curiosity led me into a Gipsey hut.  The first object which arrested my attention was a young man covered with the itch, whose mother was feeding him with the boiled flesh of a small snake, on a dirty earthen plate.—In the same manner the Egyptians used the flesh of snakes, as the mildest and most effectual remedy for the elephantiasis.

“It is well known that, even to this day, fowls and others of the feathered tribe are hatched by art in Egypt.—I must confess I was not a little surprised when, in July, 1775, I went into a Gipsey hut before Karansebes, to find an old woman engaged in hatching geese and ducks eggs, in horse-dung.  This was exactly the method of the old Egyptians.

“From all which has hitherto been produced, as well as that the Gipseys of the Banat, and others dispersed over the rest of Europe, declare themselves to be from Egypt, it is highly probable that they are of Egyptian origin.  But see p. 159a nearer resemblance.  So long ago as in Ælian’s time, the Egyptians were famous for their patience in enduring all kinds of torture; and would rather expire on the rack, than be brought to confession; which is a striking trait in the character of the Gipseys.  When this equivocal means of learning the truth, the torture, was practised in the imperial royal hereditary dominions, several instances may be remembered of the Gipseys suffering themselves to be torn to pieces sooner than acknowledge crimes, even when the magistrates had the most indisputable proofs of them.”

Thus far has been to prove the Egyptian descent of the Gipseys.  What follows is against it; and, from the similarity of their condition, is to convince us that they are of Æthiopian and Troglodytish origin.

“According to the most authentic writers, the Egyptians were solicitous to build themselves convenient habitations.  They lived decently; and their attention to cleanliness, in the observance of certain rules of health, was so general, that even the peasants, and the lowest classes of people in the nation, were no exception to it.—The residences of the Gipseys in the Banat present a very different picture. . . .  Miserable dwellings, consisting, partly of thorns and straw packed together, and partly of holes, ten or p. 160twelve feet deep, dug in the earth.  Taken in this point of view, the Gipseys have more the appearance of being related to the hordes of Æthiopians and Troglodytes.

“Among the ancient Egyptians, agriculture was in high esteem; as it still is among the present Copts, their true descendants.—The Gipseys, on the contrary, are the worst, and most careless farmers: another argument for their being Ethiopians and Troglodytes.

“These and other African hordes, employ themselves in collecting gold out of the river sand;—in like manner, the Marosch, Nera, and other streams, have induced the Gipseys to become goldwashers.

“An inclination for strolling, to which the Egyptians were so very adverse, is the particular propensity of the Gipseys in general; nor are those of the Banat exempt from it.

“The more artful, particularly of the other sex, go about from house to house, where they tell fortunes, cast nativities, discover thefts, and pretend they possess remedies, to which they ascribe wonders and infallible cures.  These nostrums consist, chiefly, of roots, amulets, certain small stones . . . mostly a kind of scoriæ.—Among the Egyptians, likewise, such impostors rambled up and down.  These were Ethiopians by descent, who carried on a similar trade.

p. 161“From the last considerations, compared with the former, one would be inclined rather to deduce the origin of the Gipseys from the Ethiopians and Troglodytes, than from the Egyptians.  But what I am going to add, will make it more probable that they are a mixture of all the three nations. [161]

“It is well known that people of both sexes, calling themselves Egyptian priests and priestesses, were, in ancient times, scattered through Italy, Greece, and all the provinces of the Roman empire: where they not only introduced the worship of the goddess Isis, but wandered from place to place, begged, and professed the same kinds of ingenuity in which the Gipseys of the Banat, and the rest of their brethren dispersed over Europe, are so thoroughly versed.  These said priests and priestesses, which Apuleius ironically calls magnæ religionis sidera, not only knocked at people’s doors, in Rome, with their sistris, but even had the skill to persuade the common people, that to refuse them alms and to commit sacrilege were equally heinous.  They even went so far as to threaten those who slighted them, in the name of their goddess Isis, to p. 162strike them with blindness, or the tympany (hydrops tympanites).—Aventin says, the Gipseys could so terrify the people in Bavaria, with the like threats, that they suffered themselves to be robbed by them with impunity.  Likewise in the Banat, the women, particularly, are heard to vent the most horrid curses and imprecations if they are reprimanded, or not paid for their calculations of nativities, singing, or fortune-telling.

“The licentiousness and immorality of the Gipseys are extreme.  In early youth, when yet young girls, they exhibit themselves, with their dances, before every person from whom they expect any present; and these dances always end in lascivious attitudes and shameful gestures.  In like manner, the ordinary women in Egypt used to dance at their orgies, especially at the feast of Bubostes, and the procession of Canopus.  The like scenes appeared at Rome, among the wives, daughters, and sponsors of the priests of Isis, agreeably to the mysteries of that goddess.”

Griselini now comes to the point:—To what nation did these priests and priestesses belong?  And when did their emigration happen?

“It was after the time of Augustus,” he says, “that they began to wander through the different parts of Europe; in every district of which, they endeavoured to disseminate the worship of Isis.

p. 163“They practised astrology, and other kinds of superstitious impositions, with all sorts of vagrants’ tricks, in nearly the same manner as the Gipseys of our age deceive people.

“Now it is known that the Egyptian priests had stated incomes, from appropriated lands; which circumstance attached them to their native country: and hence they hated an unsettled life.  Neither did they desire to make proselytes; and strangers, who wished to be initiated into the rites and mysteries of Isis, were obliged to submit to be circumcised;—this ceremony was indispensable: on the contrary, the before-mentioned priests of Isis wandering about the Roman provinces, never mentioned a word of circumcision to their new converts.  Very sensible critics have produced palpable evidence that they were Ethiopians and Troglodytes, who could the more easily pass for Egyptians, as their features, persons, customs, and religion, were the same.

“Of all the writers who mention these emigrations, from Egypt, into Italy, Greece, and every part of the globe which was known in the time of the Romans, I shall refer only to Heliodorus.  It was very possible that, sometimes, real Egyptians who had been driven by misfortunes from their native country, or perhaps some of the very lowest rank of people who had nothing to lose, might be mixed with these wanderers.  p. 164From this mixture of Ethiopians, Troglodytes, and Egyptians, then, sprang a distinct wandering race, which partakes, in some measure, of all the three nations; and from which, according to the foregoing observations, we may reasonably conclude the Gipseys of our time to be descended; as in all of them we discover, sometimes the Troglodyte, sometimes the Ethiopian, and sometimes the Egyptian.

“That no mention is made of them in the Hungarian yearly publications before the year 1417, is by no means a proof that they were not known long before, both in that kingdom and the Banat.  If we admit the Roman coins which are dug out of the earth as proof that the Romans have been inhabitants of any place, without the concurrent testimony of any historian; we are equally authorised to admit the little Egyptian idols, of bronze, which are dug up near them in the Banat, as proof for the Gipseys.  Being dispersed all over the Roman conquest, why might they not as well, when Dacia became a province, have gone there likewise, and propagated the worship of Isis, Anubis, and other Egyptian deities, the same as in Italy?”

Such are Mr. Griselini’s arguments, stated very diffusely, as they may be found in his works: but it will be evident, that what he adduces in support of his opinion, is a direct proof that it p. 165cannot be established.  Supposing any person charitable enough to allow there is good argument in his far-fetched similarities; yet the circumstance, that neither in the Hungarian nor in any other Journals, is the least notice taken of Gipseys before the year 1417, would overset the whole again.  Griselini felt this himself; but what he urges in reply, is no answer to the objection.  Nor is it just, that the Roman coins found in the Banat should be esteemed, without concurrent testimony, a proof of the Romans having formerly dwelt there.  German crowns are, as Mr. Niebuhr informs us, the chief current coin in Yemen (Arabia Felix), and great numbers are yearly sent thither for coffee.  If some centuries hence, when revolutions may have occasioned great changes, the said German money should be dug up, would any historical writer venture to assert as a truth, that Arabia Felix had formerly been inhabited by Germans!  But it is unnecessary to enter into a laboured confutation of Mr. Griselini’s arguments; yet a few hints, with respect to his mode of proceeding, strike so forcibly, that we cannot forbear to notice them.

He relies chiefly upon certain similarities between the Gipseys, Egyptians, and Ethiopians, without reflecting whether they are distinctions peculiar to these people.  Of this description the following are examples:—he thinks the Gipseys p. 166must be Troglodytes and Ethiopians, because they follow the employment of goldwashing; these latter, as well as some of the African hordes, do the same in their rivers which produce gold: he makes them Egyptians, because they eat swine’s flesh: again, he concludes they must be priests of Isis, because they exclaim against the hard-hearted, who refuse the boon they ask.  Are these, then, distinctions which none but Egyptians and Ethiopians have in common with the Gipseys?  Is it necessary to recur to the Egyptians, to find people, beside Gipseys, who eat pork?—Or to the priests of Isis, for sturdy beggars?  And, with regard to goldwashers, how came he not to recollect that the Wallachians also follow this employment?—And that near Strasburgh, beside other places, hundreds of people who have not a drop of Gipsey blood in their veins get their living by it?

Further, the said Mr. Griselini, in order to render his system the more plausible, has made use of certain expedients at the expense of truth; and, in spite of all experience to the contrary, so modelled the properties of the Gipseys, as to give them the appearance of complete Egyptians.  He makes them by nature inclined to melancholy; whereas their dispositions have not the least tincture of it: they are described as most conscientiously, nay rather superstitiously, attached to religious customs; and yet, according to the p. 167universal testimony of other observers of these people, they are totally indifferent as to every thing connected with religion.  He says, they are adverse to eating onions; and as for beans, they abhor them: whereas Sulzer was a witness how much they liked the flavour of both.  By proceeding in this manner, every thing may be made to answer all purposes.  But woe to the records and histories which are used in this manner!

It will be seen, from what has been said on the subject, that the supposed Egyptian descent of the Gipseys is very far from being proved; notwithstanding it was formerly so generally credited, and even is to this day.  Arguing on the supposition that they originated from Egypt, care was taken to inform us what kind of people they had been in that country.  It is very confidently related, and to our great edification, that their forefathers were the same sorcerers who, in the presence of Pharaoh, imitated Moses’s miracles: moreover, that the Egyptian king set these people as taskmasters over the children of Israel, in order to render their labour the more grievous: and finally, that these were the very murderers employed by the inhuman Herod, to carry into effect his cruel decree respecting the children of Bethlehem.  This kind of dreaming has been carried still further; it having been calculated to what degree of indolence these people had accustomed themselves p. 168in Egypt, living by the labour and sweat of others.  Afterwards, when, contrary to expectation, the Children of Israel escaped from their servitude, the lucrative employment of these overseers, of course, had an end: instead of reconciling themselves to any kind of labour, they rather chose to decamp, with goods, wives, and children, from Egypt, in hopes, by cunning and fraud, to procure an easier subsistence in foreign countries.  They pursued this shameful course of life through the following centuries; and have, at last, pushed their excursions into our territories.

But it is not sufficient that the Egyptian descent of these people is entirely destitute of proof; on the other side, the most positive proof is to be found to contradict it.  Their language differs entirely from the Coptic; and their customs, as Ahasuerus Fritsch has remarked, are diametrically opposite to the Egyptian.  To these facts must be added that weighty circumstance, of their wandering about like strangers in Egypt, where they form a distinct people; as not only Bellonius, but many later writers assure us.  Muratori, therefore, is not in the wrong, when he thinks it ridiculous to account them Egyptians—people having no better authority for this belief, than their own unsupported opinion.

Thus, then, stands the argument, as well with respect to the derivation of the Gipseys in general, as in regard to the Egyptian descent of them in particular.  p. 169While many men, and among these some very respectable for their learning, declare the origin of these people to remain an unsolved riddle, the opinion that they were not originally from Egypt, will, it is thought, by the contents of this and the foregoing chapter, be thoroughly confirmed.  Notwithstanding the innumerable researches, the Gipseys still remain unacknowledged inmates in Europe.

It may nevertheless be doubted whether Swinburne is quite right, in asserting it to be impossible ever to find out the real home of these strangers.  After so many unsuccessful endeavours, it is not without apprehension, though with the best-founded hope, we venture on another trial.

p. 170CHAPTER V.

The Gipseys come from Hindostan.

It is justly asserted, that one of the most infallible methods of determining the origin of these people with certainty, would be the discovery of a country where their language was in common use.  The first and most necessary examination here, therefore, will be, to find out the part of the globe in which the Gipseys’ language is that of the natives: and this country is no other than Hindostan.  But before we endeavour to prove this assertion, by a comparison of the Hindostan and Gipsey languages, it will be proper to premise something, which will serve as an introduction of considerable weight.  It is an article of intelligence, to be found in the Vienna Gazette, and comes from a Captain Szekely von Doba, a man who was thinking of nothing less than of searching for the Gipseys and their language in the East Indies.

“In the year 1763, on the 6th of November,” says Captain Szekely, “a printer, whose name was Stephen Pap Szathmar Nemethi, came to see me.  Talking upon various subjects, we at last fell upon that of the Gipseys; and my guest related to me the following anecdote, from the mouth of a preacher of the reformed church, p. 171Stephen Vali, at Almasch in the county of Komora.—When the said Vali studied at the university of Leyden, he was intimately acquainted with some young Malabars, of whom three are obliged constantly to study there, nor can they return home till relieved by three others.  Having observed that their native language bore a great affinity to that spoken by the Gipseys, he availed himself of the opportunity to note down, from themselves, upwards of one thousand words, together with their significations.  They assured him, at the same time, that upon their island was a tract of land, or province, called Czigania (but it is not laid down on the map).  After Vali was returned from the university, he informed himself, among the Raber Gipseys, concerning the meaning of his Malabar words, which they explained without trouble or hesitation.”

In this anecdote, every thing seems to happen by chance; even to the learned man who published it in the Gazette, it appeared as if fallen from the clouds, and entirely oversets his system; for he was the person, mentioned above, who broached the opinion of the Gipseys being Mongol Tartars.  So much more weighty, therefore, and unexceptionable, are the hints it throws out, for the discovery of the Gipseys’ mother country, by means of their language.

p. 172The consideration that, according to this anecdote, the Gipsey language is declared to be Malabar, and we have pronounced it Hindostan, does not create any difficulty, although they are very different from each other.  Probably the three young men, from whom Vali took down his words, were Bramins’ sons, whose language was that proper to the learned Bramins, or the Shanscritt.  But the affinity between this and the common language spoken by the people of Hindostan, is the same as between pure Latin and modern Italian.  It was therefore very natural that the Raber Gipseys should understand, if not all, at least the greatest part of the words which Vali repeated to them.

However, we do not want this come-off.  The difficulty will subside without it, when we examine the connection between the Gipsey and Hindostan languages.  The next thing, therefore, is to give a list of words from both.

Numerals.

Nouns Substantive.

Adjectives.

Verbs.

Example how the two Languages decline.

1.  Without being joined to an Adjective.

Singular Number.

Plural Number.

Singular Number.

Plural Number.

2.  With an Adjective.

Singular Number.

Plural Number.

Remark I.  Those syllables which, in the oblique cases, are printed in Italics, are the article.  In the Gipsey, as well as in the Hindustan language, the article is not placed before the noun, but affixed behind it, and that is the sole indication of the case of a noun.  In the Gipsey tongue, the article of the nominative case is o or i; in the Hindostan, a or i.

Remark II.  The Gipsey language, as well as the Hindostan, has only two genders, the masculine and feminine.  Those nouns which end in i, are, in both languages, feminine, and all the rest masculine.  Both languages change the masculine into the feminine gender, by putting a j or an i for the termination.  For Example,

Some Pronouns.

1.  I: Me; Me, Mo.

Singular Number.

p. 186Plural Number.

2.  Thou: Tu; Tu.

Singular Number.

Plural Number.

3. a.  He: Job; Uweh.

Singular Number.

3. b.  She: Joi; Uwehi

Singular Number.

p. 187Plural Number, common to both Genders.

4.  My: Maro; Merra
Mari; Merri

5.  Our: Maro; Hummarra
Mari; Hummarri

Singular Number.

6.  Thy: Tiro; Terra
Tiri; Terri

Singular Number.

7.  Your: Tumaro; Tummarra
Tumari; Tummarri

Singular Number.

8.  Who?  Kohn? Gipsey; Koun? Hindostan.

p. 186Examples of the conjugation of both Languages.

I am: Me Hom; Me Hej

Present.—Singular Number.

Plural Number.

Imperfect.—Singular Number.

Plural Number.

Perfect.—Singular Number.

Plural Number.

p. 187Future.—Singular Number.

Plural Number.

Infinitive.

To make; do: Kerja; Kurrna.

Present.—Singular Number.

Plural Number.

Imperfect.—Singular Number.

Plural Number.

The comparison thus far will, it is presumed, be sufficient to convince every person of the truth p. 190of the position, that the Gipsey language is really that of Hindostan.  Let the reader look over the catalogue once more, and it will appear, on the average, that every third Gipsey word is likewise an Hindostan one; or still more, out of thirty Gipsey words, eleven or twelve are constantly of Hindostan.  This agreement is uncommonly great: it must at the same time be remembered, that the words above communicated have been learned from the Gipseys within a few years; consequently, at a time when they had been nearly four complete centuries away from Hindostan, their native country (as we may now assert it to be), among people who spoke languages totally different, and in which the Gipseys themselves conversed.  Under the constant, and so long continued, influx of these languages, their own must necessarily have suffered great alteration; more especially as they are a people entirely ignorant, without either writing or literature.  One foreign word after another must have crept into their language; consequently, by the frequent use of such words, the Gipsey word of the same signification was more rarely used, and by degrees lost from their recollection: by which circumstance the original composition of their language became completely deranged; [190] which is the reason why, as any person may convince p. 191himself by inspection, various languages and idioms—Turkish, Grecian, Latin, Wallachian, Hungarian, Sclavonian, German, and others—make part of the foregoing vocabulary.  The word rome, man, is Coptic; with, perhaps, a few more.  It does not appear that there is so much Persian in the Gipsey language, as has been generally imagined; and even what there is of it they may have brought with them from their native country, as many Persian words are current in Hindostan.

After all these reflections, we ought rather to wonder that the number of Hindostan words in the Gipsey language is so considerable, than to require it should be greater, in order to furnish sufficient proof of the Hindostan language being the Gipseys’ mother tongue.

But we have a right, from the agreement which appears in the catalogue published, to conclude the affinity is much more intimate.  The idea hitherto adopted has been that, among the Gipsey words quoted, all those of the Hindostan language, answering to the annexed meaning, appear, which are still extant in the Gipsey language.  But this is certainly by no means the case.  It will be recollected, from the first part, how great a secret the Gipseys make of their language, and how suspicious they appear when any person wishes to learn a few words of it.  Even if the Gipsey is not perverse, he is very p. 192inattentive; and is consequently likely to answer some other rather than the true Gipsey word.  Under such circumstances, it is very possible, nay even probable, that in the foregoing catalogue there may many words be inserted, for which true Gipsey, of course Hindostan, words might be found; but that the Gipseys when enquired of, either from levity or by design, did not declare them.

Further, it is not all absurd to pronounce, that there remain more, or at least different, true Gipsey words among those residing in one country than another.  And if, at a future period, some person should, as an experiment on the above catalogue, examine a second or third time parties of Gipseys in different countries, and compare the words obtained with those already delivered, the catalogue would certainly receive a considerable augmentation in favour of our hypothesis.

Finally, we must consider the Hindostan language itself.  This, it is true, is fundamentally the same all over Hindostan; but, like every other language in the world, has different dialects in the various provinces.  The eastern dialect, spoken about the Ganges, has different names for some things, and different inflexions of some words, from the western one spoken about the Indus.  There is, besides, a third, varying from both these, viz. the Surat dialect, which has a number of p. 193Malabar and other words mixed with it.  To this must be added, that in the Hindostan, as well as in every other language, there are often several names for the same thing.  The particular dialect bearing the closest affinity to the Gipsey language, as will appear hereafter, is the western, and perhaps more especially that of Surat.  Had this therefore, or the western one in general, been the standard of the above comparison; and had we not, for want of words in these dialects, been obliged frequently to have recourse to the eastern one, spoken in Bengal; or had we, even in the latter, been able to obtain so many words, that where the Gipsey, from not knowing any more, could only give us a single expression, we might have produced, not one or two as at present, but all, or at least the greater part, of the synonymous appellations: we should infallibly in this manner recover, in the Hindostan language, many a Gipsey word, which even the learned are unable to derive from the European or any other language, and yet have as little appearance of being Hindostan.  With respect to the construction and inflexions of the two languages, they are evidently the same.  That of Hindostan has only two genders; the Gipsey the same.  In the former every word ended in j is feminine, all the rest masculine; in the latter the same rule is observed.  That makes the inflections entirely by the article, p. 194adding it at the end of the word; the Gipsey language proceeds exactly in the same manner.  Finally, likewise, bating a trifling variation, this identical similarity is evident in the pronouns.

So much for the language of the Gipseys.  As this is indubitably Hindostan, it would be sufficient of itself to prove the descent of those people from Hindostan.  But we shall now proceed to other grounds, which, united with the proofs from the language, will leave us less reason to doubt concerning this matter.

That the Gipseys, and natives of Hindostan, resemble each other in complexion and shape, and are equally timorous and cowardly, is undeniable.  But we shall pass over these, together with some other circumstances; as, perhaps, neither the one nor the other are such distinguishing marks as not to be met with among other Oriental people.

The name of Polgar, likewise, carries some weight with it, which we find among the Gipseys in the earliest times, before they began to change the names they brought with them for those used in Europe.  Polgar, as we may remember, was the name of the leader who, in the year 1496, obtained a safe-conduct from the Hungarian king Uladislaus II. by virtue of which he, with his horde, consisting of twenty-five tents or families, had the liberty of travelling about where he pleased.  p. 195This name Polgar originates in India, where it is the appellation of a deity presiding over marriages and matrimonial concerns: the Indians are very fond of bearing this name, as well as the names of their other deities.

In reciting the employments of the Gipseys, their smith’s business was mentioned; when it was remarked, that their anvil is a stone, and what more implements they use consist in a pair of hand-bellows, a pair of tongs, a hammer, a vise, and a file.  With such a portable apparatus, the travelling Gipsey wanders from place to place.  We will compare this account with what Sonnerat relates of the Indian smiths: the following are his own words: “The smith carries his tools, his shop, and his forge, about with him, and works in any place where he can find employment: he erects his shop before the house of his employer, raising a low wall with beaten earth, before which he places his hearth; behind this wall he fixes two leathern bellows, which his apprentice blows alternately, to keep up the fire.  He has a stone instead of an anvil, and his whole apparatus is a pair of tongs, a hammer, a beetle, and a file.”  The most striking circumstance relating to this coincidence is, that both Gipsey and Indian should use the same kind of hand-bellows, and both have exactly two.  As the p. 196apprentice works these for the Indian, so does the wife or one of the children for the Gipsey.

What is asserted of the young Gipsey girls, rambling about with their fathers who are musicians, dancing with all kinds of indecent and lascivious attitudes and gestures, to divert any person who is willing to give them a small gratuity for so acting, is likewise perfectly Indian.  Sonnerat confirms this also.—“Surat is,” he says, “famous for its dancing girls.  These young women devote themselves entirely to the worship of the Gods, whom they attend in the processions, dancing and singing before the representations of them.  The handycraftsmen generally destine the youngest of their daughters to this service, and send them to the pagoda before they come to the age of puberty.  There they have dancing and music masters, with persons to teach them to sing.  The Bramins form their young minds, and deflower them; in the end, they become common prostitutes.  They then join in companies, take musicians with them, to entertain any-body who chooses to engage them, with music and dancing.”  Sonnerat speaks here likewise of the wanton gestures of these dancing girls, of which he has given a drawing; and ends his description thus: “The blinking of their eyes—half open, half shut—and the negligent sinking p. 197of their bodies, to the most languishing music, shew that their whole frame breathes nothing but lasciviousness.”

Fortune-telling is practised all over the east; but the peculiar kind professed by the Gipseys, viz. chiromancy—constantly referring to whether the parties shall be rich or poor, fortunate or unhappy in marriage; whether they shall have many or few children, &c.—is no-where met with but in India.  The following instance will evince, how perfectly Gipseyish it is: “It once happened,” says Baldæus, “that the Rajah Khans made his appearance before the inhabitants; when being given to understand that an experienced Bramin was arrived, he ordered him to be brought before him, and said—‘Narret (that was his name), look at my daughter’s hand, and inform me whether she will be happy or unfortunate, poor or rich; whether she will have many or few children; if her life will be long or short: speak out freely, and conceal nothing.’  The Bramin having looked at her hand, replied, ‘May it please your Majesty, according to the indication of these lines, I read thus—She shall bear seven children, viz. six sons and a daughter; the youngest of whom shall not only deprive you of your crown and empire, but likewise of your head and life, and afterwards place himself in p. 198your seat.’”  This method, Baldæus adds, of looking in the hands, is very common among the heathens.

The excessive loquacity of the Gipseys, as well as their very advantageous natural qualities, which have been before noticed, are likewise distinguishing characteristics of the Indian; besides, the very name Zigeuner, or, according to a broader way of pronunciation, Ciganen and Tchingenen, is the appellation of an Indian people, living at the mouth of the Indus, as mentioned by Thevenot.

Another striking intimation of the Indian descent of the Gipseys, is the partiality of the latter for red colours, or saffron: in like manner the Bramin performs all his religious duties in a white dress, without the least mixture of any other colour.  On his return home from these functions, he changes his white turban for a red one.  The common Indians also prefer this colour for their little round caps: and these last, especially on holidays, make a double deep yellow stripe on their foreheads with fat, saffron, and sacred cow-dung.  The Bramins make the same stripe with red, as a mark of pre-eminence.  Again, the Gipseys as Twiss assures us of those in Spain, never intermarry with any people who are not, like themselves, of Gipsey extraction; which puts us strongly in mind of the Indian castes.

p. 199CHAPTER VI.

The Gipseys are of the Caste called Suders.

We come now to the position we hoped to substantiate, viz. that the Gipseys are of the lowest class of Indians, namely, Parias; or, as they are called in Hindostan, Suders.

The whole great nation of Indians is known to be divided into four ranks or stocks, which are called by a Portuguese name, castes, each of which has its own particular subdivisions.  Of these castes, the Bramin is the first: the second contains the Tschechteries or Setreas: the third consists of the Beis or Wasziers: the fourth is the caste of the just-mentioned Suders; who upon the Peninsula of Malabar, where their condition is the same as in Hindostan, are called Parias or Parier.

The relative situation of these four castes, and the grounds of their difference, rest on the Indian fable of the Creation.  This relates, that the God who created Bruma, ordained that the Bramin should proceed out of Bruma’s mouth; the Tschechterie out of his arms; the Beis out of his legs; and the Suder from his feet.  As Bruma afterwards allotted the employments of each of these stocks, p. 200he appointed the first to seek after knowledge, to give instruction, and to take care of religion; the second was to serve in war; the third was, as well as the Bramin, to cultivate science, but to attend particularly to the breeding of cattle and agriculture: the caste of Suders was destined to be subservient to the Bramins, the Tschechteries, and the Beis.  These Suders are held in the greatest contempt: they are considered infamous and unclean, from their occupations; and they are abhorred because they eat flesh, the three other castes living entirely on vegetables.

Of this very caste, as will appear by the following comparison, our Gipseys are composed.

We have seen that the Gipseys are in the highest degree filthy, and disgusting; and with regard to character, of the most depraved hearts: that they are thievish, liars, and fraudulent to excess:—and these are exactly the qualities of the Suders.  Baldæus says, “The Pareas are a filthy race, in a word, a contemptible stinking people; a wicked crew, who in winter steal much cattle, kill them, and sell the hides.”  It is again related in the Danish Mission Intelligence, “Nobody can deny that the Bareier are the dregs and refuse of all the Indians: they have wicked dispositions, are thievish, arrant liars, are intractable with good usage, require to be kept in order by fear and blows, and held under continual restraint.”  p. 201Moreover, Neuhof assures us, “The Parruas are full of every kind of dishonesty; they do not consider lying and cheating to be sinful, as they have no other maxim or custom among them.”  The Gipsey’s solicitude to conceal his language, is likewise a striking Indian trait.  “Custom,” says Pallas, of the Indians round Astrakan, “has rendered them to the greatest degree suspicious about their language, insomuch that I never was able to obtain a small vocabulary from them.”

In addition to the foregoing, the Gipseys love to intoxicate themselves; they are particularly fond of brandy, because it more speedily answers their purpose than any other liquor.  Among the Suders we find this inclination is universal; though other Indians do not commit such excess, or very seldom, and then privately.

What has been further said with respect to the immoral life of the Gipseys, agrees perfectly with the Suders.  “Their wives and daughters,” says Neuhof, “make no difficulty of yielding up their persons, for money, to any sort of people, be they of what country or religion soever; as the inclination of this tribe tends more to voluptuousness, than towards diligence or industry.”

With regard to Gipsey marriages, it has been asserted, that it is a matter of indifference to them whether the party be the nearest relation or an p. 202utter stranger, or, as Salmon expresses himself, the nearest relations cohabit like beasts with each other; and as to education, that their children grow up in the most shameful neglect, without either discipline or instruction.  All this is precisely the case with the Pariars.  In the Journals of the Missionaries already quoted, it is said, “With respect to matrimony, they act like the beasts; and their children are brought up without restraint or information.”

Gipseys are fond of being about horses; so are the Suders in India, for which reason they are commonly employed as horsekeepers by the Europeans resident in that country.

The Gipseys were formerly employed as flayers, hangmen, and executioners, all over Hungary and Transylvania; and they still readily perform those offices whenever called upon.  In like manner, in India, no one who is not of the caste of Suders will on any account transact that kind of business.

We have seen that the Gipseys hunt after cattle which have died of distempers, in order to feed on them; and where they can provide more of the flesh than is sufficient for one day’s consumption, dry it in the sun: such is likewise a constant custom with the Pariars in India.  It “is their office,” according to the accounts we have of them, “to remove carrion, which they cut up; part they boil fresh and eat, other parts p. 203they dry in pieces, by the heat of the sun, for their future provision.”

Hitherto the accounts of the Gipseys and Suders perfectly coincide.  Even the before-mentioned smiths and dancing girls are of this caste: and as they before shewed, in general, from the similarity of their make, that they were of Indian extraction, so in this instance they give particular evidence, that they are descendants from the lowest class.

But there are still some further traits relating to the Gipseys; we shall now examine whether they also are to be found among the Suders.  Of these the first is, that the Gipseys always choose their place of residence near some village or city; very seldom within the village or city, even though there may be no order to prevent it: as is the case in Moldavia, Wallachia, and all parts of Turkey.  Even the more improved Gipseys, as those in Transylvania, who have long since discontinued their wandering mode of life, and might, with permission from government, reside within the cities, yet rather choose to build their huts in some bye-place, without their limits.  This custom seems to be a remnant of their original Suder education; it being usual, all over India, for the Suders to have their huts without the villages of the other castes, and in retired places near their cities.

Further, with regard to the Gipseys’ religion, p. 204we may recollect, from what has been said, that their sense of it is very confined, and that they have not the least degree of steadiness in it.  To the Gipseys, every persuasion is the same; as often as he meets with a different one, he changes his opinions.  To-day he receives the sacrament as a Lutheran; next Sunday, from a Roman-catholic; and perhaps before the end of the week partakes of the communion in a Reformed church.  Yet the greater part of them do not even go so far as this, but live without any religion at all, and are, as Tollius says, worse than heathens.  The more wonderful such an appearance is—of a whole people being so void of and indifferent about religion—the more weight it carries with it to confirm their Indian origin, when all this is found to be literally true of the Suders.  “This race,” says Rogerius, of the Suders in the kingdom of Surat, “seems to be neither heathens nor Mahometans; they live on in their own way, without any religion, or worshipping of God.  There are some, it is true, who imitate the other castes in an outward shew of religion, and appoint priests for themselves; but they neither frequent the pagodas of the higher castes, nor have any of their own: and as to the choice of their deities, every one conforms to the custom of the place where he lives, or happens to remain a short time, exactly the same as the Gipseys.”

p. 205If people, in reflecting on the emigration of the Gipseys, are not determined to imagine that they were actuated by a blind impulse, to break up at once, and quit their native country; no cause can be assigned for their retreat from thence so plausible as the war of Timur Beg in India.  The date of their arrival marks it very plainly.  It was in the years 1408 and 1409 that this conqueror ravaged India; and having persuaded himself, as well as his followers, that he had undertaken the expedition against India for the purpose of disseminating the Mahometan religion, his war was oppressive enough to occasion such an emigration.  Not only every one who made any resistance was destroyed, and such as fell into the enemy’s hands, though quite defenceless, were made slaves, but in a short time these very slaves, to the number of a hundred thousand, were put to death.  As in consequence an universal panic took place, nobody being secure that it might not be his own fate in a short time, what could be more natural than that a great number of terrified inhabitants should endeavour to save themselves by flight?

An objection naturally occurs, that when this supposed flight took place, had it been true, not Gipseys only, or the lowest class of people, but with them all sorts of Indians, of superior rank, would have come among us.  But this argument will fall of itself, when we reflect on the prepossession p. 206which the three higher castes of Indians entertain for their country.  They ascribe an extraordinary degree of holiness to it, and believe it to be the only country thought, by the Creator of the universe, worthy for such sanctified people as the Bramins, Tschechteries, and Beis, to dwell in.  They would rather suffer torture and death, than quit this land, chosen by the Almighty himself for their residence, to go and dwell any-where else.  Moreover a Suder is, in their estimation, the most execrable being in the world; and the least intercourse with him would be defiling and degrading their high characters, which, to them, would be more dreadful than death.  Wherefore it was a moral impossibility for those of a higher caste to have any thing in common with a Suder, or that they should have made an united retreat.  Finally, by putting themselves into the power of the Suders, with whom they live constantly in a state of discord and inveteracy, they would have hazarded a greater danger, than by patiently risking their fate from the hands of their common enemy.  If any of the higher ranks of Indians did withdraw themselves, on account of the troubles, it is probable they retired southwards, to people of their own sort, the Mahrattas.

As every part to the northward and eastward was beset by the enemy, and no passage left in those directions for escaping, it seems most probable p. 207that the countries below Multan, to the mouth of the Indus, were the first asylum and rendezvous of the fugitive Suders.  Here they were safe; and so remained, till Timur returned from his victories on the Ganges.  Then it was that they first entirely quitted the country; and, probably, with them a considerable number of the proper inhabitants about the Indus, which will explain the meaning of their original name, Ciganen, or, according to the German mode of speaking, Zigeuner.  For if it was in the country of the Zinganen that these terrified fugitives collected; and they afterwards drew a considerable number of the Zinganen themselves along with them, nothing could be more easy or natural than that the people who had assembled from the general wreck should take the name of the greater number.

By what route they came to us, cannot be ascertained: if they went straight through the southern Persian deserts of Sigistan, Makran, and Kirman, along the Persian Gulph to the mouth of the Euphrates, thence they might get, by Bassora, into the great deserts of Arabia, afterwards into Arabia Petræa, and so arrive in Egypt, by the isthmus of Suez.  They must certainly have been in Egypt before they reached us; otherwise we cannot account for the report that they were Egyptians.  In what manner they p. 208were afterwards transported to Europe is also an obscure research: perhaps it was effected by means of the Turks, who, being at that time fully employed with the Grecian empire, might permit the Gipseys to travel about with the rabble of Serdenjesti and Nephers, who were appointed to go on ravaging parties.  However, all that can be said upon that subject is mere surmise.  The chief aim in this Dissertation was, to prove that the Gipseys came from Hindostan, and that they were Suders, which it is hoped has been accomplished.  When every thing, even the most fortuitous concomitant circumstances, but particularly that most decisive one—the similarity of their language to that of Hindostan, uniformly point out that extraction, we cannot believe them to belong to a different country, and to be descended from another people.

p. 209SUPPLEMENT.

To invalidate, if possible, the charge of cannibalism—apparently so well founded—brought against the Gipsey tribe, it is thought proper in this place to mention circumstances, relative to the proceedings in Hungary, which at least render the justice of the sentence pronounced against these devoted people doubtful.

In the year 1534, as recorded in the Hungarian history, the Gipseys were suspected of traitorously assisting John Zapolya; in consequence of which the governor of Leutschau, Tsernabo, sent some horsemen to arrest a company of them, near Iglo: the greatest part escaped by flight; only a few old men and boys were taken, who were brought into Leutschau.  These confessed circumstantially (which certainly appears improbable, that men should lye to effect their own ruin), as well before, as upon the rack, the following falsities—That a hundred of them had been sent by Zapolya since the middle of Lent, and had agreed for a sum of money to set fire to the five chief cities, Kaschau, Leutschau, Bartfeld, Eperies, and Zeben: that the preceding Saturday several of them had privately entered Leutschau, disguised like Wallachians and shepherds, under the pretence of selling skins: that they laid fire in various places; and moreover, that they had murdered several people: and finally, that they had letters from Zapolya to thirteen different cities, with orders to afford them shelter and protection within their districts, as long as they chose to remain.  In consequence of this confession they were impaled, “but whether justly or not,” adds the Chronicle, “that, let him answer for who condemned them:” for on being conducted about the town, to shew in what places they had laid the fire, they could not specify them; besides, they denied every thing when they came to execution.

Except the circumstance of retracting, of which nothing is mentioned in the sentence of death, the above case seems to be exactly similar to that of the men-eaters executed in Hungary in 1782.  These were taken upon suspicion of theft; in the course of their examination something escaped them which gave occasion to think p. 210they had committed murder, and the criminals being interrogated on this point, perhaps on account of the severity used, or probably from an idea of heroism (a very common trait in their character), they confessed the fact, and chattered away till they had filled the paper, without considering consequences.  When desired to state where they had deposited the bodies, they promised to shew, but on being brought to the spot nothing was found, and they endeavoured to run off.  Nevertheless, having once confessed, they were put on the rack.  As the persons said to have been murdered could not be found, the judge imagined they must have eaten them, which, though denied by the poor miserable wretches, decided their fate.

(A)

How much the Gipsey language has altered by time, may be seen, in a striking manner, from the following translations of the Lord’s Prayer, obtained from Hungarian Gipseys at different periods.

1.  Lord’s Prayer, according to the old translation.

Dade! gula dela dicha mengi, Czaoreng hogodoleden tavel, ogoledêl hogoladhem, te a felpesz, trogolo anao Czarchode, ta vela mengi sztre kedapu, maro mandro kata agjesz igiertiszara a more beszecha, male dsame, andro vo lyata, enkala megula, dela enchala zimata.  Seszkesz kisztrio oothem banisztri, putyere feriszamarme, à kana andre vecsi, ale Va kosz.  Piho.

2.  The same, according to a more modern translation.

Muro Dad, kolim andro therosz; Ta weltro szentanao; Ta weltro t’him; Ta weltri olya, szarthin andro therosz kethjn t’he pre p’hu: sze kogyesz damande mandro agyesz a mingi; Ertitza amare bezecha, szar, t’hamin te ertingiszama rebezecha; Mali zsa men andre bezna, nicka men le dsungalin mansáár, Ke tirino t’hin, tiro hino baribo szekovari.  Amen.

3.  Another, with the Latin.

FINIS.

Ballintine, Typ.  Duke-st.  Adelphi.

FOOTNOTES.

[v]  The instruments used by the Chinese for marking time, act either by fire or water.  Those that act by water, somewhat resemble our large hour-glasses: those by fire, are composed of sweet smelling powder, made up into a sort of match.

[3]  Leo Africanus, in his Histoire Naturelle des Indes, &c. p. 327, says of the merchants of Agades, that they kept great numbers of armed slaves for their security, and mentions that their caravans—“sont tous vexéz de divers peuples du desert, comme de ceux qu’on appelle communément Bohémiens, ou Egyptiens.”

[16]  Beytrage zum Reichs Postreuter, St. 71. 1782.  “On the 21st of August there was a dreadful execution at Frauenmark in the Hortenser country.  Thirteen delinquents, Gipseys, who had existed twelve years by robbing on the highway, and were accustomed to eat the bodies of those they had murdered, were brought to punishment.  Four of them were women, who were beheaded; of the remaining nine men, six were hanged, two were broken on the wheel, and the leader of this inhuman gang was quartered alive.  It is said that one hundred and fifteen more, of these European cannibals, remain in the county gaols.”  See Appendix.

[19]  Hamburgh.  Neue Zeitung, 151.  St. 1782.  “Hungary, 4th of September.—The following is to be added concerning the murderers and man-eaters.  Forty of these miscreants have already undergone their deserved punishment, in three separate places.  Some, as lately communicated, were broken upon the wheel from below upwards; two of the most atrocious were quartered alive; and the remainder, one hundred and fifteen in number, will shortly be proceeded against in the same manner.  This band has existed twenty-one years, and in the course of that time sacrificed eighty-four people to their cruelty.  Every feeling mind must be struck with horror at the infernal rage of these European cannibals, on hearing their confession—that once at a wedding they killed three people, whom they ate with their guests, in the greatest festivity and joy!  They prefer the flesh of a young person from sixteen to eighteen years old.  They burnt the bones, which, according to their account, make excellent coals.  A life-guard man of the country undertook to secure and succeeded in taking their harumpascha or leader.  This cannibal hero was magnificently dressed, and wore ornaments in his cap to the value of six thousand guilders.”

Frankfurter Staats Ristretto, Nr. 157. 1782.  “Donau Strohm, 29th September.—We mention with horror, that besides those inhuman wretches who have already been put to the sword in Hungary, there are one hundred and fifty still in chains; and some thousands more are, with good foundation, suspected.  They are all Gipseys.  Maria Theresa had given orders that all these human vermin should be driven from their holes, and compelled to live in villages: but that wise regulation was not enforced, and the evil is now grown to such a height as scarcely to be remedied without a total extirpation of them.”

Hamburgh.  Unpartheiisch.  Correspondent.  Nr. 159.  1782.  “Hungary, 22d September.—Besides those Gipsey cannibals which were executed on the 22d of August, at Fraumark, there were fifteen of these barbarians put to death on the twenty-fourth at Kameza; and on the twenty-sixth, thirteen more at Esabrag.  In the former place were seven women beheaded, five men hanged, two broken alive on the wheel, and one quartered alive.  At the latter place seven women were beheaded, four men hanged and two broken on the wheel.  Many still remain in confinement; among whom is one who acted as priest, and married people for two groschens a time.  Their harumpascha, who, as we lately advised, was taken by a very simple stratagem, cannot yet be brought to any confession of his crimes.”

Frankfurter Staats Ristretto, Nr. 207.  1782.  “Donau Strohm, 24th December.—Not long ago it was published, that forty-five of the men-eaters had been executed in Hungary.  One hundred and fifty still remain in prison, whose sentence has, by express orders from court, been respited.  Her majesty, not thinking it possible that the people in confinement could have been guilty of such enormous crimes, sent a commissary thither from court to examine minutely into the affair.  On his return it was confirmed that they were really men-eaters; and that there are actually among them sons who have killed and eaten their own fathers.”

[29]  About sixty years ago, ladies of the first quality in Petersburgh used to be guilty of somewhat the same kind of irregularity.  They had begun to adopt the French modes in dress; but, as Salmon says, did not well know how to manage them.  “Wherefore,” he continues, “one must not be surprised, notwithstanding all the state of a Petersburgh lady, to meet one of them in summer, at which season they use the English straw hats, magnificently dressed in damask, ornamented with gold, silver, lace, and ribbands, walking barefooted, carrying her slippers in her hand.”

[51]  The college of Mons was established in 1748, by the Empress Theresa.  In the seventh article of the Instructions granted, the Gipseys were allowed the privilege of washing for gold.

[87]  It is reported in Hungary, that a Gipsey alphabet is somewhere preserved; but nobody ever has seen or ever will see it, for it probably never existed: as these people did not bring the art of writing from their own country; where they belong to a class of people who, by express laws, are prohibited from receiving any kind of instruction.

[88]  Poetry and Music are in equal esteem among the Transalpine Wallachians, who have consigned over these two amiable sisters to the licentiousness of slaves—Gipseys.  These alone sing, play, rhyme—for we cannot allow the appellation of poems to obscene hobbling verses, put together at the moment.  By way of sample take the following couplet:

Mitidika, Mitidika, wién üng quátsch!
   Ba nu, Ba nu, n’ am tsche fátsch.

This tsche fátsch, which should be tsche se fak, is a monstrous perversion of language.  But the Gipsey wanted a rhyme for quatsch; so directly, with a bold poetical licence, he changes the first person of the conjunctive for the third of the indicative mood.  Thus this little composition, in question and answer, which should be,

   Little one, Little one, come from thence!
No, no, no, no, I have nothing to do (there).

he changes to, I have nothing, what do you?

[89]  Sulzer, with respect to their timidity, says: “A Gipsey requires to have been a long time in the army before he can meet an enemy’s balls with decent soldier’s resolution; or to be an experienced robber, before he can take a traveller’s purse, without having first, from a bush, either killed or disabled him.”  There is a proverb in Transylvania, that “You may drive fifty Gipseys before you with a wet rag.”  Thicknesse found the Gipseys exactly the same in Spain.

[89a]  There are a number of serious pagination errors in the book.  Pages 1–98 are numbered correctly, but what should be page 99 is numbered 89, with the numbering continuing 89–121.  Following this the page number changes to 132 and continues 132–179, when it changes to 182, 183, 182 (again), 183, 186, 187, 186 (again), 187 (again), 190, 191, 190 (again), 191 (again), 194 and then normally to the end of the book.  In this transcription the page numbers are as per the book.—DP.

[113]  Wilhelm Dilick, in his Heszischen Chronik. Seit 229. beyn Jahr 1414, certainly does say that they arrived during the same year in the Hessian territories; and Fabricius, in Annalibb. Misn. says they were driven from Meissen in 1416.  But Calvisius contradicts Fabricius, and has corrected his date, putting 1418 for 1416.  And with regard to Dilich, there must either have been a mistake in the manuscript from which he composed, or he must have read wrong; there being no mention made of Gipseys in any of the public prints till three years afterwards, viz. 1417.  It is absurd to suppose they should remain invisible to every other person both in and out of Germany, at the same time they appeared to the editor of Dilich’s intelligence.

[132]  But we have more than circumstantial proof of the existence of these safe-conducts, as besides a later, but here very pertinent, order of the former great Hungarian count Thurzo, given in the year 1616, remarkable for its serious and humane contents, an older one, granted in the earliest age of the Gipseys, is still extant.  It is written on paper, and was brought by those who were at Regenspurgh in 1423.  Andreas Presbyter copied it into his six-years Journal, which was in the possession of Oefelius.

[137]  The eastern division of the present kingdom of Tunis.

[138]  Zichen, Zigier, or Zincher, among the ancients, called in the earliest times Achæans, dwelt in the country now inhabited by the Circassians.

[139]  The torlaques are Mahometan monks, who, under the pretence of holiness, are guilty of the most flagrant excesses.  Bajazet the Second banished them from the Turkish empire in 1494.  The kalendars, who are likewise monks, wander about in Heathen, as the Gipsy’s do in Christian, countries.  Faquirs are religious fanatics, and rove about in Mahometan and Heathen countries, like the most atrocious robbers and villains.  Anquetil says, the Faquirs in India go pilgrimages to Jagrenat, to the amount of several thousand.  On their return from Jagrenat they plunder such villages and cities as lie in their way.  They form considerable bodies about a mile from Jagrenat, where they choose themselves a leader, to whom they pay all the honours due to a general.  With regard to strolling and thieving, the Faquirs and Gipseys agree exactly.  But this proves nothing concerning the extraction of the latter.

[141]  The cause of this persecution was a dreadful plague, which, in the year 1348, raged all over Europe.  This calamity was attributed to the Jews, who were accused of having poisoned the wells and water-springs, in order to exterminate the Christians.  Never did any description of people experience greater oppression and misery than what were suffered by the Jews of that time.  All the gaols and prisons were crowded with them; they were put to the rack in every judicial court.  The day was scarcely long enough for the execution of the poor condemned wretches; nor were the nights ever dark, by reason of the continual fires which were kept burning every-where, to consume them at the stake.  Vast numbers, who had escaped the rigour of the tribunals, fell a sacrifice to popular fury.  They were suffocated in bogs, slaughtered like flies, and destroyed by other summary means.  There was no distinction made of age or sex: the same unrelenting fate pursued men and women, children and grey-headed, without exception.  To all this was added the plague, which attacked the Jews as well as the Christians.  Under such circumstances, it is no wonder if such as could escape from a persecution so dreadful, and unmerited, really did secret themselves in the most retired corners.

[154]  Sultan Selim had drawn out his troops against Persia, with the determination, if not to conquer the country entirely, at least to do them all the mischief he could; for which reason his tremendous army was already, in 1517, encamped near Aleppo.  Gäwri, the Circassian Sultan in Egypt, when he heard of this enterprise, being fearful that after Selim had accomplished his intentions respecting Persia, he might attack him, sent ambassadors, to offer his assistance against the Persians.  Selim accepted it, and Gäwri immediately collected his forces.  As the two armies lay near each other, it so happened that some Circassians attacked, and plundered, some loaded camels, which were going to Selim’s camp.  Selim, who looked upon this as an affront, instantly resolved to leave the Persians quiet for the present, and to draw his sword against his ally.  This he accordingly did, and Gäwri, being betrayed by two of his generals, was defeated, and fell in the action.  Those who escaped from the battle fled to Kahire, where they related what had passed; and a general assembly being convened, they immediately proceeded to the election of a new king, Tumanbey.  He marched to attack Selim once more, was defeated, and having experienced various reverses of fortune, at last fell into his hands.  Selim was so charmed with his understanding, that he not only granted him his freedom, but intended to appoint him viceroy over Egypt.  However, before this event took place, people began to talk freely concerning their hopes, that when Selim should have withdrawn, Tumanbey, with the remaining Circassians and Arabians, might be able to drive his troops out of Egypt, and reinstate the Circassians in their former dominion.  These reports came to Selim’s knowledge; yet his confidence was so great, that he at first did not entertain any suspicion of Tumanbey.  But at length, when they continued, and even increased, he ordered the unhappy man to be arrested, and hanged under one of the gates of Kahire.  On which occasion, like a true barbarian, he made use of the following words: “How great my favour was towards him, I have sufficiently proved; the effects of his partisans’ conversation, let the wretch himself experience.”  With him not only ended the government of the Circassians in Egypt, after it had continued 286 years, but, by command of Selim, they were for several days left to the mercy of their conquerors, who treated them with the greatest cruelty.

[161]  Griselini always mistakes Troglodytes for a particular national appellation, which is just as if we were to suppose Nomades to be the name of a people.

[190]  For a comparison of the Gipsey language at different periods, see (A), Appendix.

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