that stock is from which the gipsies have all sprung, we find different opinions entertained by different authorities. Some Spanish writers have asserted them to be the relics of the Moors who once inhabited Spain; others have believed them to be of Tartar origin; others, again, have endeavoured to prove them to be Persians; while there have not been wanting persons to maintain that they arose in some eastern part of Europe, and thence branched off into the western nations. None of these opinions, however, gained so wide credence as that which supposed the original country of the gipsies to be Egypt. This idea, which was propagated, and firmly believed, on the first appearance of the gipsies in Europe, and which is still held by the gipsies of the present day, is proved, however, to be quite untenable. Not only is the gipsy language different from the Coptic, and the gipsy manners different from those of the natives of Egypt, but, what is still more decisive, gipsies are found wandering through Egypt as through other countries, and are there treated as foreigners, just as with us. On the whole, the supposition which is supported by the greatest amount of evidence, and which, indeed, has already displaced all others, is that which assigns an Indian or Hindoo origin to the gipsies. Of the many proofs adduced in favour of this view, the most convincing is that derived from the wonderful similarity between the gipsy language and the Sanscrit or the Hindoostanee. For a long time it was believed that the gipsy language was a mere jargon or slang, resembling the cant language of thieves, and invented for similar purposes. This, however, is a mistake, as could be very conclusively shown. By the industry of various inquirers, a vocabulary has been drawn up of several hundreds of gipsy words; and the number of these which have been found to be pure Hindoostanee, is perfectly decisive as to the Indian origin of the gipsies. The following table may serve to illustrate this, as well as to exhibit the similarity of all the European dialects of the gipsy language:

The conclusion of the Indian origin of the gipsies, to which

we are led by a consideration of their language, is remarkably

corroborated by the similarity of character, customs, and occupations which the gipsies exhibit with certain existing_tribes or castes among the Hindoos, particularly the Nuls or Bazegurs, a wandering race in Hindoostan, of very low repute among the other Hindoos, and speaking a dialect apparently as different from the pure Hindoostanee as the gipsy is. Accordingly, with the supposition in our minds that the gipsies are the relics of a wandering race expelled from Hindoostan, let us see how far this supposition accords with what we know of their history. The earliest mention made of the gipsies in Europe refers to the year 1414, when they are said to have appeared in the Hessian territories; and, in the course of a few years from that date, they were to be found in most parts of Germany. "They travelled in hordes, each having its leader, sometimes called Count; others had the title of Dukes or Lords of Lesser Egypt. In 1418 they were found in Switzerland, and in 1422 they made their appearance in Italy. The Bologna Chronicle' states that the horde, which arrived in that city on the 18th of July 1422, consisted of about one hundred men, the name of whose leader, or Duke, as they termed him, was Andreas. They travelled from Bologna to Ferli, intending to pay the pope a visit at Rome."* Their appearance in France bears the date of 1427. "On August 17, 1427," says an old French Chronicle, "came to Paris twelve Penitents, as they called themselves-namely, a duke, an earl, and ten men-all on horseback, and calling themselves good Christians. They were of Lower Egypt, and gave out that, not long before, the Christians had subdued their country, and obliged them to embrace Christianity on pain of being put to death. Some time after their conversion, the Saracens overran the country, and obliged them again to renounce Christianity." Such had been the account they gave of themselves in Germany, Poland, and other countries where they first appeared. The story seems to have produced considerable sensation; "for," continues the Chronicle," when the emperor of Germany, the king of Poland, and other Christian princes heard it, they fell upon them, and obliged the whole of them, both great and small, to quit their country, and go to the pope at Rome, who enjoined them seven years' penance, to wander over the world without lying in a bed." Having thus contrived to obtain the pope's sanction, they were able, with the assistance of safe conducts, granted to them, in their character of pilgrims, by various sovereigns and princes, to roam about as they pleased without molestation. "They had been wandering five years," proceeds the Chronicle, "when they came to Paris; first, the principal people, twelve in number, as above narrated, and soon after the commonalty, about one hundred, or one hundred and twenty, reduced from one thousand or twelve hundred, which was their number when they set out

* Hoyland's Survey of the Gipsies.

from home, the rest being dead, with their king and queen. They were lodged by the police out of the city at Chapel St Denis. Nearly all of them had their ears bored, and one or two silver rings in each, which they said were esteemed ornaments in their country. The men were black, their hair curled; the women remarkably black, all their faces scarred, their hair black; their only clothes a large old shaggy garment, tied over the shoulders with a cloth or cord sash, and under it a poor petticoat. In short, they were the poorest miserable creatures that had ever been seen in France; and notwithstanding their poverty, there were among them women, who, by looking into people's hands, told their fortunes; and, what was worse, they picked people's pockets of their money."

It is probable, from these and other accounts, that the gipsies had spread themselves over all the countries of the continent before the middle of the fifteenth century; they did not, however, arrive in Great Britain till the beginning of the sixteenth. Wherever they went they appear to have told the same story regarding their origin and purposes, and so to have procured a degree of toleration which they could not have experienced in any other character than that of religious pilgrims. The manner of their appearance, however, only increases the mystery of their origin. With a view to solve the riddle, let us assume the theory of their Hindoo origin, and glance at the state of Hindoostan at the period corresponding to the first appearance of the gipsies in Europe, and see whether any occurrence in Indian history can be discovered which will stand to the appearance of the gipsies among the western nations in the relation of cause to effect.

The conquest of India by the Mohammedans, though begun about the year 1000, may be said to have extended over several centuries. One of the most fanatical of the later Mohammedan conquerors of Hindoostan was Timour Beg, who, in 1408 and 1409, ravaged India, for the purpose of disseminating in it the religion of the prophet. "Not only," says Mr Hoyland, "was every one who made any resistance destroyed, and such as fell into the enemies' hands, though quite defenceless, made slaves, but in a short time those very slaves, to the number of one hundred thousand, were put to death." The inference is, that great masses of the population fled from the conqueror, the greater proportion of them finding refuge, probably, in the safer parts of the peninsula; but some, and these probably of the lowest or Sudra caste of Hindoos, being obliged to quit the peninsula altogether. Whatever likelihood there may be in this supposition, the theory of the origin of the gipsies now generally adopted is, that they are the relics of a mass of Hindoos, of a very low caste, who were expelled from India during the war of Timour Beg.

Quitting India, we can suppose these wandering outcasts, speaking a dialect of Hindoostanee tinged with Persian, to have slowly pursued their route westward towards Europe; at first, perhaps,

Pro

in a compact body, but afterwards in straggling bands. ceeding along the south of the Caspian, or the north of the Persian Gulf, they would pass into Europe through Asiatic Turkey, some of their number, possibly enough, penetrating first into Egypt. Once arrived in Europe, their route most naturally would coincide with that which the Crusading armies had pursued in a reverse direction, when marching into Asia several centuries before; and this would account for their early appearance in Hungary, Wallachia, and the Sclavonic parts of Europe. The rest may be expressed in the words of Mr Borrow. "If," says he, "the Rommani trusted in any God at the period of their Exodus from India, they must have speedily forgotten him. Coming from Ind, as they most assuredly did, they must have been followers (if they followed any) of Buddh or Brahma; yet they are now ignorant of such names. They brought with them no Indian idols, as far as we are able to judge at the present time, nor, indeed, Indian rites or observances, for no traces of such are to be discovered amongst them." The inference is, that even in the East they must have been a contemned and outcast sect, without any of those religious ideas and traditions which the Hindoos, in general, or at least those of respectable caste, were acquainted with. As to the story of their Egyptian origin, it is probable that its authors were the European ecclesiastics, who, surprised at so strange an apparition as these wanderers must have been, and building on some hint that they had come from Egypt, imagined that they saw in them the fulfilment of the prophecy of Ezekiel"I will make the land of Egypt desolate in the midst of the countries that are desolate; and her cities among the cities that are laid waste, shall be desolate for forty years; and I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and will disperse them through the countries."

At all events, the idea, once started, accorded with the spirit and mode of thinking of the age. The gipsies themselves, cunning by nature, and without the slightest scruple arising from any belief of their own, seem to have accepted with thankfulness the theory of their own origin which the clergy had invented for them, finding in it a passport from place to place, and a protection from the ill treatment which their gipsy habits might have otherwise drawn down upon them, as well as a great recommendation to them in their trade of telling fortunes, Egypt being the reputed land of magic. Conforming to all that was required of them, suffering their children to be baptised, and styling their leaders "Lords and Dukes of Little Egypt," they roved about in bands,

An epitaph in a convent at Stainbach records that, on the eve of St Sebastian, in 1445, " Died the Lord Panuel, Duke in Little Egypt, and Baron of Hirschhom, in the same land ;" and one at Pfevz, announces the death, in 1498, of the "high-born Lord John, Earl of Little Egypt, to whose soul God be gracious and merciful.” These must have been leaders of gipsy gangs.

5

absolute heathens in intelligence and heart, astonishing the inhabitants of the towns and villages they visited by the strange spectacle of pilgrim-Christians atoning for their sins by penance, and yet robbing hen-roosts, and practising uncouth arts as they went along.

LAWS IN VARIOUS COUNTRIES REGARDING THE GIPSIES.

It was not long before the true character of the gipsies began to be known, and they were looked upon in all countries as a pest and nuisance. Accordingly, we find that, in the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, enactments were passed for their suppression in all the principal states of the continent. In Spain, an edict for their extermination was passed during the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492; and this not proving effectual, similar edicts were issued by Charles V. and his successor Philip II. These severities, however, did not produce the effect intended; and equally ineffectual were the numerous laws passed against the gipsies in France, Italy, the Netherlands, and Germany. Slinking into hiding while the fit of persecution lasted, the black children of Ind always emerged again, wandering hither and thither in gangs, tinkering pots and kettles, stealing, and telling fortunes.

In England the gipsies seem to have made their appearance about a century after their first arrival in Europe, or about the year 1512; and ten years after that date we find a statute of Henry VIII. directed against them. So little effect had this and other acts, that it is calculated that the gipsies in England amounted, in the reign of Elizabeth, to upwards of ten thousand. In this queen's reign very sanguinary statutes were passed against them, which remained in force till the reign of George III., although latterly they had fallen into desuetude, and the gipsies had come to be treated as mere rogues and vagabonds, punishable under the vagrant act.

It is not probable that long time elapsed between the arrival of the gipsies in England and their appearance on the north side of the Tweed. The first mention of them, however, in Scottish history refers to the year 1540, when the following singular document was issued in favour of one of their number. "Writ of privy-seal in favour of John Faa, Lord and Earl of Little Egypt, granted by King James V., February 15, 1540." This writ directs all sheriffs and magistrates to assist John Faa in apprehending"Sebastian Lalowe, Egyptian, ane of the said John's company," ," with his eleven "complices and part-takers," who have rebelled against him, and " removed out of his company, and taken frae him divers sums of money, jewels, claiths, and other goods, to the quantity of ane great sum of money; and on nae wise will pass hame with him; how beit he has bidden and remained of lang time upon them [waited for them long], and is bounden and obliged to bring hame with him all them of his