while this was probably the origin of the word Rom, there were subsequent reasons for its continuance.  Among the Cophts, who were more abundant in Egypt when the first gypsies went there, the word for man is romi, and after leaving Greece and the Levant, or Rum, it would be natural for the wanderers to be called Rumi.  But the Dom was in all probability the parent stock of the gypsy race, though the latter received vast accessions from many other sources.  I call attention to this, since it has always been held, and sensibly enough, that the mere fact of the gypsies speaking Hindi-Persian, or the oldest type of Urdu, including many Sanskrit terms, does not prove an Indian or Aryan origin, any more than the English spoken by American negroes proves a Saxon descent.  But if the Rom can be identified

with the Dom—and the circumstantial evidence, it must be admitted, is very strong—but little remains to seek, since, according to the Shastras, the Doms are Hindoo.

Among the tribes whose union formed the European gypsy was, in all probability, that of the Nats, consisting of singing and dancing girls and male musicians and acrobats.  Of these, we are told that not less than ten thousand lute-players and minstrels, under the name of Luri, were once sent to Persia as a present to a king, whose land was then without music or song.  This word Luri is still preserved.  The saddle-makers and leather-workers of Persia are called Tsingani; they are, in their way, low caste, and a kind of gypsy, and it is supposed that from them are possibly derived the names Zingan, Zigeuner, Zingaro, etc., by which gypsies are known in so many lands.  From Mr. Arnold’s late work on “Persia,” the reader may learn that the Eeli, who constitute the majority of the inhabitants of the southern portion of that country, are Aryan nomads, and apparently gypsies.  There are also in India the Banjari, or wandering merchants, and many other tribes, all spoken of as gypsies by those who know them.

As regards the great admixture of Persian with Hindi in good Romany, it is quite unmistakable, though I can recall no writer who has attached sufficient importance to a fact which identifies gypsies with what is almost preeminently the land of gypsies.  I once had the pleasure of taking a Nile journey in company with Prince S---, a Persian, and in most cases, when I asked my friend what this or that gypsy word meant, he gave me its correct meaning, after a little thought, and then added, in his imperfect English, “What for you want to know

such word?—that old word—that no more used.  Only common people—old peasant-woman—use that word—gentleman no want to know him.”  But I did want to know “him” very much.  I can remember that one night, when our bon prince had thus held forth, we had dancing girls, or Almeh, on board, and one was very young and pretty.  I was told that she was gypsy, but she spoke no Romany.  Yet her panther eyes and serpent smile and beauté du diable were not Egyptian, but of the Indian, kalo-ratt,—the dark blood, which, once known, is known forever.  I forgot her, however, for a long time, until I went to Moscow, when she was recalled by dancing and smiles, of which I will speak anon.

I was sitting one day by the Thames, in a gypsy tent, when its master, Joshua Cooper, now dead, pointing to a swan, asked me for its name in gypsy.  I replied, “Boro pappin.”

“No, rya.  Boro pappin is ‘a big goose.’  Sákkú is the real gypsy word.  It is very old, and very few Romany know it.”

A few days after, when my Persian friend was dining with me at the Langham Hotel, I asked him if he knew what Sákkú meant.  By way of reply, he, not being able to recall the English word, waved his arms in wonderful pantomime, indicating some enormous winged creature; and then, looking into the distance, and pointing as if to some far-vanishing object, as boys do when they declaim Bryant’s address “To a Water-Fowl,” said,—

“Sákkú—one ver’ big bird, like one swen—but he not swen.  He like the man who carry too much water up-stairs [22] his head in Constantinople.  That

bird all same that man.  He sakkia all same wheel that you see get water up-stairs in Egypt.”

This was explanatory, but far from satisfactory.  The prince, however, was mindful of me, and the next day I received from the Persian embassy the word elegantly written in Persian, with the translation, “a pelican.”  Then it was all clear enough, for the pelican bears water in the bag under its bill.  When the gypsies came to Europe they named animals after those which resembled them in Asia.  A dog they called juckal, from a jackal, and a swan sákkú, or pelican, because it so greatly resembles it.  The Hindoo bandarus, or monkey, they have changed to bombaros, but why Tom Cooper should declare that it is pugasah, or pukkus-asa, I do not know. [23]  As little can I conjecture the meaning of the prefix mod, or mode, which I learned on the road near Weymouth from a very ancient tinker, a man so battered, tattered, seamed, riven, and wrinkled that he looked like a petrifaction.  He had so bad a barrow, or wheel, that I wondered what he could do with it, and regarded him as the very poorest man I had ever seen in England, until his mate came up, an alter ego, so excellent in antiquity, wrinkles, knobbiness, and rags that he surpassed the vagabond pictures not only of Callot, Doré, and Goya, but even the unknown Spanish maker of a picture which I met with not long since for sale, and which for infinite poverty defied anything I ever saw on canvas.  These poor men, who seemed at first amazed that I should speak to them at all, when I spoke Romany at once called me “brother.”  When I asked the younger his name,

he sank his voice to a whisper, and, with a furtive air, said,—

“Kámlo,—Lovel, you know.”

“What do you call yourself in the way of business?” I asked.  “Katsamengro, I suppose.”

Now Katsamengro means scissors-master.

“That is a very good word.  But chivó is deeper.”

“Chivó means a knife-man?”

“Yes.  But the deepest of all, master, is Modangaréngro.  For you see that the right word for coals isn’t wongur, as Romanys generally say, but Angára.”

Now angára, as Pott and Benfey indicate, is pure Sanskrit for coals, and angaréngro is a worker in coals, but what mod means I know not, and should be glad to be told.

I think it will be found difficult to identify the European gypsy with any one stock of the wandering races of India.  Among those who left that country were men of different castes and different color, varying from the pure northern invader to the negro-like southern Indian.  In the Danubian principalities there are at the present day three kinds of gypsies: one very dark and barbarous, another light brown and more intelligent, and the third, or élite, of yellow-pine complexion, as American boys characterize the hue of quadroons.  Even in England there are