straight-haired and curly-haired Romanys, the two indicating not a difference resulting from white admixture, but entirely different original stocks.

It will, I trust, be admitted, even from these remarks, that Romanology, or that subdivision of ethnology which treats of gypsies, is both practical and

curious.  It deals with the only race except the Jew, which has penetrated into every village which European civilization has ever touched.  He who speaks Romany need be a stranger in few lands, for on every road in Europe and America, in Western Asia, and even in Northern Africa, he will meet those with whom a very few words may at once establish a peculiar understanding.  For, of all things believed in by this widely spread brotherhood, the chief is this,—that he who knows the jib, or language, knows the ways, and that no one ever attained these without treading strange paths, and threading mysteries unknown to the Gorgios, or Philistines.  And if he who speaks wears a good coat, and appears a gentleman, let him rest assured that he will receive the greeting which all poor relations in all lands extend to those of their kin who have risen in life.  Some of them, it is true, manifest the winsome affection which is based on great expectations, a sentiment largely developed among British gypsies; but others are honestly proud that a gentleman is not ashamed of them.  Of this latter class were the musical gypsies, whom I met in Russia during the winter of 1876 and 1877, and some of them again in Paris during the Exposition of 1878.

ST. PETERSBURG.

There are gypsies and gypsies in the world, for there are the wanderers on the roads and the secret dwellers in towns; but even among the aficionados, or Romany ryes, by whom I mean those scholars who are fond of studying life and language from the people themselves, very few have dreamed that there exist communities of gentlemanly and lady-like gypsies

of art, like the Bohemians of Murger and George Sand, but differing from them in being real “Bohemians” by race.  I confess that it had never occurred to me that there was anywhere in Europe, at the present day, least of all in the heart of great and wealthy cities, a class or caste devoted entirely to art, well-to-do or even rich, refined in manners, living in comfortable homes, the women dressing elegantly; and yet with all this obliged to live by law, as did the Jews once, in Ghettos or in a certain street, and regarded as outcasts and cagôts.  I had heard there were gypsies in Russian cities, and expected to find them like the kérengri of England or Germany,—house-dwellers somewhat reformed from vagabondage, but still reckless semi-outlaws, full of tricks and lies; in a word, gypsies, as the world understands the term.  And I certainly anticipated in Russia something queer,—the gentleman who speaks Romany seldom fails to achieve at least that, whenever he gets into an unbroken haunt, an unhunted forest, where the Romany rye is unknown,—but nothing like what I really found.  A recent writer on Russia [26] speaks with great contempt of these musical Romanys, their girls attired in dresses by Worth, as compared with the free wild outlaws of the steppes, who, with dark, ineffable glances, meaning nothing more than a wild-cat’s, steal poultry, and who, wrapped in dirty sheep-skins, proudly call themselves Mi dvorane Polaivii, Lords of the Waste.  The gypsies of Moscow, who appeared to me the most interesting I have ever met, because most remote from the Surrey ideal, seemed to Mr. Johnstone to be a kind of second-rate Romanys

or gypsies, gypsified for exhibition, like Mr. Barnum’s negro minstrel, who, though black as a coal by nature, was requested to put on burnt cork and a wig, that the audience might realize that they were getting a thoroughly good imitation.  Mr. Johnstone’s own words are that a gypsy maiden in a long queue, “which perhaps came from Worth,” is “horrible,” “corruptio optimi pessima est;” and he further compares such a damsel to a negro with a cocked hat and spurs.  As the only negro thus arrayed who presents himself to my memory was one who lay dead on the battle-field in Tennessee, after one of the bravest resistances in history, and in which he and his men, not having moved, were extended in “stark, serried lines” (“ten cart-loads of dead niggers,” said a man to me who helped to bury them), I may be excused for not seeing the wit of the comparison.  As for the gypsies of Moscow, I can only say that, after meeting them in public, and penetrating to their homes, where I was received as one of themselves, even as a Romany, I found that this opinion of them was erroneous, and that they were altogether original in spite of being clean, deeply interesting although honest, and a quite attractive class in most respects, notwithstanding their ability to read and write.  Against Mr. Johnstone’s impressions, I may set the straightforward and simple result of the experiences of Mr. W. R. Ralston.  “The gypsies of Moscow,” he says, “are justly celebrated for their picturesqueness and for their wonderful capacity for music.  All who have heard their women sing are enthusiastic about the weird witchery of the performance.”

When I arrived in St. Petersburg, one of my first

inquiries was for gypsies.  To my astonishment, they were hard to find.  They are not allowed to live in the city; and I was told that the correct and proper way to see them would be to go at night to certain cafés, half an hour’s sleigh-ride from the town, and listen to their concerts.  What I wanted, however, was not a concert, but a conversation; not gypsies on exhibition, but gypsies at home,—and everybody seemed to be of the opinion that those of “Samarcand” and “Dorot” were entirely got up for effect.  In fact, I heard the opinion hazarded that, even if they spoke Romany, I might depend upon it they had acquired it simply to deceive.  One gentleman, who had, however, been much with them in other days, assured me that they were of pure blood, and had an inherited language of their own.  “But,” he added, “I am sure you will not understand it.  You may be able to talk with those in England, but not with ours, because there is not a single word in their language which resembles anything in English, German, French, Latin, Greek, or Italian.  I can only recall,” he added, “one phrase.  I don’t know what it means, and I think it will puzzle you.  It is me kamāva tut.”

If I experienced internal laughter at hearing this it was for a good reason, which I can illustrate by an anecdote: “I have often observed, when I lived in China,” said Mr. Hoffman Atkinson, author of “A Vocabulary of the Yokohama Dialect,” “that most young men, particularly the gay and handsome ones, generally asked me, about the third day after their arrival in the country, the meaning of the Pidgin-English phrase, ‘You makee too muchee lov-lov-pidgin.’  Investigation always established the fact that

the inquirer had heard it from ‘a pretty China girl.’  Now lov-pidgin means love, and me kamāva tut is perfectly good gypsy anywhere for ‘I love you;’ and a very soft expression it is, recalling kama-deva, the Indian Cupid, whose bow is strung with bees, and whose name has two strings to