GEOGRAPHY AND ANTIQUITIES. 341 



range of islands from Sumatra to Timor, with the larger half of Borneo 

 and the southern peninsula of Celebes, have a dry season from April 

 to November, with the southeast monsoon. This same wind, however, 

 bends round Borneo, becoming the southwest monsoon in the China 

 Sea, and bringing the rainy season to Northern Borneo and the Philip- 

 pines. In the Moluccas and New Guinea, the seasons are most uncer- 

 tain. In the southeast monsoon, from April to November, it is often 

 stormy at sea, while on the islands it is very fine weather. There is 

 generally not more than two or three months' dry, hot weather about 

 August and September. This is the case in the northern extremity of 

 Celebes and in Bouru, whereas in Arnboyna, July and August are the 

 worst months in the year. In Ternate, where I resided at intervals 

 for three years, I never could find out which was the wet and which 

 the dry season. The same is the case at Banda, and a similar uncer- 

 tainty prevails in Menado, showing probably that the proximity of ac- 

 tive volcanoes has a great disturbing meteorological influence. In New 

 Guinea, a great amount of rain falls more or less all the year round. 

 On the whole, the only general statement we can make seems to be 

 that the Countries within about three degrees on each side of the equa- 

 tor have much rain and not very strongly contrasted seasons ; while 

 those with more south or north latitude have daily rains during about 

 four months in the year, while for five or six months there is almost al- 

 ways a cloudless sky and a continual drought." The author next con- 

 sidered the Malayan Archipelago in its geological and zoological rela- 

 tions to Asia and to Australia, mentioning the well-established fact that 

 one portion of it is almost as much Asiatic in its organic productions 

 as the British isles are European, while the remainder bears the same 

 relation to Australia that the West India Islands do to America. 



THE ORIGIN OF THE GIPSIES. 



The following paper on the above subject was read to the British 

 Association, 18G3, by Mr. Crawford, the well known ethnologist. 



" The origin, as our old English has it, of the ' outlandish persons 

 calling themselves Egyptians or Gipsies,' and constituting ' a strange 

 kind of eommonwealth among themselves of wandering impostors and 

 jugglers,' is, at least, a subject of great curiosity, not to say of etymo- 

 logical import. Although their first appearance in Europe be coeval 

 with the century which witnessed the discovery of the New World and 

 the new passage to the Indies, no one thought of ascribing to them a 

 Hindu origin, and this hypothesis, the truth of which I now propose to 

 examine, is but of very recent date. Their Hindu origin was not for 

 a long time even suspected ; it has of late years, however, received 

 general credence, and I think, justly. The arguments for it consist in 

 the physical form of the people, in their language, and in the history 

 of their migration. The evidence yielded by physical form will cer- 

 tainly not prove the gipsies to be of Hindu origin. The Hindus are 

 all more or less black ; and assuredly no nation or tribe of Hindus now 

 exists, or is even known to have ever existed, as fair as the gipsies of 

 Europe. It is on language chiefly that we must rely for evidence of 

 the Hindu origin of the gipsies, and even this is neither very full nor 

 satisfactory. The dialects spoken by the different tribes of this people, 

 although agreeing in several words, differ verv materially from each 



29* 



