190 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
which she might have retired, had she thought shelter an object 
worthy her attention. 
Europe itself, it seems, cannot set bounds to the rovings of these 
vagabonds ; for Mr. Bell, in his return from Peking met a gang of 
these people on the confines of Tartary, who were endeavouring to 
penetrate those deserts, and try their fortune in China.* 
Gypsies are called in French, Bohemiens ; in Italian and modern 
Greek, Zingani.t 
Iam, &c. 
* See Bell’s ‘‘ Travels in China.’’ 
+ Borrow in his ‘‘ Z.ncale’’ observes, “‘ Bearing the same analogy to the Sanscrit tongue 
as the Indian dialects, we find the Rommany or the speech of Roma or Zincali as they 
style themselves, known in England and Spain as Gypsies or Gitanos. This speech, 
wherever it is spoken, is in all principal points one and the same, thcugh more or less 
corrupted by foreign words, picked up in the various countries to which those who use it 
have penetrated. Une remarkable feature must not be passed over without notice, namely, 
the very considerable number of Sclavenic words, which are to be found imbedded within 
it, whether it be spoken in Spain or Germany, in England or Italy ; from which circum- 
stance we are led to the conclusion, that these people in their way from the east travelled 
in one large compact :body, and that their route lay through some region where the 
Sclavonian language or a dialect thereof was spoken. This region, I have no hesitation 
in asserting to have been Bulgaria, where they probably tarried fcr a considerable period, 
as Nomade herdsmen, and where numbers of them are still found at the present day. 
Besides the many Sclavenian words in the Gypsy tongue, another curious feature attracts 
the attention of the philolegist ; an equal or still greater quantity of terms from the modern 
Greek; indeed we have full warranty for assuming that at one period the Spanish section, 
if not the rest of the Gypsy nation, understood the Greek language well, and that besides 
their own Indian dialect they occasionally used it for considerably upwards of a century 
subsequent to their arrival, as amongst the Gitanos there were individuals to whom it was 
intelligible so late as the year 1540.”” 
