520 Colonel Harriot on the Oriental Origin of the Gypsies. 



Their language is partly, perhaps chiefly, Oriental, and partly mixed 

 with the dialects of those countries they have passed through, as may be 

 clearly demonstrated by the short vocabulary affixed, taken verbatim in 

 Hampshire, and illustrated with a number of synonimes inserted from the 

 Hindui, Persic, and Sanskrita. 



In Germany their first appearance, as Sir Thomas Browne remarks, was 

 since A.D. 1400 : and they were not observed before in any other part of 

 Europe. 



Munster and Spelman fix this period as being ... A.D. 1417. 



In Switzerland, they appeared or were noticed 1422. 



In Italy 1422. 



In France 1427. 



In England as early as the reign of Henry the Eighth. 

 At these periods, they assumed the character of pilgrims and penitents, 

 for the sake of being well received, both by the governing powers and by 

 the people of the country. 



The appearance of the Gypsies in Germany, Italy, &c. in the fifteenth 

 century being noticed by Dulick, Sir Thomas Browne, and Muratori, 

 disproves the testimony of those writers who consider them to be " the 

 followers of one Zinganeus, who was banished Egypt, A.D. 1517, by Sul- 

 tan Sellm ; and whose party agreeing to disperse themselves over the world, 

 they thence derive the name Zinganee." This deduction is sufficiently 

 disproved by the anachronism as to the date of their dispersion in Egypt, 

 and appearance in Europe ; and, on the other hand, Ralph Volaterianus 

 affirms, that " they first proceeded from among the Uxii, a people of Persis 

 or Persia." Again, Foroliviensis, in the nineteenth volume of Muratori's 

 History of Italy, observes, that " on the 4th August 1422, two hundred 

 of the Cingari came to his native town, on their way to Rome ; and some 

 of them said, that they were from India : " et ut audivi, aliqui dicehant, quod 

 erant in India." Munster corroborates this account from the information 

 he gathered of one of the Cingari, in A.D. 1524 j at which period, also, an 

 impression existed among them of their having come from that country. 



' Romnichal;' I was favoured with the following derivation by Dr. C . Wilkins : Ramna, 6:^j, 

 Hindi ; ' a park, plain, or champagne ;' and chal, ,Jjs. , ' a rover, wanderer, traveller :' or perhaps, 

 Rumna, ' to roam,' and chal, ' habit or manner.' 



