528 Colonel Hauriot on the Oriental Origin of the Gypseys. 



" Reason of Bahram's bringing the Lurifrom India. 



" The king addressed letters to tlie priests of each province inquiring who 

 " was distressed, and where the poor were afflicted ; demanding of them 

 " every information relative to the state of his empire, that the same might 

 " be communicated to the royal heart. Each mobed, noble, and sage 

 " replied, that the face of the country was populous, and on every side 

 " thanksgivings were heard : the indigent alone complaining to his majesty 

 " of the hardness of the times ; that the opulent drank wine, and orna- 

 " mented their heads with chaplets of flowers, quaffing liquor to the sound 

 " of music, without reflecting on their poorer fellow creatures. The king 

 " smiled at the complaint ; and, to remedy the privation complained of, 

 " dispatched an envoy, with the following message, to Shankal, King of 

 " Canauj. 'O prince, attentive to justice ; the indigent classes here drink 

 " wine without music, a circumstance of which the wealthier cannot approve. 

 " Therefore, of those Luri [of India], chuse for and send to me ten thou- 

 " sand male and female who play upon the lute.' The Luri were accordingly 

 " sent to the Persian king, who assigned them an appropriate residence, 

 " and gave to each individual a cow and an ass ; he desired them to nomi- 

 " nate a village chief, and bestowed also a thousand load of wheat on such 

 " as were most deserving ; to the end that, labouring with their kine and 

 " asses, they might reap, in due season, the seed of their wheat, and thus 

 " enable his poor subjects to have their music gratuitously performed. 



" The Luri departed ; and heedlessly consuming all their wheat as well 

 " as their cows, toward the end of the year were left shamelessly destitute. 

 " The king rebuked them for their lavish conduct in wasting the corn, and 

 " neglecting to harvest any crop: and then dismissed them, with an order 

 " that, taking their asses, they should load them with their chattels, and 

 " support themselves by means of their songs, and the strumming of their 

 " silken bows : and that each year they should travel over the country, and 

 " sing for the amusement of the high and the low. 



" The Luri, agreeably to this mandate, now* wander about the world, 

 " seeking employment, associating with dogs and wolves, and thieving on 

 " the road by day and by night.". 



* A.D. 420 is the age of Bahram-Giir, and A.D. 1000 that of Firdausi ; an interesting fact as 

 it regards the introduction of the Gypseys into Persia. Vide Shah-Namah of Firdausi. 



