GYMPIE 



feet, and is capable with its shock of tempororily 

 |.ai;il\ -ing a man or large animal, or of killing ito 



(JVI'SIKS 



485 



Electric Eel ( Uymnotus electricut). 



I'n-v of fishes and amphibians. For description 

 of the electric organs, see ELECTRIC FISHES. 



Gympie, a town of Queensland, 61 miles by rail 

 S. of Maryborough. The gold-reefs round yielded 

 iu 1867-94 a totalof about 1,800,000 oz. Pop. 8449. 



Gynaecology, that branch of Medicine which 

 treats of the discuses of women. 



<> norardia. tlie chaulmugra tree, whose 

 seeds yield an oil highly valued in India and China 

 as a remedy in leprosy and skin diseases. 



Gyongyos, a town of Hungary, at the southern 

 base of the Matra Mountains, 59 miles by rail 

 NE. of Pesth. It has mineral baths. Pop. 15,896. 



Gyp. the pseudonym under which the Countess 

 Gabrielle de Martel de Janville born Riqueti de 

 Mirabeau, and the last of that famous stock has 

 written a long series of unconventional and anti- 

 conventional novels, including Petit Bob (1882), 

 Autour du Manage (1893), Elles et Lui (1885), 

 Ohe! les Psychologues (1892), Mdlle. Eve (drama- 

 tised in 1895), Pas Jaloux (1895), Lewis Ames, Les 

 Bans Normands! &c. Chiffon's Marriage (1894: 

 translated 189E ) was greeted as her masterpiece. 



Gypaetos. See LAMMERGEIER. 



Gypsies, a wandering race, dispersed the wide 

 world over, and distinguished by language, phy- 

 sique, and mode of life. Their number in Europe 

 is vaguely estimated at 700,000 ; and only for the 

 following countries have we these more or less 

 trustworthy statistics: Hungary (1890), 95,157; 

 Bosnia and Herzegovina (1874), 9537; Servia 

 (1890), 37,581; Roumania (1895), 200,000; Bul- 

 garia and Eastern Roumelia (1893), 51,754; the 

 vihvet of Adrianople (1876), 27,326 males ; Russia 

 ( I XT; ), 1 1 ,654 ; Prussia ( 1887 ), 1054 settled Gypsies. 

 Asia has untold thousands of these nomads, in 

 Anatolia, Syria, Armenia, Persia, Turkestan, and 

 Siberia ; so, too, has Africa, in Egypt, Algeria, 

 Par- Fur, and Kordofan. We find them in both 

 North and South America, from Pictou in Canada 

 to Hio in Hni/il ; nor are even New Zealand and 

 Australia without their isolated bands. 



Late in 1417 four hundred 'Secani' arrived from 

 the East at Liineburg, and thence passed on to 

 Hamburg, Liilieck, Wismar, Rostock, Stralsund, 

 and < iivit'swald. In 1418 they are heard of at 

 Leipzig and Frankfort-on-the-Main, in Switzer- 

 land, and at Augsburg; in 1419 at Macon and at 

 Sisteron in Provence ; in 1420 at Deventer ; in 1421 

 at Tournai ; in 1422, en route for Rome, at Bologna 

 and at Forli, where 'some said they were from 

 India ;' in 1427 at Paris ; and so on till in 1433 we 

 Ins,, si^ht of them for a while in Bavaria. Oftenest 

 they seem to have bivouacked in the fields, but at 

 Deventer they slept in a larn, at Bologna ' lodged 

 themselves inside and outside the gate of Galiera, 

 and settled themselves under the porticoes, with 

 the exception of Duke Andrew, who lay at the 

 King's Inn." Some riding and some afoot, with 



the women and children in wagons, they were led 

 by him or Duke Michael, or by both together, 

 according as the band, 400 to 1400 strong, split up 

 or reunited. These two chieftain* and certain 

 subordinate 'counts' went richly dressed, with 

 fine silver belts, and, like nobles, led dogs of chase ; 

 but the rest of the 'Egyptians,' 'Saracens,' or 

 ' baptised heathens ' are described as lean, hideous, 

 black as Tartars, poor, and pitiful. They lived on 

 charity, and practised horse-chaunting, purse- 

 cutting, palmistry, shop-lifting, and ringing the 

 changes, wherefore some were taken and slain. 

 They bore letters of protection from the Emperor 

 Sigismund (procured probably in 1417 at Lindau 

 on Lake Constance), and, after 1422, from 1'oi.e 

 Martin V. ; and they professed sometimes to l>e 

 engaged in a seven years' pilgrimage, imposed b\ 

 their bishops as a penance for apostasy from the 

 Christian faith, sometimes to have been driven out 

 of ' Little Egypt ' by the Saracens for refusing to 

 apostatise. Yet another story was told by the 

 tented ' Cingari or Cigawnar, who appeared at 

 Ratisbon in 1424-26, that their exile was meant 

 ' for a sign or memorial of the flight of our Lord 

 into Egypt.' These, whose woiwode Ladislaus 

 also bore letters (1423) from Sigismund, were 

 natives of Hungary ; the others came seemingly 

 from the Balkan peninsula, pioneers of vast hordes 

 behind, who in 1438 began to pour over Germany, 

 Italy, and France, by thousands instead of hun- 

 dreds, and headed this time by King Zindl. Spain 

 they reached in 1447, Poland and Russia about 

 1501, Sweden by 1512, England by 1514, and Scot- 

 land by 1505, or very possibly fifty-six years 

 earlier, for an act of 1449 refers to ' overliers and 

 masterful beggars ' as going about the country with 

 ' horses, bunds, and other goods. ' 



For western Europe, then, the year 1417 does 

 mark an era in Gypsy history ; but how long l>e- 

 fore that date there had been Gypsies in south- 

 eastern Europe remains a mystery. We recognise 

 them dimly in Crete in 1322 as dwellers in ' little, 

 oblong, black, low tents, like those of the Arabs,' 

 and in caves ; at Constantinople about 1050 as 

 ' descendants of the race of Simon Magus, A txhikmt 

 by name, sorcerers and famous rogues ; ' and there, 

 too, in 810 as Athinganoi, magicians, soothsayers, 

 and serpent-charmers. Beyond any shadow of 

 doubt, we find them prior to 1346 on Corfu ; about 

 1378 at Nauplion, in the Peloponnesus, receiving a 

 renewal of former privileges ; and prior to 1370 in 

 Wallachia, whose woiwode then granted forty tents 

 of Acigani to the monastery of Voditza i.e. the 

 Roumanian Gypsies were already serfs, and serfs 

 they continued till 1856. Then, in a free metrical 

 paraphrase of Genesis, made in German about or 

 before the year 1122 by an Austrian monk, and 

 cited by Freytag in Bilder aiis der dciitschen Ver- 

 gangenheit (ii. 226, 1859), the following passage 

 occurs: 'So she (Hagar) had this child, they 

 named him Ishmael. From him are descended 

 the Ishmaelitish folk. They iourney far through 

 the world. We call them cnaltsmide ('workers 

 in cold metal'). Out upon their life and their 

 manners ! For whatever they have to sell is 

 never without a defect; whenever he (sic) buys 

 anything, good or bad, he always wants some- 

 thing in ; he never abates on what he sells himself. 

 They have neither house nor country ; every place 

 is tlie same to them. They roam about the land, 

 and abuse tlie people by their knaveries. It is 

 thus they deceive folk, robbing no one openly.' 

 That Gypsies were meant here, likely as it seems 

 at first sight, is rendered doubly likely by the fact 

 that the names Agariens and Agareni are expressly 

 applied to Gypsies by Lusignan and Fritscnins in 

 1580 and 1664, and 'that in German and Danish 

 thieves' slang Geschmeilim and Stnaelem (Ish- 



