70 BERTHA'S VISIT TO HER 



dering in the same unsettled manner about the 

 world for three centuries ; and always the same 

 dishonest impostors. My aunt shewed us a pas- 

 sage in Clarke's Travels, about the gipsies of 

 Wallachia where he says, though they are as 

 well inclined to steal as the rest of their tribe, 

 they are certainly of a more civilised nature. 

 They are divided there into different classes : 

 some are domestics, and are employed in the 

 principal houses ; others work as gold liners and 

 washers ; some travel about as itinerant smiths ; 

 some as strolling musicians, and others are 

 dealers in cattle. They are skilful in finding 

 gold, and smelt it into small ingots ; using for 

 that purpose little low furnaces, which they blow 

 by a portable bellows made of a buckskin. The 

 construction of the bellows is very simple ; an 

 iron tube being tied into the neck of the skin 

 which is sewn up, and two wooden handles are 

 fastened to the legs, by which it is worked. 



I was very curious to know what could be the 

 origin of these people and why they have been 

 always wandering about. My uncle told me, that 

 ever since the beginning of the fifteenth century, 

 when they were first noticed in Europe, the ge- 

 neral idea has been, that they were Egyptians. 

 It is said, that when Egypt was conquered by the 

 Turks, several of the natives refusing to submit, 

 revolted under one Zinganeus, and afterwards 

 dispersed in small parties all over the world. 



