142 



MR. BORROW ON THE GIPSIES. 



sation, it fell out that the native Ame- 

 rican Gipsy referred to at page 420 was 

 one of the thoroughly initiated ; which 

 circumstance explained a question he 

 had put to me, and which I evaded, by 

 saying that I was not in the habit of 

 telling tales out of school. 



In Spain, as we have seen, a Gipsy 

 taught her language to her son from a 

 MS. I doubt not there are MS., if not 

 printed, vocabularies of the Gipsy lan- 

 guage among the tribe in Scotland, as 

 well as in other countries (Ed., p. 438). 



The destiny of the Gipsies is thus 

 considered in the following ex- 

 tracts : 



What is to be the future of the Gipsy 

 race ? A reply to this question will be 

 found in the history of it during the 

 past, as described ; for it resolves itself 

 into two very simple matters of fact. In 

 the first place, we have a foreign race, 

 deemed by itself to be, as indeed it is, 

 universal, introduced into Scotland, for 

 example, taken root there, spread and 

 flourished ; a race that rests upon a 

 basis the strongest imaginable. On the 

 other hand, there is the prejudice of 

 caste towards the name, which those 

 bearing it escape only by assuming an 

 incognito among their fellow-creatures. 

 These two principles, acting upon be- 

 ings possessing the feelings of men, will, 

 of themselves, produce that state of 

 things which will constitute the history 

 of the Gipsies during all time coming, 

 whatever may be the changes that may 

 come over their character and condi- 

 tion. They may, in course of time, lose 

 their language, as some of them, to a 

 great extent, have done already ; but 

 they will always retain a consciousness 

 of being Gipsies. The language may 

 be lost, but their signs will remain, as 

 well as so much of their speech as will 

 serve the purpose of pass-words. 

 " There is something there," said an 

 English Gipsy of intelligence, smiting 

 his breast; "there is something there 

 which a Gipsy cannot explain." And, 

 said a Scottish Gipsy, " It will never be 

 forgotten ; as long as the world lasts, 

 the Gipsies will be Gipsies." What 

 idea can be more preposterous than that 

 of saying, that a change of residence or 

 occupation, or a little more or less of 

 education or wealth, or a change of 

 .character or creed, can eradicate such 

 feelings from the heart of a Gipsy ; or 

 that these circumstances can, by any 



human possibility, change his descent* 

 his tribe, or the blood that is in his 

 body? How can we imagine this race, 

 arriving in Europe so lately as the fif- 

 teenth century, and in Scotland the 

 century following, with an origin so dis- 

 tinct from the rest of the world, and so 

 treated by the world, can possibly have 

 lost a consciousness of nationality in its 

 descent, in so short a time after arrival ; 

 or, that that can happen in the future, 

 when there are so many circumstances 

 surrounding it to keep alive a sense of 

 its origin, and so much within it to pre- 

 serve its identity in the history of the 

 human family ? Let the future history 

 of the world be what it may, Gipsydom 

 is immortal. This sensation in the 

 minds of the Gipsies, of the perpetuity 

 of their race, creates, in a great mea- 

 sure, its immortality. Paradoxical as it 

 may appear, the way to preserve the ex- 

 istence of a people is to scatter it, pro- 

 vided, however, that it is a race thorough- 

 ly distinct from others, to commence 

 with. When, by the force of circum- 

 stances, it has fairly settled down into 

 the idea that it is a people, those living 

 in one country become conscious of its 

 existence in others ; and hence arises 

 the principal cause of the perpetuity of 

 its existence as a scattered people (Ed., 

 p. 441). 



It would be well for the reader to 

 consider what a Gipsy is, irrespective of 

 the language which he speaks ; for the 

 race comes before the speech which it 

 uses. That will be done fully in my 

 Disquisition on the Gipsies. The lan- 

 guage, considered in itself, however in- 

 teresting it may be, is a secondary con- 

 sideration ; it may ultimately disappear, 

 while the people who now speak it will 

 remain (Ed., p. 292). 



Some Gipsies can, of course, speak 

 Gipsy much better than others. It is 

 most unlikely that the Scottish Gipsies, 

 with the head, the pride, and the tena- 

 city of native Scotch, would be the first 

 to forget the Gipsy language. The sen- 

 timents of the people themselves are 

 very emphatic on that head. " It will 

 never be forgotten, sir; it is in our 

 hearts, and, as long as a single Tinkler 

 exists, it will be remembered " (p. 

 297). "So long as there existed two 

 Gipsies in Scotland, it would never be 

 lost" (p. 316). The English Gipsies 

 admit that the language is more easily 

 preserved in a settled life, but more use- 

 ful to travelling and out-door Gipsies ; 



