190 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



which she might have retired, had she thought shelter an object 

 worthy her attention. 



Europe itself, it seems, cannot set bounds to the rovings of these 

 vagabonds ; for Mr. Bell, in his return from Peking met a gang of 

 these people on the confines of Tartary, who were endeavouring to 

 penetrate those deserts, and try their fortune in China/"' 



Gypsies are called in French, Bohemiens ; in Italian and modern 

 Greek, Zingani.'j' 



I am, &c. 



* See Bell's "Travels in China." 



t Borrow in his "Z^ncale " observes, " Bearing the same analogy to the Sanscrit tongue 

 as the Indian dialects, we find the Rommany or the speech of Roma or Zincali as they 

 style themselves, known in England and Spain as Gypsies or Gitanos. This speech, 

 wherever it is spoken, is in all principal points one and the same, though more or less 

 corrupted by foreign words, picked up in the various countries to which those who use it 

 have penetrated. One remarkable feature must not be passed over without notice, namely, 

 the very considerable number of Sclavonic words, which are to be found imbedded within 

 it, whether it be spoken in Spain or Germany, in England or Italy ; from which circum- 

 stance we are led to the conclusion, that these people in their way from the east travelled 

 in one large compact body, and that their route lay through some region where the 

 _Sclavonian language. or a dialect thereof was spoken. This region, I have no hesitation 

 in asserting to have been Bulgaria, where they probably tarried for a considerable period, 

 as Nomade herdsmen, and where numbers of them are still found at the present day. 

 Besides the many Sclavcnian words in the Gypsy tongue, another curious feature attracts 

 the attention of the philologist ; an equal or still greater quantity of terms from the modern 

 Greek; indeed we have full warranty for assuming that at one period the Spanish section, 

 if not the rest of the Gypsy nation, understood the Greek language well, and that besides 

 their own Indian dialect they occasionally used it for considerably upwards of a century 

 subsequent to their arrival, as amongst the Gitanos there were individuals to whom it was 

 intelligible so late as the year 1540." 



