THEIR ADVENT IN EUROPE. 85 



men speak a language which none can understand. Of their real 

 name they are themselves ignorant, and they accept with indifference 

 that which is imposed upon them in different countries : in the East, 

 Romany ; in Moldavia, Tsiganes; in Italy, Zingari ; in Spain, 

 Gilanos ; in France, Bohemians ; in England, Gipsies* The Ger- 

 mans call them Zigeuner ; the Dutch, expressively but intolerantly, 

 Heathens ; the Persians, Sisech ; the Hindus, Kavachee ; the Danes 

 and Swedes, Tatars ; and the Arabs, Harame. Their origin has 

 been a theme of speculation for centuries, and all that seems certain, 

 after a vast amount of research and discussion, is, that the cradle of 

 the race was India. To what Indian people they should be affiliated 

 is still doubtful ; whether to the Zuts or Djalts of the north ; the 

 Tshingani, who dwelt near the mouth of the Indus ; or the Tshandalas, 

 chronicled by name in the laws of Menou. 



We know that their first immigration into Europe occurred about 

 the close of the tenth century, for we find them referred to in a para- 

 phrase of the book of Genesis, written by an Austrian monk, about 

 1122. They are there spoken of as " Ishmaelites and braziers, who 

 go peddling through the wide world, having neither house nor home, 

 cheating the people with their tricks, and secretly deceiving man- 

 kind." In the fourteenth century a considerable body settled in Walla- 

 chia, Hungary, and the island of Cyprus. Next, they invaded Ger- 

 many, broke into Switzerland, and appeared in Bologna and other 

 Italian cities. Like a besieging army they set down before Paris in 

 1427, but were not suffered to enter its precincts. A few years later 

 they crossed into England, and gradually they overspread the whole 

 of Europe. Their own account of themselves represented that they 

 came from " Little Egypt ; " that about four thousand of their num- 

 ber had been compulsorily baptized by the king, and condemned to 

 seven years' wanderings, while the remainder had been slain. At 

 first, their wealth, their pomp, and their supposed penitence secured 



* The Spanish gipsies call themselves CaUs (black). Many interesting details of this 

 curious people are embodied in George Borrow's ' Zincali ; or, An Account of the Gipsies in 

 Spain." 



