140 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



extended on a few hazel-rods bent hoop-fashion, and stuck into the 

 earth at each end, in circumstances too trying for a cow in the same 

 condition ; yet within this garden there was a large hop-kiln, into the 

 chambers of 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.f I am, &c. 



LETTEE XXVI. 



TO THE SAME. 



SELBORNE, Nov. 1st, 1775. 



"Hie .... tsedse pingues, hie plurimus ignis 

 Semper, et assidua postes fuligine iiigri." J 



DEAR SIR. I shall make no apology for troubling you with the 

 detail of a very simple piece of domestic economy, being satisfied that 

 you think nothing beneath your attention that tends to utility ; the 

 matter alluded to is the use of rushes instead of candles, which I am 

 well aware prevails in many districts besides this ; but as I know there 

 are countries also where it does not obtain, and as I have considered 

 the subject with some degree of exactness, I shall proceed in my 

 humble story, and leave you to judge of the expediency. 



The proper species of rush for this purpose seems to be the juncus 



* See Bell's "Travels in China." 



t Borrow in his "Zincale" 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 remark- 

 able 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 circumstance 

 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 Sclavonian 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 warrantry 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." 



J " With heapy fires our cheerful hearth is crowned ; 

 And firs for torches in the woods abound : 

 We fear not more the winds, and wintry cold, 

 Than streams the bank, nor wclvr-s the bleating fold." 



DKYD. VIRG. Eel., vii. line 70. 



