216 NATURAL HISTOBY 



termination of this word is apparently Grecian : and as 

 Mezeray and the gravest historians all agree that these 

 vagrants did certainly migrate from Egypt and the East, 

 two or three centuries ago, and so spread by degrees over 

 Europe, may not this family-name, a little corrupted, be the 

 very name they brought with them from the Levant? It 

 would be matter of some curiosity, could one meet with an 

 intelligent person among them, to inquire whether, in their 

 jargon, they still retain any Greek words : the Greek 

 radicals will appear in hand, foot, head, water, earth, &c. 

 It is possible that amidst their cant and corrupted dialect 

 many mutilated remains of their native language might 

 still be discovered. 



With regard to those peculiar people, the gipsies, one 

 thing is very remarkable, and especially as they came from 

 warmer climates; and that is, that while other beggars 

 lodge in barns, stables, and cow-houses, these sturdy 

 savages seem to pride themselves in braving the severities 

 of winter, and in living sub dio the whole year round. 

 Last September was as wet a month as ever was known ; 

 and yet during those deluges did a young gipsy girl lie-in 

 in the midst of one of our hop gardens, on the cold 

 ground, with nothing over her but a piece of a blanket 

 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 Pekin, 

 met a gang of these people on the confines of Tartary, who 

 were endeavouring to penetrate those deserts and try their 

 fortune in China. 1 



Gipsies are called in French, Bohcmicns, in Italian and 

 modern Greek, Zingari. 



1 See Bell's Travels in China.- -G. W. 



