368 Anniversary Address. 



The Members, numbering 26, dined at the Plough Inn. 

 After dinner, a catalogue of willows was produced, which 

 at one time were growing at Carham Hall, and were collect- 

 ed by Mr. Hodgson Huntley about 30 years ago. These 

 willows and their varieties numbered 280. 



The following were proposed as new Members, — Dr. George 

 Archbold, Norwich ; Mr. Thomas Hownam, of Briery Hill, 

 Dunse; and Miss Langlands as an Honorary Member. The 

 thanks of the Club were unanimously voted to Mrs. Spoor 

 for the presentation of the late Mr. Tate's papers. 



During the day the President and two other members paid 

 a visit to the Queen of the Gipsies, who lives in a very nice, 

 tidy, clean, well-furnished cottage in Kirkyetholm. She 

 informed us that she was elected Queen, November 16th, 

 1861, having succeeded her uncle, William Faa. She said 

 her name was that given at her baptism, Esther Faa Blythe. 

 She clearly thought that her mother had committed an 

 offence against the tribe when she married Blythe, who 

 did not belong to the royal race. I conclude she must have 

 followed her mother's footsteps when she married her 

 husband, Rutherford, who belonged to Jedburgh, and was not 

 a gipsy ; for she never once alluded to him in our conversa- 

 tion, though she told us she had had twelve children. She 

 is certainly very fair for a gipsy ; has short, small delicate 

 hands ; her feet are the same, and her gait in walking has 

 a litheness which, I am informed by one able to judge, is 

 not seen in the natives. She cannot tell an ordinary story 

 without great action of hands and arms. One daughter 

 lives with her, but is staid and quiet in her manner. Her 

 children are all darker than the generality of dark persons. 

 She has several brothers and sisters alive, who are very 

 dark, unmistakable gipsies. Her sister Helen is the only 

 one my informant has seen with the dark streak at the root 

 of the eye-lashes. The eyes of all are black. The Queen 

 said that all her children spoke Rommany equally well 

 as English ; but from what she said subsequently I gathered 

 that they did not keep up the practice. 



