issue is, whether they brought it with | rived their name from their avoidance, as them to Europe, or whether it was be- unclean and contaminating, of the touch of stowed upon them in Europe. Now Zengi all persons outside their own community. in Persian, Zendsch in Arabic, signifies a Soothsayers and magicians, they were negro or blackamoor (literally a native of popularly set down as descendants of Zanzibar), and the Persian plural Zengiân Simon Magus, and with more probability is strikingly similar to the Turkish form of were regarded as perpetuating the tradithe word in question, Tchinghiané. More- tions of the Manicheans and Melchisedeover, the meaning thus assigned to it is cians. From these obscure sectaries the entirely consonant with the idea of swarthi- gypsies of Europe, through some channel ness expressed by a large class of gypsy of association of which the secret is now titles, being, in fact, only another version perhaps forever lost, probably inherited of the Russian Czernicz and the Persian their best-known name. They may have Karachi. There are, however, two diffi- been called Athingani or Acingani, as they culties and, it seems to us, in superable were afterwards called Bohemians, bedifficulties in the way of accepting this cause their latest point of departure was derivation. First, if the name came from from regions inhabited by those peoples; the East, some trace of its existence or they may have been called Athingani, ought to be found in those countries where as they were subsequently called Egyp its meaning should be still living and tians, in token of reproach and contumely. obvious. But out of Europe it is, we be- It is not pretended that they were conlieve, entirely unknown.* Secondly, even nected by descent with the votaries of this admitting its Asiatic origin, we should ex- strange sect; but it is worth noting that pect to find in Greece the earliest Euro- cccasional bands of Lûry are reported to pean form of the word, and that, conse- have turned westward from Persia, espequently, most nearly approaching the cially during the seventh and eighth cen Persian original. In Greece the gypsies turies, after the overthrow of the Sassanian demonstrably first touched European soil. dynasty, and to have settled precisely in From Greece, then, the name common to the native districts of the Phrygian necrothem in so many European tongues must mancers.† have flowed out over the rest of Europe. Thus on a priori grounds alone we conclude that the Turkish form must have come through the Greek, not the Greek through the Turkish. And our conclusion is confirmed by historical evidence proving that the feudum Acinganorum was formed in Corfu before the Turks had fully secured their footing in Europe. But the Turkish Tchinghiané resembles its supposed Persian prototype far more closely than the Greek 'Aroiуkavos, and this inconsistency appears alone to justify the rejection in toto of the etymology.

Dr. Miklosich lends the weight of his opinion to the identification of Acingani (ATGiуKavo) with Athingani (Afiyyavo), the name of a sect mentioned by some Byzantine historians between the seventh the eleventh centuries as dwelling in the provinces of Phrygia and Lycaonia. This view has the merit of fulfilling what we must regard as a condition sine quâ non for determining the true origin of this word that, namely, of looking to the Greek for its earliest appearance and primitive meaning. The Athingani de

*Miklosich, "Ueber die Mundarten," etc., vi., p. 57. According to Pott, the Turkish name is partially known in Asia Minor. This, however, is inevitable, owing to the constant intercourse maintained between the gypsies on both shores of the Bosporus, and has no bearing on the origin of the word.

The analogy between the word Zingaro or Zigeuner and the names of certain Indian tribes is considered by Oriental scholars to be a species of orthographical illusion, since it diminishes notably on an inspection of the same words in the phonetic garment of their native dialects. The habits, however, of a race called Tchangar, described by Dr. E. Trumpp‡ as wandering beside one of the five rivers of the Punjab, exhibit a marked resemblance to those of the gypsies in their most degraded condition; and, as the Tchangar are, to all appearance, an offset from the Jat stock, they may possibly turn out to be distant cousins. From the study of the other vagrant hordes which infest many parts of Hindustan, no great profit, we believe, can accrue to our investigation. They seem to fall into two classes: one constituted by the outcasts of Brahmanical law, who speak a genuine cant or linguistic cypher, a language constructed artificially for purposes of concealment out of the materials of ordinary speech; the other

* Γύπτος (a contraction of Αἰγύπτος) is used by modern Greeks as a contemptuous epithet, and was thus applied to the gypsies. Paspati, Etude sur les Tchinghianés," p. 19.

t Hopf. "Die Einwanderung," etc., p. 31.

"Die heutige Bevölkerung des Punjab." Mittheilungen der anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien, 1872.

composed of true gypsies indeed, but of gypsies driven by famine from Persia - if possible, less at home in India than in England, persecuted by fortune, irreconcilable with society. Here there is evidently nothing new to be learned.

A few words will suffice to recapitulate the conclusions to which our enquiries have led us, as well as to point out the broken places in the imperfectly constructed road by which we have been obliged to travel in order to arrive at them. One only among the peoples inhabiting India and that the lowest of the Aryan stock - has been noted in history as a colonizing race. To this people, then, by a rational presumption, we look in the first instance for the ancestry of a horde of wanderers known to have emigrated from India. This presumption is strengthened when we find that the internal evidence afforded by the structure of the gypsy language indicates, as the probable period of separation, a date corresponding with striking accuracy to the epoch of the great national overthrow of the Jats. Further, a reliable tradition ascribes to the Lûry of Persia a Jat origin, and the Lûry, if not absolutely identical with the gypsies of Europe, at least bear to them a singularly close family likeness. Finally, we learn from the narratives of travellers that the modern Jats, although in general an agricultural population, tend rapidly towards social disintegration when the cohesive force of settled occupations is removed; and that outlying members of the family continually recur to habits and modes of life not distinguishable from those of the familiar tented vagrants of our English forest lands and commons. Our reading of gypsy history, then, is simply that they were expelled from Sinde by the victories of Mahmoud in 1025-6; that they travelled slowly westward, making long halts in Persia and Armenia; and that they entered Europe, probably driven on by the whirlwind raised by Chingis Khan, in the course of the thirteenth century. There is no record of their ever having crossed the Bosporus, and many reasons induce us to believe that they approached Greece along the chain of islands connecting the Peloponnesus with the coast of Asia Minor.

by the Lûry; and the date provisionally assigned for the gypsy migration can then only be verified, when the zeal of Oriental students shall have made us better acquainted with the periods and processes of development of the New-Indian languages. A comparison of the Jataki and Romany tongues is, however, already practicable; but we repeat that it can yield permanent and convincing results only if conducted on strictly scientific principles, and if based on grammatical rather than on verbal analogies. Romany is by no means deficient in characteristic individualities of structure which, like the congenital marks appropriated in story-books to the identification of long-lost relatives, may yet lead to the nearer determination of its fatherland and the final establishment of its pedigree.

Of the character and habits of the gyp sies much has been written, and from widely different points of view. Nobody has seen them more closely or described them better than Mr. George Borrow in the curious volume quoted at the head of this article. Some writers have felt for them a mysterious attraction; others have regarded them with undisguised abhorrence. Both sentiments are equally unreasonable. There can be no doubt that their contact with European peoples has been productive of innumerable evils to European society. Society vainly endeavored to defend itself by proscription and persecution. In England, in the reign of Elizabeth, it was "felony without ben efit of clergy" to be seen for one month in the fellowship of the "outlandish people calling themselves Egyptians." In France, the States of Orleans decreed in 1561 that they should be proceeded against with fire and sword. In Spain they were banished by repeated edicts under the severest penalties. In Italy they were forbidden to remain more than two nights in the same place. In Germany they were shot down like wild beasts. They were persecuted in England as harborers of Jesuits; they were denounced in Germany as spies of the Turk; in Spain they were accused of driving with the Moors a nefarious traffic in Christian children; in Turkey they are still believed to be devourers of human flesh. Some of these imputations were absolutely false; some were grossly exaggerated. All were readily believed, and vigorously acted upon, but to no purpose. The race,

We are fully aware that on many points these opinions require confirmation; but the means of applying the requisite tests with the needful accuracy will in time doubtless be forthcoming. We cannot indeed immediately expect to gain much further information as to the dialect spoken throve and multiplied exceedingly, each VOL. XXIII. 1178

LIVING AGE.

More outcast and despised than Moor or Jew,

generation inheriting from its predecessor | foreign ingredient must be productive of a more irreconcilable aversion to settled considerable and highly complicated eflife, and a deeper hatred of the communi- fects. We venture to hope that they will ties which they infested and which spurned not prove altogether mischievous; that them.

when the obvious and immediate evils inIn the last century, however, a change cidental to the process shall have passed came over the spirit of several European away, some residue of good will be found governments in their regard. Maria The- to remain; some subtle element added to resa in 1768, and Charles III. of Spain in our national character, which shall quicken 1783, took measures for educating and its sympathies and enlarge its capabilities. training these poor wanderers in habits of We do not take a romantic view of the Christian morality and continuous indus- gypsy fraternity. We do not believe in try. The upshot was sufficiently satisfac- Preziosas or Fedalmas, nor do we expect tory to encourage the imitation of their to encounter typical heroes or sublime vicexample, and the same experiment is now tims in the midst of a debased society, being tried in Russia with signal success; which, however, in spite of many vices, has while the recent emancipation of the Wal-preserved some traits of primitive dignity lachian gypsies has already been attended and instinctive nobility. But we conceive by the best results. Amongst ourselves that a people which has invented the quick their worst enemies in modern times have and vivid modulations of the Hungarian been railway companies, enclosure acts, national music, and has known how to and rural police. In the presence of these express by their means unrelenting agents of what a French author has called "our liberticide civilization," the tents of the Romany people vanish, and the tongue of the Romany people becomes a half-remembered jargon. But these irrepressible strangers die out in one direction only to emerge with renewed vitality in another. Gypsy encampments have lately been seen for the first time during many generations in Ireland, and gypsy bands may now be found roaming through all the vast spaces of the Western States of America from the St. Lawrence to the Rio Grande. Thus they seem about to regain in the New World the ground which the pressure of increasing population has cut from under their feet in the old, and will, no doubt, find in the Far West, during many centuries to come, that middle district between barbarism and culture which forms their appropriate ele

ment.

But although the palmy days of the "Egyptians" are here forever fled, and the nomad members of the tribe to be met with in Great Britain may now be counted by hundreds, they are not therefore becoming extinct even amongst us. An incalculable number have departed from the tents and the customs of their own people,* and, living in the exercise of some poor trade or calling, are not to be distinguished from the lower classes of artisans, except by their usually imperfect possession of a strange tongue, the secret of which they jealously guard from such as have not the password to their confidence. The absorption into the mass of the population of this

* Simson, "A History of the Gypsies."

the sorrows unredeemed Of races out cast, scorned, and wandering, may be capable, under happier circumstances, of higher efforts, and that a race from which sprang John Bunyan and Antonio Solario -the Quentin Matsys of the south cannot be altogether devoid of religious sensibility and aesthetic feeling.

A DOUBTING HEART.

BY MISS KEARY,
AUTHOR OF CASTLE DALY," ",

CHAPTER VII.

OLDBURY," ETC.

SPIDERS AND NORNIR'S THREADS. "SPINSTER, fairy spinster, don't hinder your sister's spinning any longer; I want the money I am spinning out of my head quite as much as you want the gold and silver fly-wings your threads are to catch; let me go on with my thread now, little idler."

"Idler!" echoed Katharine Moore, from an armchair by the corner of the fire, where she was lying back watching her sister at work before her easel, with the placid content of a convalescent in seeing others busy. "Idler, indeed! if I could put myself into the spider, would not I retort on you? I have been watching you both for a whole quarter of an hour, and you know you mean to sweep away all the delicate threads it has woven between the top of your brush and your paper in a minute or two. I wonder you have the heart

to let it waste its work, seeing it has to come out of its body as yours out of your brain."

"It is play," said Christabel, "not work. She knows very well, this clever little spinster, that there is no stable place for a useful fly-catching web at the corner of my easel. It is just a day-dream of impossibly delicious flies she has been indulg. ing in this afternoon, not solid work, and meanwhile we spinsters have been having a good deal of talk with each other on our different methods of spinning, and she has given me some useful hints. Now, by your leave, Mrs. Spider, I must pull down your castle in the air, I am afraid, and take you into a commonplace corner where you will have to do real work. The afternoon is getting on, and I must finish my task in the short daylight. Neither you nor I shall get anything to eat by castle-building."

The window of the attic faced westward, and in these short winter days Christabel was glad of all the light she could get, that she might prolong her work to the last possible minute, for Katharine's illness had brought unlooked-for expenses as well as thrown the burden of keeping the common purse filled entirely on her hands. Luckily there had been was it by chance, or by some friendly contrivance?-an influx of paying work in Christabel's line that could be done at home, and Christabel had never felt her invention so ready or her energy so untiring as in these last weeks. Was it really the end of the year, she sometimes asked herself; really the cold, dead time that usually had a depressing effect on her quicksilvery nature? It felt so much more like spring, so much more like the beginning of something; a dawn rather than a death of the year, that lifting her eyes sometimes suddenly from work that was progressing well, she was quite surprised to catch sight of bare heads of trees powdered with snow in a distant square garden.

There had been two dreadful weeks, when Katharine lay in severe suffering and some danger, more from the effect of the blow on her head than from the broken rib; and when Christabel, during her day and night watching, had had the agony of meeting the beloved eyes so clouded with pain, that there was hardly any recognition of her in them. The loneliness of that time, when the soul on which her soul hung seemed shrouded away from her, had been terrible to Christabel. Was it wonderful that the giving back of the old happiness should seem a new era in her

531

life, and make her whole world sweeter, larger, more beautiful a thousand times than it had ever appeared before? Christabel did not see any cause for surprise, only for endless delight in the enlarged capacity for work and enjoyment that had come to her, and Katharine's mind was too quiescent yet, from bodily weakness, to find more than a pleasant repose in acknowledging the new power and energy displayed by her sister in their time of need. Their evening talks had ceased since Katharine's illness, so that the elder sister really knew much less than formerly of what was passing in Christabel's mind. At first she had been too weak for much conversation, and since she had become stronger they had frequently had visitors in the evening. While Katharine lay back in her chair watching her sister, after she had drawn her easel closer to the window and fallen to work again, she fancied that she detected something in her looks that betokened an expectation of visitors to-night. What was it? Those bright knots of blue ribbon that certainly showed to advantage among the ripples of her red-brown hair, a something in the dress, or an air of anticipation in her face, whose expression was certainly less still and indrawn than formerly. Then Katharine smiled at the turn her thoughts were taking, saying to herself that it would be a strange result of their withdrawal from the world indeed if Christabel, whose habit it had been to shut herself up like a snail in its shell from all acquaintances in their old young-lady days, should take to decking herself out for the fascination of old David Macvie and Mrs. Urquhart, or grow excited at the prospect of an invasion from down-stairs by Harry West and his brothers, in the course of the evening. it could not be that. It must be some unusually sweet fancy stirring within, that brought the gleam of a smile coming and going, the rosy glow like the brightness of coming day, to the dear face she was watching; and the pretty dress and bright knots of ribbon had no doubt been donned to celebrate their return to their old homely, lonely ways, and not in expectation of intruders. There had been a long interregnum, a melancholy interruption to all their plans, and for the first time during her recovery Katharine's thoughts went back to the day of the accident, and she occupied herself in tracing out all the consequences that had followed upon it, till the last gleam of afternoon sunshine had passed away from the room, and Christabel was driven to the fire to warm her

No,

chilled fingers and rest for a few minutes | the reward that will come by-and-by, when before beginning fresh work that could be her eyes begin to be opened." done by lamplight.

"Let us go over it all, and tell out our mercies," said Christabel. I feel just in the mood for that to-night. Do not let us leave anything out."

"I will begin then with old Mrs. Urquhart's noble courage in putting aside her suspicions of me," said Katharine, smiling, "and venturing her darling son so freely as she has done in our dangerous society. I know it has cost her terrible pangs, and it is a real triumph of benevolence that she has not only borne her own sufferings without complaint, but spent her solitary evenings in planning alleviations for mine. She is a dear old heroine, and deserves