This language, called by themselves, Slang, or Gibberish, invented, as they think, by their forefathers for secret purposes, is not merely the language of one, or a few of these wandering tribes, which are found in the European nations; but is adopted by the vast numbers who inhabit the earth.

One of our reformed Gipsies, while in the army, was with his regiment at Portsmouth, and being on garrison duty with an invalid soldier, he was surprised to hear some words of the Gipsy language unintentionally uttered by him, who was a German. On enquiring how he understood this language, the German replied, that he was of Gipsy origin, and, that it was spoken by this race in every part of his native land, for purposes of secrecy.*

"Should any be inclined to doubt, which I scarcely suppose possible, the identity of the Gipsy or Cingari, and Hindostanee languages, still it will be acknowledged as no uninteresting subject, that tribes, wandering through the mountains of Nubia, or the plains of Romania, have conversed for centuries in a dialect precisely similar to that spoken at this day, by the obscure, despised, and wretched people in England, whose language has been considered as a fabricated gibberish, and confounded with a cant in use among thieves and beggars; and whose persons have been, till within the period of the last year, an object of the persecution, instead of the protection of our laws."-Extract from a letter of William Marsden, Esq. addressed to Sir Joseph Banks, F. R S., and read to the Society of Antiquaries in London, 1785.

A well known nobleman, who had resided many years in India, taking shelter under a tree during a storm in this country, near a camp of Gipsies, was astonished to hear them use several words he well knew were Hindostanee; and going up to them, he found them able to converse with him in that language.

Not long ago, a Missionary from India, who was well acquainted with the language of Hindostan, was at the Author's house when a Gipsy was present; and, after a conversation which he had with her, he declared, that, her people must once have known the Hindustanee language well. Indeed, Gipsies have often expressed surprise when words have been read to them out of the Hindostanee vocabulary.

Lord Teignmouth once said to a young Gipsy woman, in Hindostanee, Tue burra tschur, that is, Thou a great thief. She immediately replied;-No-I am not a thief-1 live by fortune-telling.

It can be no matter of surprise that this language, as spoken among this people, is generally corrupted, when we consider, that, for many centuries, they have known nothing of elementary science, and have been strangers to books and letters. Perhaps the secrecy necessary to effect many of their designs, has been the greatest means of preserving its scanty remains among them. But an attempt to prove that they are not of Hindoo origin, because they do not speak the Hindostanee with perfect correctness, would be as absurd as to declare, that, our Gipsies are not natives of England, because they speak very incorrect English. The few

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words that follow, and which occurred in some conversations the Author had with the most intelligent of the Gipsies he has met, prove how incorrectly they speak our language; and yet it would be worse than folly to attempt to prove that they are not natives of England.

Brand, in his observations on POPULAR ANTIQUITIES, is of opinion, that the first Gipsies fled from Asia, when the cruel Timur Beg ravaged India, with a view to proselyte the heathen to the Mohammedan delusion; at which time about 500,000 human beings were butchered by him. Some suppose, that, soon after this period, many, who escaped the sword of this human fury, came into Europe through Egypt; and, on this account, were called, in English, GIPSIES.

Although there is not the least reason whatever to

The gentleman spoke dixen to me," said a Gipsy to the Author; that is, long hard words.

suppose the Gipsies to have had an Egyptian origin, and although, as we have asserted in a former page, they are strangers in that land of wonders to the present day; yet, it appears possible to me, that Egypt may have had something to do with their present appellation. And, allowing that the supposition is well founded, which ascribes to them a passage through Egypt into European nations, it is very likely they found their way to that place under the following cir

cumstances.

In the years 1408, and 1409, Timur Beg ravaged India, to make, as has already been observed, proselytes to the Mohammedan delusion, when he put hundreds of thousands of its inhabitants to the sword. It is very rational to suppose, that numbers of those who had the happiness not to be overtaken by an army so dreadful, on account of the cruelties it perpetrated, should save their lives by flying from their native land, to become wandering strangers in another. Now, if we assert, that the Gipsies were of the Suder cast of Asiatic Indians, and, that they found their way from Hindostan into other and remote countries, when Timur Beg spread around him terrors so dreadful, it is natural to ask, why did not some of the other casts of India accompany them? This objection has no weight at all when we consider the hatred and contempt poured upon the Suder by all the other casts of India. The Bramins, Tschechteries, and Beis, were as safe, though menaced with destruction by Timur Beg, as they would have been along with the Suder tribes, seeking a retreat from

their enemy in lands where he would not be likely to follow them. Besides, the other casts, from time immemorial, have looked on their country as especially given them of God; and, they would as soon have suffered death, as leave it. The Suders had not these prepossessions for their native soil. They were a degraded people; a people looked on as the lowest of the human race; and, with an army seeking their destruction, they had every motive to leave, and none to stay in Hindostan.

It cannot be determined by what track the forefathers of the Gipsies found their way from Hindostan to the countries of Europe. But it may be presumed that they passed over the southern Persian deserts of Sigiston, Makran and Kirman, along the Persian Gulf to the mouth of the Euphrates, thence to Bassora into the deserts of Arabia, and thence into Egypt by the Isthmus of Suez.

It is a fact not unworthy a place in these remarks on the origin of this people, that they do not like to be called Gipsies, unless by those persons whom they have reason to consider their real friends. This, probably, arises from two causes of great distress to them; Gipsies are suspected and hated as the perpetrators of all crime; and they are almost universally prosecuted as ragrants. Is it to be wondered at, that to strangers, they do not like to acknowledge themselves as Gipsies? I think not.

We will conclude our remarks on the origin of these erratic sons of Adam, by adding the testimony of Col.