Respecting fortune-telling, with which the female Gypsies impose on people’s credulity in every district and corner of Europe, the origin, of the imposition is not to be attributed to them: the cheat was known and practised in Europe before their arrival; being deeply rooted in the ignorance of the middle age. The science of divination here was said to be already brought to a greater degree of perfection than among them. Rules were invented to tell lies from the inspection of the hand, in which the poor Gypsies were accounted mere bunglers. They in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were esteemed supernumeraries; there being men of great learning, who not only read lectures in Colleges on the art of chiromancy; but wrote many books, vilifying these people, and endeavouring to spoil their market. But these wise men are no more; their knowledge is deposited in the dead archives of literature; and probably had there been no Gypsies, with them would have died the belief in chiromancy, as is the case with respect to astrology, necromancy, oneirocritica, and the other offspring of imbecile fancy. We must not omit to mention the occupation of gold-washing, by which thousands of Gypsies, of both sexes, in the Banat, Transylvania, Wallachia, and Moldavia, procure a livelihood in summer; who, in winter, make trays and troughs, which they sell in an honest way. It is not permitted for every one, without exception, to be a gold-washer; such only can follow the employment as have permission from the office of Mons, where a College was established by the Empress Theresa, in 1748. In the seventh article of instructions granted, the Gypsies were allowed the privilege of washing for gold, for which each person pays a tribute to Government. The gold-washers in Transylvania and the Banat, pay four guilders annually in gold dust. The tribute collected in Wallachia and Moldavia does not go into the public treasury, but belongs to the Princesses for pin-money. The consort of the Wallachian Hospodar, Stephen Rakowitza, in the year 1764, received from her Rudars, being two hundred and forty in number, twelve hundred and fifty-four drachms. The gold-washers in the Banat and Transylvania, dispose of their shares at the Royal Redemption-Office, in Zalatuya. The earnings of these people vary with time, and at different places; during heavy rains and floods they are usually most successful. The Transylvanian rivers yield the most gold. It is said, all the rivers and brooks which the rain forms, produce gold; of these the river Aranyasch is the richest; insomuch, that Historians have compared it to the Tagus and Pactolus. _Grellmann_.