Now our Gipsies are, in one point, exactly on a level with the adventurers here mentioned. They look upon themselves as being in a foreign land, and consider it fair game to rob, plunder, and cheat all and every one of the "strangers" among whom they travel. I am disposed to believe that there were also rules among the Gipsy bands for dividing their booty, something like the old Hindoo law alluded to.[114] [114] What is said here is, of course, applicable to a class, only, of the Gipsies. Our author need not have gone so very far away from home, for instances of theft and robbery being, under certain circumstances, deemed honourable. Both were, at one time, followed in Scotland, when all practised "The good old rule, the simple plan, That they should take who have the power, And they should keep who can." See Disquisition on the Gipsies.--ED. We find the following curious particulars mentioned of a tribe among the mountains in India, who are supposed to be the aborigines of Hindostan. They are called Kookies or Lunctas. "Next to personal valour, the accomplishment most esteemed in a warrior is superior address in stealing; and if a thief can convey, undiscovered, to his own house, his neighbour's property, it cannot afterwards be reclaimed; nor, if detected in the act, is he otherwise punished than by exposure to the ridicule of the Porah, and being obliged to restore what he may have laid hold of." "It is a great recommendation in obtaining a wife, when a Kookie can say that his house is full of stolen articles."[115] There are several other tribes in the world among whom theft and robbery are considered meritorious actions. It appears that among the Coords "no one is allowed to marry a wife till he has committed some great act of robbery or murder." In an account of Kamtschatka, it is mentioned that "among all these barbarous nations, excepting the Kamtschadales, theft is reputable, provided they do not steal in their own tribe, or if done with such art as to prevent discovery: on the other hand, it is punished very severely if discovered; not for the theft, but for the want of address in the art of stealing. A Tschukotskoe girl cannot be married before she has shown her dexterity in this way."[116] [115] Asiatic Researches, vol. vii., pages 189 and 193. [116] Dr. James Grieve's translation of a Russian account of Kamtschatka, page 323.