The Wallachian and Moldavian gypsies speak the language of the country; but those who lead a wandering life use, amongst themselves, a peculiar jargon composed of a corruption of Bulgarian, Servian, and Hungarian words, mixed with some Turkish. Its pronunciation, however, sounds so much like that of the Hungarian tongue, that a person accustomed to hear both without understanding either, is apt to mistake the one for the other. Their quality of slaves is acknowledged by the surrounding nations; and those who abscond to them are restored when claimed as private property. Desertions, however, are not frequent; and when they do take place, the fugitives take such precautions as to prevent the place of their concealment being discovered. CHAPTER IX. INTERCOURSE OF FOREIGNERS.—FOREIGN CONSULS.—HOW FAR THE NATIVES ARE BENEFITED BY THEIR INTERCOURSE WITH FOREIGN RESIDENTS. A considerable number of foreign Europeans reside in both principalities, where they are attracted by a variety of resources. The principal merchants and bankers, either from birthright or from foreign naturalisation, carry on their business under the immediate protection of European courts; without which the general system of the local governments, so prejudicial to the interests of trade, would give but little security to their operations. There are at both capitals several German and French coachmakers, carpenters, builders, architects, teachers of European languages and music, physicians, and apothecaries, all of whom have rendered themselves extremely useful to the native inhabitants, and derive no small profit from the exercise of their respective professions. Almost all the importers of foreign furniture, luxuries in ladies’ apparel and other kinds of retail trade, undertakers of subscription-clubs, and of coffee-houses of the better sort, ladies’ shoemakers, mantuamakers, and taylors, are also European foreigners. A great number of Transylvanian and Hungarian gentry of the inferior rank are attracted by the advantages of renting the Boyars’ estates. According to the treaties existing between the Porte and other powers, foreign subjects are not permitted in any manner to hold, as proprietors, landed property in the Ottoman dominions; the prince of Moldavia observing how little this stipulation had been attended to in his principality, thought it necessary, in 1815, to issue a decree which ordered the expulsion of foreign farmers. The Boyars, whose best estates were under their management, and who had every reason to be satisfied with them, strongly opposed the measure; their representations finally induced the prince to give his tacit consent to their wishes; and, properly speaking, this stipulation of the treaties does not include the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, and ought not to be applied to them.