The Walachians appear to be with the Slavonians the most ancient inhabitants of the country watered by the Danube. In number, though very much inferior to the latter, they equal the Magyares; at least in the countries situated eastward of the Theiss. Naturally vain, these people pretend to be descendants of the Roman colonists, who settled from time to time in ancient Germany. They accordingly style themselves _Rumani_, to indicate this noble origin. It is, however, more probable that they proceed from a mixture of the ancient Dacians, Romans and Slavonians. Their language in fact is composed of terms more or less altered, which manifestly belonged to those different nations. But a circumstance which shows that the groundwork of their language is not derived from the Latin is, that their declensions and conjugations have no resemblance to those of the latter: neither do the terminations of the majority of their words correspond with those generally observed in the Latin. Without arts, and almost without religion and civilization, the Walachian peasants know no other wants and pleasures but those of a roving life. They are in general suspicious, vindictive and disposed to hate other nations; hence the Hungarians and Transylvanians treat them exactly like slaves. The Walachians, like the Slavonians multiply fast; and it is perhaps on this account that they are deemed dangerous by the Hungarians among whom they live. The Ziganis or Ziguener, a roving or rather vagabond race, are very numerous in the Bukowina, Hungary, Galicia, and Transylvania. In the latter province they amount to more than sixty thousand; and out of seventy thousand inhabitants who composed the population of the Bukowina, when it was ceded to Austria in 1778, more than 10,000 were Ziganis. Of the origin of these people, whose manners, habits and way of life, perfectly correspond with those of the gipsies, nothing is known with certainty; but the arguments of Grellman seem to render it probable, that they are the descendants of the Hindoos expelled from India at the time of Tamerlane’s invasion in 1408 and 1409. Of the period of their arrival in Hungary we are not informed, but they were known in that country so early as 1417, about which time probably they began to introduce themselves into Transylvania. The Ziganis in general manifest more attachment to the Hungarians than to any other nation, either because the manners of the latter approach nearest to their own, or because they afford them more protection.