we expect, from their levity, and unspeakable want of foresight, that they should avail themselves to the utmost of any advantage with proper precaution and judgment? The following incident, taken from the Hungarian annals, may serve as proof, whether this suspicion be or be not well founded.—In the year 1557, during the troubles in Zapoly, the castle of Nagy Ida, in the county of Abauywar, was in danger of being besieged and taken by the imperial troops. Francis von Perenyi, who had the command, being short of men, was obliged to have recourse to the Gipseys, of whom he collected a thousand; these he furnished with proper means of defence, and stationed them in the outworks, keeping his own small compliment of men to garrison the citadel. The Gipseys imagined that they should be perfectly free from annoyance behind their entrenchments, and therefore went courageously to their posts. Every thing was in order when the enemy arrived, and the storm commenced. The Gipseys, behind their fortifications, supported the attack with so much more resolution than was expected, returning the enemy’s fire with such alacrity, that the assailants, little suspecting who were the defendants, were actually retreating. They had hardly quitted their ground, when the conquerors, elated with joy on their victory, crept out of their holes, crying after them, “Go and be hanged, you rascals! Thank God we had no more powder and shot, or we would have played the very devil with you!”—“What!” replied the retiring besiegers, as they turned about, and, to their great astonishment, instead of regular troops, discovered a motley Gipsey tribe, “are you the heroes! is it so with you!” immediately wheeling about to the left, sword in hand, they drove the black crew back to their works, forced their way after, and in a few minutes totally subdued them. Thus the affair ended. In this manner Gipseys would frequently trifle away by heedlessness, what they might have secured by good fortune and alacrity, if they were permitted to act in separate corps. There are many instances recorded in the annals of former centuries, {89a} of Gipseys having been employed in military expeditions: but seldom, or rather never, were they thought of as solders. At Crupa, 1565, they prepared cannon balls for the Turks: still earlier, in 1496, they served Bishop Sigismund at Fünfkirchen in the same manner. In the thirty-years war, the Swedes likewise had a body of Gipseys in their army. And when, in 1686, Hamburgh was besieged by the Danes, there were three companies of them in the Danish army. Their destination was not so much to stand to their arms, as to perform other services; they were chiefly employed in flying parties, to burn, plunder, or lay waste, the enemy’s country. As these are the operations most suitable to their genius, they are now by the Turks destined to such purposes, and incorporated with the Sains Serdenjesti, and Nephers.