Their possessions were, as at present, small, and their whole arrangement singular; besides which, according to the Eastern custom, they hung ragged clothes about them, instead of other garments. Their leaders only were exceptions. Several had horses, asses, or mules, with them, on which they loaded their tents, and effects, with the whole family into the bargain. They had also dogs in their train, with which Kranz asserts they used illegally to destroy game: but probably the dogs were kept not so much for that purpose, as to take fowls and geese. CHAPTER II. _On the Sanctity_, _Passports_, _and Difference_, _of the former from the latter Gipseys_. AT the first arrival of the Gipseys in Europe, it was generally believed that they were Egyptians and pilgrims, constrained to wander on account of religion. This mistake originated from their own relation; but when required to give a more circumstantial detail of the reasons for their pilgrimage, they varied very much from each other. Some of them declared that they were compelled to make this emigration as an atonement for their forefathers having, for some time, apostatised from the Christian faith: others asserted that the king of Hungary had seized their country, and imposed on them this penance of wandering. A third party represented that God had signified to them the necessity of this pilgrimage, by an universal sterility in their country. They supposed this punishment to have been inflicted on account of sin committed by their ancestors, in refusing to receive the infant Jesus, when carried by his Mother and Joseph to Egypt, as an asylum from the persecution of Herod. The term of their pilgrimage was to be seven years. No evidence is necessary to determine that these were mere fables; and it is astonishing that men should be found to adduce long-winded proofs of the origin of these people, grounded on no better authority than such idle tales. We have not now any positive grounds remaining, to shew how these legends were invented, or what gave rise to them; but the real truth seems to be merely, that upon being asked whence they came, they answered from Egypt; and there is no reason existing to deny their having come from that country. Now priests, monks, or perhaps other people, might wonder why they should quit a place to which the holy family had fled for refuge, unless their forefathers had been guilty of some transgression on that occasion; but, be this as it may, all that could be said, with regard to the origin of their legends, would be only mere conjecture. Let it therefore suffice to say, they chose to be considered everywhere as pilgrims; and this profession met with the more ready belief, as it coincided with the infatuation of the times.