IT would be equally useless, prolix, and revolting, to reconsider the multitude of conjectures which the questions—“What race of people are the Gipseys?” and—“Where are we to look for their true mother country?” have occasioned. The greatest part of them are of such a nature, that they need only be heard to be totally rejected. We shall nevertheless produce some examples, as an excuse for passing over the rest in silence. Various conjectures have been formed, and coincidences have been searched for, to obtain a solution of these queries. Some persons adverted to this or that name only of the Gipseys, without attending to other circumstances. Because they were likewise called Gipseys (_Cingani_), they must immediately derive their origin from the Grecian heretics, called Athingans: then again they must have wandered from the African province formerly called Zeugitana. {137} Another time they are supposed to be the fugitives driven from the city Singara, in Mesopotamia, by Julian the Apostate: others again transplanted them to Mount Caucasus, and made them Zochori; or to the Palus Mæotis, making them descendants from the Ziches. {138} Some people imagined that instead of Zigeuner, they should be called Zigarener, which they thought a corruption of Saracener, and they must certainly be Saracens. Another writer (to return to Africa) conducts them from the Mauritanian province Tingitane, and supposes them to be the Canaanites, who, being driven out by Joshua, settled here. Still another brings them from Mauritania, and, to corroborate his opinion by the name, calls them descendants of Chus; as he thinks nothing can have a greater affinity in sound, than Zigeuner and Chusener. Herbelot judges the coast of Zengebar to be their mother country. Bellonius, on the contrary, looks for them in Bulgaria and Wallachia, where their ancestors are said to have lived, under the name Sigynner. Cordova stumbled on Zigere, formerly a city of Thrace, which he assigns as their native soil. Some people fancied they had heard that the Gipseys called themselves More, and often used the name _amori_ among one another (not _amori_, but _Discha more_—Get out, fellow!) and now they are Amorites!