This is collected with greater certainty from Kranz and Münster; for these declare expressly, that every thing which could be discovered, by any other means than their own assertions, contradicted rather than confirmed their Egyptian descent. Yet Thomasius has more proofs; he cites the resemblance between the Gipseys and the inhabitants of the Lesser Egypt, whence they say they came. But many people lay this difficulty in his way, that the name of Lesser Egypt is not to be found in any system of geography, but is a mere invention of the Gipseys. He rests his opinion on that of Vulcanius, who looks upon Nubia to be the Lesser Egypt, and thinks, for what reason does not appear, that the Nubians themselves called their country by that name. These are the similarities:—Nubians, as well as Gipseys, confess themselves Christians; both lead a wandering life, and both are of a dark brown complexion: to which some resemblances in shape between the Gipseys and Egyptians are introduced in general terms. Whether there be any affinity in their languages he leaves undetermined, because, he says, he knows nothing about it. That the name of Zigeuner is the same as Egyptian, and the former is derived from the latter, he proves in the following ingenious manner: “The Spaniards—who, instead of Egyptaner, call them Gitanos—have cut off the first syllable. Our forefathers, who exceeded the Spaniards in the art of mangling names, have rejected two syllables, and, instead of Egyptianer, first called them Cianer, afterwards, in order to fill up the chasm between _i_ and _a_, Ciganer. Further, as we, instead of Italianer, say Italiener, we have also changed Ciganer into Cigener; and at last, as people in Upper Germany are very fond of diphthongs, Cigeuner, or Zigeuner, has been produced.” Now, if any thing can be proved by all this, in the same manner the several opinions quoted in the former chapter are likewise established. And yet, after all, who will say, that, instead of Egyptier, Egyptianer, whence Cianer, Ciganer, and thus progressively through all the changes, Zigeuner may be produced? With regard to the denomination of Lesser Egypt, ranked under the list of Gipsey fables, and brought as evidence to overset Thomasius’s system, because Egypt never was divided into Greater and Smaller, it is nevertheless a true geographical name, though certainly not to be found in the treatises on geography: it however appears in the title of a Turkish emperor. A declaration of war, made by Achmet IV. against John Casimir, king of Poland, in 1652, begins with the following words: “I sultan, a king and son of the Turkish emperor, a soldier of the God of the Greeks and Babylonians—_king of the Greater and Lesser Egypt_.” The Gipseys have therefore, in this instance, been falsely accused of a fiction: but whether by this Lesser Egypt, Lower Egypt be understood, cannot be determined.