Gipsy Life: Being an account of our Gipsies and their children, with suggestions for their improvementSmith, George
History
Gipsy Life: Being an account of our Gipsies and their children, with suggestions for their improvement
Smith, George
Romanies -- Great Britain
this point, viz., that our Gipsies are Indians. In isolated cases a
strong religious feeling has manifested itself in certain persons of the
Bunyan type of character and countenance—a strong frame, with large,
square, massive forehead, such as Bunyan possessed; for it should be
noted that John Bunyan was a Gipsy tinker, with not an improbable mixture
of the blood of an Englishman in his veins, and, as a rule, persons of
this mixture become powerful for good or evil. A case in point, viz.,
Mrs. Simpson and her family, has come under my own observation lately,
which forcibly illustrates my meaning, both as regards the evil Mrs.
Simpson did in the former part of her life, and for the last twenty years
in her efforts to do good among persons of her class, and also among
others, as she has travelled about the country. The exodus of the
Gipsies from India may be set down, first, to famine, of which India, as
we all know, suffers so much periodically; second, to the insatiable love
of gold and plunder bound up in the nature of the Gipsies—the West, from
an Indian point of view, is always looked upon as a land of gold, flowing
with milk and honey; third, the hatred the Gipsies have for wars, and as
in the years of 1408 and 1409, and many years previous to these dates,
India experienced some terrible bloody conflicts, when hundreds of
thousands of men, women, and children were butchered by the cruel monster
Timur Beg in cold blood, and during the tenth and eleventh centuries by
Mahmood the Demon, on purpose to make proselytes to the Mohammedan faith,
it is only natural to suppose that under those circumstances the Gipsies
would leave the country to escape the consequences following those
calamities, over-populated as it was, numbering close upon 200,000,000 of
human beings. {8} I am inclined to think that it would be hunger and
starvation upon their heels that would be the propelling power to send
them forward in quest of food. From Attock, Peshawur, Cabul, and Herat,
they would tramp through Persia by Teheran, and enter the Euphrates
Valley at Bagdad. From Calcutta, Madras, Seringapatam, Bangalore, Goa,
Poonah, Hydrabad, Aurungabad, Nagpoor, Jabbulpoor, Benares, Allahabad,
Surat, Simla, Delhi, Lahore, they would wander along to the mouth of the
river Indus, and commence their journey at Hydrabad, and travelling by
the shores of the Indian Ocean, stragglers coming in from Bunpore,
Gombaroon, the commencement of the Persian Gulf, when they would travel
by Bushino to Bassora. At this place they would begin to scatter
themselves over some parts of Arabia, making their headquarters near
Molah, Mecca, and other parts of the country, crossing over Suez, and
getting into Egypt in large numbers. Others would take the Euphrates
Valley route, which, by the way, is the route of the proposed railway to
India. Tribes branching off at Kurnah, some to Bagdad, following the
course of the river Tigris to Mosul and Diarbeker, and others would go to
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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