There are many signs suggesting that the gypsies were able to translate the symbols on the cards at an early date, soon after they appeared in Europe, and it is certain that for several centuries these nomads have used Playing Cards for telling future, past, or present events, and have done it with so much self-confidence that it would seem that they possessed a key to the occult mysteries. It is, therefore, unwise to discard this theory entirely, for the gypsy tribes scattered over Europe certainly aided in widely distributing the cards. Nor does the connection of gypsies with the ancient mysteries quarrel with the statement that cards were part of the worship of Mercury, since no man can say that these people were not the original priests of the temple who were cast out of their shrines and forced to wander about the world. In England these nomads are frequently called the Egyptians, while their own name for themselves is Romany. Spain has contended with Italy for the honour of originating Playing Cards, but without proving her case, for Spain preserved only a mutilated pack of pip cards, showing the symbols of Mercury, indeed, but unaccompanied by the emblematic Atouts that were the first volume of the book; these have never been known in that country. But, then, Spain was not the home of the gods of Olympus, nor was that country in close contact with Egypt, as was Italy. There is no historic record of yearly communications between the two opposite shores of the great sea, as is the case with Italy, for Seneca has left an interesting description of the great fleet from Alexandria that yearly visited Pozzuoli, on the bay of Naples. These vessels carried not only wares, but merchants and missionaries, from the great seats of learning at the temples of Egypt. The priests of those days were not necessarily religious men, but they were scholars and scientists, who thought that their best use in the world was the diffusion of their learning and knowledge. Since it is clearly established that the worship of Serapis, Thoth, and Mercury was followed at Pozzuoli from a very early date, preceding Christianity, it may be conceded that the people there were imbued with the appreciation of its mysteries and adored them. When Christianity refuted the doctrines of the heathen gods, those who followed the ancient rites were forced to conceal them. Hence it is that if Playing Cards are derived from this mysterious worship, through which they consulted the wishes of their gods, no trace of them can be found in the legal records before the middle of the fourteenth century, when the cards were established as a game but not as a cult.