At intervals, the traveller who crosses the Steppes of the Caspian encounters with astonishment, in the most dreary localities, far from every Cossack village and Kalmük kibitka, a group of men, women, and children with bronzed complexions, with features strongly defined, covered with squalid and grotesque rags, dragging their naked feet over the damp and burning soil, and leading small vehicles loaded with implements and utensils of every kind. He easily recognizes in these beings of sinister mien, audacious mendicants, skilful thieves, musicians, blacksmiths, conjurers--what shall I say?--the _débris_, in a word, of that once great, and perhaps powerful race, now so degraded and corrupt, whose problematical history is the despair of the scholar. The scorn and mistrust of every nation--impatient of all discipline, all education--without law, without religion, without country--these men speak a language which none can understand. Of their real name they are themselves ignorant, and they accept with indifference that which is imposed upon them in different countries: in the East, _Romany_; in Moldavia, _Tsiganes_; in Italy, _Zingari_; in Spain, _Gilanos_; in France, _Bohemians_; in England, _Gipsies_.[35] The Germans call them _Zigeuner_; the Dutch, expressively but intolerantly, _Heathens_; the Persians, _Sisech_; the Hindus, _Kavachee_; the Danes and Swedes, _Tatars_; and the Arabs, _Haramé_. Their origin has been a theme of speculation for centuries, and all that seems certain, after a vast amount of research and discussion, is, that the cradle of the race was India. To what Indian people they should be affiliated is still doubtful; whether to the Zuts or Djalts of the north; the Tshingani, who dwelt near the mouth of the Indus; or the Tshandalas, chronicled by name in the laws of Menou.