“The Jats in appearance are a swarthy and uncomely race, dirty in the extreme, long, gaunt, bony, and rarely, if ever, in good condition. Their beards are thin, and there is a curious (i.e. _Gypsy-like_) expression in their eyes.[118] They dress like Scindians, preferring blue to white clothes; but they are taller, larger, and more un-Indian in appearance. Some few, but very few, of their women are, in early youth, remarkable for soft and regular features; this charm, however, soon yields to the complicated ugliness brought on by exposure to the sun, by scanty living, and by the labour of baggage-cattle. In Scinde the Jats of both sexes are possessed of the virtues especially belonging to the oppressed and inoffensive Eastern cultivation; they are necessarily frugal and laborious, peaceful, and remarkable for morality in the limited sense of aversion to intrigue with members of a strange Kaum.[119] I say in Scinde; this is by no means the reputation of the race in the other parts of Central Asia, where they have extended (_or whence possibly they came_).[120] The term ‘Jat’ is popularly applied to a low and servile creature, or to an impudent villain; and despite of the Tohfat el Kiram,[121] a Beloch would consider himself mortally affronted were you to confound his origin with the caste which his ancestors deposed, and which he despises for having allowed itself to be degraded. The Brahins, Afghans, and Persians all have a bad word to say of them.” Thus far M. Paul Bataillard has shown himself only the carpet-slippered _littérateur de cabinet_, who laboriously borrows from others, and who evidently expects his second-hand labours to _faire époque_. But my rival claimant, let me hasten to own, has solid merits. His theory that Gypsy emigrations are of ancient date, and probably of high antiquity, deserves consideration. His later notices of the Jats correct the vulgar error which made Taymur the Tatar cause the first exodus of our “sorners.” He notes the especial hatred, possibly racial, nourished by these Gentile vagrants against the other scattered nation, the Jews. Other minor but still interesting matters of which he treats are the history of the Gypsies especially with respect to their slavery and serfdom--Crown captives, not chattels personal; their periodical wanderings and visitings; their vestiges of faith; their vernacular and humble literature; their private and tribal names suggesting those of the modern Israelitic Synagogue; and their supplying the dancing-girls of the nearer East, while in the lupanars of Europe a Gypsy girl is unknown. I now propose to run as rapidly as the subject permits through M. Paul Bataillard’s four papers _seriatim_. The critique will not only notice novelties, but will also attempt to correct what to a practical man appears to want correction in connexion with the Gypsies. § 2. “_Derniers Travaux, etc._”