Before proceeding to the topographical portion of my subject, it may be well to review summarily the historical accounts of the Romá who overspread Europe during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Grellman, a classic upon the subject of “Chinganology,”[147] proved that the last movement to Western Europe set out, not from Bohemia, but from Hungary and the adjacent countries, including (Old) Rumelia and Moldavia. In 1417 some three thousand settled in Moldavia, whilst late in the same year hordes of Tatars, then so called, appeared before the gates of the Hanseatic towns on the Baltic coast, first Luneburg, and then Hamburg, Lübeck, Wismar, Rostock, and Stralsund.[148] Next year they migrated to middle Germany, to Meissen, Leipzig, and Hesse; and presently turned their steps towards Switzerland, entering Zürich on August 1, 1418. There they divided their forces. One detachment crossed the Botzberg, and suddenly appeared as “Saracens” before the Provençal town of Sisteron. The main body, led by “the dukes, the earls, and a bevy of knights,”[149] turned towards Alsace, swarmed through Strasburg, and halted under the walls of Nuremburg. It is not easy to determine the date of their arrival in Spain, where they may have dwelt in far more ancient times; indeed, during the fifteenth century the Iberian Peninsula was popularly supposed to be their birthplace.[150] On the other hand, many Spaniards believe them to be Germans, and called their tongue “Germania,” Gypsy German. In 1433 they invaded Bavaria; and thence they spread over Germany, Denmark, and Sweden. Their first appearance in French Christendom seems to be when a tribe of one hundred and thirty-two souls, under “a duke,” “a count,” and ten “knights,” startled the people of Paris, August 17, 1427. Pasquier, an eye-witness, who records the arrival of these “Christian penitents” at Paris, where they lodged in La Chapelle, outside the city, gives them ugly features, with crisp black hair.[151] If he be correct, the horde either must have sojourned long in Africa, or must have had intercourse with negro and negroid. There is no more constant characteristic of the modern Gypsy, after his eye, than the long, coarse, black Hindu-Tatar hair.