“In order to give an odour of the supernatural to these phenomena, the Moroccan, Gypsy or Marabout, has a certain quantity of benzoin burnt behind the table; and while the vapour spreads itself through the room, the person undergoing the process falls into a complete state of anæsthesia.” Borrow mentions in Barbary sundry “sects of wanderers,” which he shrewdly suspects to be Gypsies, and whom he provides with the worst of characters. The first are the “Beni Aros” (?), who wander about Fez, and have their homes in the high mountains near Tetuan. A comely, well-made race, they are beggars by profession, notorious drunkards, addicted to robbery, murder, and effeminate crimes. They claim to be Moors, and their language is Arabic. The second are the “Sidi Hamed au Muza,” so called from their patron saint. In many respects they not a little resemble the Gypsies; but they speak the Shilhah, or a dialect of that tongue. They earn their livelihood by vaulting, tumbling, and tricks with sword and dagger, to the sound of wild music, which the women, seated on the ground, produce from their uncouth instruments. § 3. _The Gypsies in Inner Africa._ It is generally believed that the Romá have extended far southwards from Morocco and Barbary. Borrow remarks of the Dar-bushi-fal (fortune-tellers), that if they are not Gypsies, the latter people cannot be found in the country. Numerous in Barbary, they wander during the greater part of the year, pilfering, fortune-telling, and dealing in mules and donkeys. Their fixed villages are known as “Char Seharra,” witch hamlets. They can change the colour of an animal, and transform a white man into a negro black as a coal, after which they sell him as a slave. They are said to possess a peculiar language, which, being neither Arabic nor Shilhah, is intelligible only to their own caste. Borrow often conversed with them; but he neglected to apply his favourite Shibboleth, Pani (water). Their faces are described as exceedingly lean, their skins swarthy, and their legs are reeds; “when they run, the devil himself cannot overtake them.” Their vehicles of divination are oil, a plate full of flour, or a shoe placed in the mouth. They are evil people, and powerful enchanters, feared by the emperor himself. M. Paul Bataillard (_Notes et Questions_) refers, for information concerning the Gypsies, to the _Voyage dans le Nord et dans les Parties Centrales de l’Afrique_, the journey of Denham and Clapperton, translated by Eyries and another (Paris, 1826, 3 vols. 8vo). These authors, he says, pretend to assimilate the “Chouâa” Arabs of Bornou with the Gypsies. Indeed, they expressly declare that their Arabic is almost pure Gypsy. This is, however, incompatible with another passage, which declares that these “Chouâas” have imported into Bornou the Arabic, which they speak purely.