Miscellanies in the Gitáno Language 415 The English Dialect of the Rommany 428 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Gypsy’s Marriage Dance (_photogravure_) _Frontispiece_ The Rearguard of the Marching Gypsies _To face page_ 50 Travellers attacked by the Gitános 52 A Song of Egypt 108 The Gypsy Smith of Granada 196 The Murder of Pindamonas by Pepe Conde 198 Roasting Chestnuts by the side of the 200 Guadalquiver A Gypsy Family 222 THE GYPSIES INTRODUCTION THROUGHOUT my life the Gypsy race has always had a peculiar interest for me. Indeed I can remember no period when the mere mention of the name of Gypsy did not awaken within me feelings hard to be described. I cannot account for this—I merely state a fact. Some of the Gypsies, to whom I have stated this circumstance, have accounted for it on the supposition that the soul which at present animates my body has at some former period tenanted that of one of their people; for many among them are believers in metempsychosis, and, like the followers of Bouddha, imagine that their souls, by passing through an infinite number of bodies, attain at length sufficient purity to be admitted to a state of perfect rest and quietude, which is the only idea of heaven they can form. Having in various and distant countries lived in habits of intimacy with these people, I have come to the following conclusions respecting them: that wherever they are found, their manners and customs are virtually the same, though somewhat modified by circumstances, and that the language they speak amongst themselves, and of which they are particularly anxious to keep others in ignorance, is in all countries one and the same, but has been subjected more or less to modification; and lastly, that their countenances exhibit a decided family resemblance, but are darker or fairer according to the temperature of the climate, but invariably darker, at least in Europe, than those of the natives of the countries in which they dwell, for example, England and Russia, Germany and Spain.