The reader will find in this book sketches of experiences among
gypsies of different nations by one who speaks their language and is
conversant with their ways. These embrace descriptions of the justly
famed musical gypsies of St. Petersburg and Moscow, by whom the writer
was received literally as a brother; of the Austrian gypsies,
especially those composing the first Romany orchestra of that country,
selected by Liszt, and who played for their friend as they declared
they had never played before for any man; and also of the English,
Welsh, Oriental, and American brethren of the dark blood and the tents.
I believe that the account of interviews with American gypsies will
possess at least the charm of novelty, but little having as yet been
written on this extensive and very interesting branch of our nomadic
population. To these I have added a characteristic letter in the gypsy
language, with translation by a lady, legendary stories, poems, and
finally the substance of two papers, one of which I read before the
British Philological Society, and the other before the Oriental
Congress at Florence, in 1878. Those who study ethnology will be
interested to learn from these papers, subsequently combined in an
article in the “Saturday Review,” that I have definitely determined the
existence in India of a peculiar tribe of gypsies, who are par
eminence the Romanys of the East, and whose language is there what
it is in England, the same in vocabulary, and the chief slang of the
roads. This I claim as a discovery, having learned it from a Hindoo who
had been himself a gypsy in his native land. Many writers have
suggested the Jats, Banjars, and others as probable ancestors or
type-givers of the race; but the existence of the Rom himself in
India, bearing the distinctive name of Rom, has never before been set
forth in any book or by any other writer. I have also given what may in
reason be regarded as settling the immensely disputed origin of the
word “Zingan,” by the gypsies' own account of its etymology, which was
beyond all question brought by them from India.
In addition to this I have given in a chapter certain conversations
with men of note, such as Thomas Carlyle, Lord Lytton, Mr. Roebuck, and
others, on gypsies; an account of the first and family names and
personal characteristics of English and American Romanys, prepared for
me by a very famous old gypsy; and finally a chapter on the “Shelta
Thari,” or Tinkers' Language, a very curious jargon or language, never
mentioned before by any writer except Shakespeare. What this tongue may
be, beyond the fact that it is purely Celtic, and that it does not seem
to be identical with any other Celtic dialect, is unknown to me. I
class it with the gypsy, because all who speak it are also acquainted
with Romany.
For an attempt to set forth the tone or feeling in which the
sketches are conceived, I refer the reader to the Introduction.
When I published my “English Gypsies and their Language,” a reviewer
declared that I “had added nothing to our” (that is, his) “knowledge on
the subject.” As it is always pleasant to meet with a man of superior
information, I said nothing. And as I had carefully read everything
ever printed on the Romany, and had given a very respectable collection
of what was new to me as well as to all my Romany rye colleagues in
Europe, I could only grieve to think that such treasures of learning
should thus remain hidden in the brain of one who had never at any time
or in any other way manifested the possession of any remarkable
knowledge. Nobody can tell in this world what others may know, but I
modestly suggest that what I have set forth in this work, on the origin
of the gypsies, though it may be known to the reviewer in question, has
at least never been set before the public by anybody but myself, and
that it deserves further investigation. No account of the tribes of the
East mentions the Rom or Trablus, and yet I have personally met with
and thoroughly examined one of them. In like manner, the “Shelta Thari”
has remained till the present day entirely unknown to all writers on
either the languages or the nomadic people of Great Britain. If we are
so ignorant of the wanderers among us, and at our very doors, it is not
remarkable that we should be ignorant of those of India.