In Egypt, the men are mostly blacksmiths, braziers, and tinkers, or itinerant sellers of the wares which are made by others of this class, particularly of trumpery trinkets of brass, etc. Some gypsies also follow the occupation of phail wans or gymnasts, performing feats of strength and dexterity. Many of the women are fortune tellers. They dress like the females of the lower class, but always go about the streets with unveiled faces. Their cry is, I perform divination.' Some of these gypsy women also cry, Nedukk-wa-n' tahir ! ' We tattoo and circumcise.
Professor Sayce says (ii. p. 76) that the gypsies passed successively through Persia, Armenia, Greece, Rouma,nia, Hungary, and Bo hemia, whence they dispersed towards Germany, Poland, Russia, Scandinavia, Italy, Spain, Eug land , aud Scotland. The later researches of Potts, Miclosieh, andothers leave no doubt as to the Indian origin of the gypsies. Many of the individual words are identical in Gypsy and Hindustani ; but the grammar of the first-mentioned language, as shown in the mutilated form which remains in English Romany and the more perfect system of the Turkish Chingiane, is quite different from most of the modern vernaculars of India, and has but few points of contact with the older dialects. Somewhere about the year 42Ia A.D., a number of strolling minstrels did find their way into Persia ; they were called and are described by Fir duii in terms which might equally well apply to a band of English Romanies. The word Luri is still used in Persia for strolling minstrels and vagabonds ; and, under the form Nuri, it is the generic appellation of gypsies in Syria and Egypt.
Arab historians speak of these people under the alternative name of Zutt, which is with much rea son believed to be a corruption of Jat. Gypsies in Europe are perhaps the only race who will eat animals that have died a natural death. Mullo baulo, or dead pig,' is their favourite delicacy.
In 1844, three years after the appearance of Borrow's Zincali, or Gypsies of Spain, Dr. A. F. Pott, of Halle, issued a work, entitled Die Zig euner in Europa und Asien. Later on, Professor Miclosich of Vienna published in parts an ex haustive treatise, Ueber die Mundarten und die Wanderungen der Zigeuner Europas ; and in 1870 Dr. Paspati published, iu French, at Constanti nople, a magnificent monogram on the language and literature of the Turkish gypsies, with the title Etudes sur les Tchingianes. The Romany language is spoken with the greatest purity by the gypsies of the Ottoman empire. M. Paul Bataillard has also made a valuable contribution towards the ethnology and history of the.Romany race, in his l'Apparition des BoUrniens en Europe (1844). Of those who have followed Borrow in his investigations of the English gypsy dialect and traditions, the most noteworthy are Mr. Charles G. Leland (Hans Breitmann), Dr. Bath Smart ; and Dr. Smart's Dialect of the English Gypsies. A volume of ballads in Romany and English was compiled jointly by Mr. Leland, Professor E. H. Palmer, and Miss Janet Tuckey.—Lane; Ferrier's Journ.; Pot linger's Travels; De Bode's Travels; Peschell; Sayce, p. 76.