Transcribed from the 1882 Houghton, Mifflin and Company edition by DavidPrice,
BY
CHARLES G. LELAND
author of“THE ENGLISH GYPSIES AND THEIR LANGUAGE,” “ANGLO-ROMANYBALLADS,” “HANS BREITMANN’S BALLADS,” etc.
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
p. iiCopyright, 1882,
By CHARLES G. LELAND.
All rights reserved.
The reader will find in this book sketches of experiences among gypsiesof different nations by one who speaks their language and is conversantwith their ways. These embrace descriptions of the justly famedmusical gypsies of St. Petersburg and Moscow, by whom the writer wasreceived literally as a brother; of the Austrian gypsies, especially thosecomposing the first Romany orchestra of that country, selected by Liszt,and who played for their friend as they declared they had never playedbefore for any man; and also of the English, Welsh, Oriental, and Americanbrethren of the dark blood and the tents. I believe that the accountof interviews with American gypsies will possess at least the charm ofnovelty, but little having as yet been written on this extensive and veryinteresting branch of our nomadic population. To these I have added acharacteristic letter in the gypsy language, with translation by a lady,legendary stories, poems, and finally the substance of two papers, one ofwhich I read before the British Philological Society, and the other beforep. ivtheOriental Congress at Florence, in 1878. Those who study ethnologywill be interested to learn from these papers, subsequently combined in anarticle in the “Saturday Review,” that I have definitelydetermined the existence in India of a peculiar tribe of gypsies, who arepar eminence the Romanys of the East, and whose language is therewhat it is in England, the same in vocabulary, and the chief slang of theroads. This I claim as a discovery, having learned it from a Hindoowho had been himself a gypsy in his native land. Many writers havesuggested the Jats, Banjars, and others as probable ancestors ortype-givers of the race; but the existence of the Rom himself inIndia, bearing the distinctive name of Rom, has never before been set forthin any book or by any other writer. I have also given what may inreason 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 withmen of note, such as Thomas Carlyle, Lord Lytton, Mr. Roebuck, and others,on gypsies; an account of the first and family names and personalcharacteristics of English and American Romanys, prepared for me by a veryfamous old gypsy; and finally a chapter on the “Shelta Thari,”or Tinkers’ Language, a very curious jargon or language, nevermentioned before by any writer except Shakespeare. What this tonguemay be, beyond the p. vfact that it is purely Celtic, and that it doesnot seem to be identical with any other Celtic dialect, is unknown tome. I class it with the gypsy, because all who speak it are alsoacquainted with Romany.
For an attempt to set forth the tone or feeling in which the sketchesare conceived, I refer the reader to the Intr