CHAPTER V. GIPSY LETTERS.

A Gipsy’s Letter to his Sister.—Drabbing Horses.—Fortune Telling.—Cock Shys.—“Hatch ’em pauli, or he’ll lel sār the Covvas!”—Two German Gipsy Letters.

I shall give in this chapter a few curious illustrations of Gipsy life and character, as shown in a letter, which is illustrated by two specimens in the German Rommany dialect.

With regard to the first letter, I might prefix to it, as a motto, old John Willett’s remark: “What’s a man without an imagination?” Certainly it would not apply to the Gipsy, who has an imagination so lively as to be at times almost ungovernable; considering which I was much surprised that, so far as I know, the whole race has as yet produced only one writer who has distinguished himself in the department of fiction—albeit he who did so was a giant therein—I mean John Bunyan.

And here I may well be allowed an unintended digression, as to whether Bunyan were really a Gipsy. In a previous chapter of this work, I, with little thought of Bunyan, narrated the fact that an intelligent tinker, and a full Gipsy, asked me last summer in London, if I thought that the Rommany were of the Ten Tribes of Israel? When John Bunyan tells us explicitly that he once asked his father whether he and his relatives were of the race of the Israelites—he having then never seen a Jew—and when he carefully informs his readers that his descent was of a low and inconsiderable generation, “my father’s house being of that rank that is meanest and most despised of all the families of the land,” there remains no rational doubt whatever that Bunyan was indeed a Rom of the Rommany. “Applico” of which, as my own special and particular Gipsy is wont to say—it is worth noting that the magician Shakespeare, who knew everything, showed himself superior to many modern dramatists in being aware that the tinkers of England had, not a peculiar cant, but a special language.

And now for the letters. One day Ward’engro of the K’allis’s Gav, asked me to write him a letter to his daughter, in Rommany. So I began to write from his dictation. But being, like all his race, unused to literary labour, his lively imagination continually led him astray, and as I found amusement in his so doing, it proved to be an easy matter to induce him to wander off into scenes of gipsy life, which, however edifying they might be to my reader, would certainly not have the charm of novelty to the black-eyed lady to whom they were supposed to be addressed. However, as I read over from time to time to my Rommany chal what I had written, his delight in actually hearing his own words read from writing, partook of all the pride of successful authorship—it was, my dear sir, like your delight over your first proof sheet.

Well, this was the letter. A translation will be found following it.

THE PANNI GAV, Dec. 16, 1871.

MY KĀMLI CHĀVI,—Kushti bāk! My cāmmoben to turo mush an’ turo dādas an’ besto bāk. We’ve had wafri bak, my pen’s been naflo this here cooricus, we’re doin’ very wafro and couldn’t lel no wongur. Your dui pals are kairin kúshto, pràsturin ’bout the tem, bickinin covvas. [{65}] Your puro kāko welled acái to his pen, and hatched trin divvus, and jawed avree like a puro jucko, and never del mandy a poshéro.

Kek adusta nevvi. A rakli acai lelled a hóra waver divvus from a waver rakli, and the one who nashered it pens: “Del it pauli a mandi and I wont dukker tute! Del it apré!” But the waver rākli penned “kek,” and so they bitchered for the prastramengro. He lelled the juva to the wardo, and just before she welled odói, she hatched her wast in her poachy, an’ chiv it avree, and the prastramengro hatched it apré. So they bitchered her for shúrabun.

(Here my Gipsy suggested that stárdo or staramangro might be used for greater elegance, in place of shúrabun.)

I’ve got kek gry and can’t lel no wongur to kin kek. My kāmli chāvi, if you could bitch me a few bars it would be cammoben. I rikkers my covvas apré mi dumo kennā. I dicked my kāko, waver divvus adrée a lot o Rommany chals, saw a pïin’. There was the juvas a koorin adói and the mushis a koorin an’ there was a boro chingarée, some with kāli yākkas an’ some with sherros chinned so the ratt jālled alay ’pré the drum. There was dui or trin bar to pessur in the sāla for the graias an’ mylas that got in pandamam (pandapenn).

Your pal’s got a kushti gry that can jāl alangus the drum kúshto. L--- too’s got a bāro kushto gry. He jawed to the wellgooro, to the boro gav, with a poggobavescro gry an’ a nokengro. You could a mored dovo gry an’ kek penn’d a lav tute. I del it some ballovas to hatch his bavol and I bikened it for 9 bar, to a rye that you jins kushto. Lotti was at the wellgooro dukkerin the rānis. She lelled some kushti habben, an’ her jellico was saw porder, when she dicked her mush and shelled. “Hāvacäi! I’ve got some fine habben!” She penned to a rakli, “Pet your wonger adrée turo wast an I’ll dukker tute.” An’ she lelled a pāsh bar from the rāni. She penned her: “You kaums a rye a longo dūros. He’s a kaulo and there’s a wáver rye, a pauno, that kaums you too, an’ you’ll soon lel a chinamangree. Tute’ll rummorben before dui besh, an’ be the dye of trin chavis.’

There was a gry jāllin with a wardo langus the drum, an’ I dicked a raklo, an’ putsched (pootched) him. “How much wongur?” an’ he pookered man’y “Desh bar;” I penned: “Is dovo, noko gry?” “Āvali.” Well, a Rommany chul del him desh bar for the gry an’ bikined it for twelve bar to a boro rye. It was a fino kaulo gry with a boro herree, but had a naflo piro; it was the nearo piro an’ was a dellemescro. He del it some hopium drab to hatch adöi, and tooled his solivengro upo the purgis.

At the paiass with the koshters a rye welled and Wantelo shelled avree: “Trin kosters for a horra, eighteen for a shekóri!” An’ the rye lelled a koshter an’ we had pange collos for trin dozenos. The rye kaired paiass kushto and lelled pange cocoanuts, and lelled us to his wardo, and dell’d mandy trin currus of tatty panni, so that I was most mātto. He was a kushti rye and his rāni was as good as the rye.

There was a waver mūsh a playin, an’ mandy penned: “Pen the kosh paulier, hatch ’em odöi, don’t well adoorer or he’ll lel saw the covvos! Chiv ’em pauli!” A chi rakkered the ryes an’ got fifteen cullos from yeck. And no moro the divvus from your kaum pal,