[{110}] In English: “Water is the Great God, and it is Bishnoo or Vishnoo because it falls from God. Vishnu is then the Great God?” “Yes; there can be no forced meaning there, can there, sir? Duvel (God) is Duvel all the world over; but correctly speaking, Vishnu is God’s blood—I have heard that many times. And the snow is feathers that fall from the angels’ wings. And what I said, that Bishnoo is God’s Blood is old Gipsy, and known by all our people.”
[{112}] “Simurgh—a fabulous bird, a griffin.”—Brice’s Hindustani Dictionary.
[{124}] Romi in Coptic signifies a man.
[{127}] Since writing the above I have been told that among many Hindus “(good) evening” is the common greeting at any time of the day. And more recently still, meeting a gentleman who during twelve years in India had paid especial attention to all the dialects, I greeted him, as an experiment, with “Sarisham!” He replied, ‘Why, that’s more elegant than common Hindu—it’s Persian!” “Sarisham” is, in fact, still in use in India, as among the Gipsies. And as the latter often corrupt it into sha’shān, so the vulgar Hindus call it “shān!” Sarishan means in Gipsy, “How are you?” but its affinity with sarisham is evident.
[{133}] Miklosich (“Uber die Mundarten de der Zigeuner,” Wien, 1872) gives, it is true, 647 Rommany words of Slavonic origin, but many of these are also Hindustani. Moreover, Dr Miklosich treats as Gipsy words numbers of Slavonian words which Gipsies in Slavonian lands have Rommanised, but which are not generally Gipsy.
[{171}] Fortune-telling.
[{189}] In Egypt, as in Syria, every child is more or less marked by tattooing. Infants of the first families, even among Christians, are thus stamped.
[{206}] The Royston rook or crow has a greyish-white back, but is with this exception entirely black.
[{209}] The peacock and turkey are called lady-birds in Rommany, because, as a Gipsy told me, “they spread out their clothes, and hold up their heads and look fine, and walk proud, like great ladies.” I have heard a swan called a pauno rāni chillico—a white lady-bird.
[{210}] To make skewers is a common employment among the poorer English Gipsies.