bird all same that man. He sakkia all same wheel that you see get water up-stairs in Egypt.”
This was explanatory, but far from satisfactory. The prince, however, was mindful of me, and the next day I received from the Persian embassy the word elegantly written in Persian, with the translation, “a pelican.” Then it was all clear enough, for the pelican bears water in the bag under its bill. When the gypsies came to Europe they named animals after those which resembled them in Asia. A dog they called juckal, from a jackal, and a swan sákkú, or pelican, because it so greatly resembles it. The Hindoo bandarus, or monkey, they have changed to bombaros, but why Tom Cooper should declare that it is pugasah, or pukkus-asa, I do not know. [23] As little can I conjecture the meaning of the prefix mod, or mode, which I learned on the road near Weymouth from a very ancient tinker, a man so battered, tattered, seamed, riven, and wrinkled that he looked like a petrifaction. He had so bad a barrow, or wheel, that I wondered what he could do with it, and regarded him as the very poorest man I had ever seen in England, until his mate came up, an alter ego, so excellent in antiquity, wrinkles, knobbiness, and rags that he surpassed the vagabond pictures not only of Callot, Doré, and Goya, but even the unknown Spanish maker of a picture which I met with not long since for sale, and which for infinite poverty defied anything I ever saw on canvas. These poor men, who seemed at first amazed that I should speak to them at all, when I spoke Romany at once called me “brother.” When I asked the younger his name,
he sank his voice to a whisper, and, with a furtive air, said,—
“Kámlo,—Lovel, you know.”
“What do you call yourself in the way of business?” I asked. “Katsamengro, I suppose.”
Now Katsamengro means scissors-master.
“That is a very good word. But chivó is deeper.”
“Chivó means a knife-man?”
“Yes. But the deepest of all, master, is Modangaréngro. For you see that the right word for coals isn’t wongur, as Romanys generally say, but Angára.”
Now angára, as Pott and Benfey indicate, is pure Sanskrit for coals, and angaréngro is a worker in coals, but what mod means I know not, and should be glad to be told.