“These people make use of two languages, one Calabrian, with a foreign accent and pronunciation; the other a peculiar one of their own, which in sound, seems to have great affinity to the Oriental tongues; and is spoken when they have secrets to impart to each other. They sleep like dogs in a kennel, men, women, and children huddled together.”
The learned Grellmann states, that “Gypsies were universally to be found in Italy; insomuch, that even Sicily and Sardinia were not free from them.
“But they were the most numerous in the dominions of the church; probably because there was the worst police, with much superstition. By the former they were left undisturbed; and the latter enticed them to deceive the ignorant, as it afforded them an opportunity of obtaining a plentiful contribution, by their fortune-telling and enchanted amulets.
“There was a general law throughout Italy, that no Gypsey should remain more than two nights, in any one place. By this regulation, it is true, no place retained its guest long; but
no sooner was one gone, than another came in his room. It was a continual circle, and quite as convenient to them, as a perfect toleration would have been. Italy rather suffered, than benefited, by this law; as, by keeping those people in constant motion, they would do more mischief there, than in places where they were permitted to remain stationary.”
It appears from the Dissertation of Grellmann, that he had examined with great care and attention, the continental authorities on the subject of Gypsies. He asserts, that “In Poland and Lithuania, as well as in Courland, there is an amazing number of Gypsies.
“That they are to be found in Denmark and Sweden, is certain, but how numerous they are in those countries we cannot pronounce, and therefore proceed to the south east of Europe.
“The countries in this part seem to be the general rendezvous of the Gypsies; their number amounts in Hungary, according to a probable statement, to upwards of 50,000.
“Cantemir says, the Gypsies are dispersed all over Moldavia, where every Baron has several families of them subject to him.
“In Wallachia and the Sclavonian mountains, they are quite as numerous. Bessarabia, all Tartary, Bulgaria, Greece, and Romania, swarm with them; even in Constantinople they are innumerable. In Romania, a large tract of Mount Hæmus, which they inhabit, has acquired from them the name Tschenghe Valkan, the Gypsey mountain. This district extends from the city Aydos, quite to Phillipopolis, and contains more Gypsies than any other province in the Turkish empire.”