wander about in heathen countries, as the Gypsies do among Christians. The Faquirs are religious fanatics; and rove about in heathen and mahometan countries, like the most atrocious robbers. Anquetil says, the Faquirs in India go a pilgrimage to Jagrenat; they plunder such villages and cities as lie in their way; they form considerable bodies about a mile from Jagrenat, where they choose themselves a leader, to whom they pay all the attention due to a general.
With regard to strolling and thieving, the Faquirs and Gypsies agree exactly. Thomasius, Griselini, and the English geographer Salmon, imagined that when Sultan Selim conquered Egypt in 1517, several of the natives refusing to submit to the Turkish yoke, revolted under one Zinganeus.
But we have already adverted to authentic documents for the proof, that they were in Germany, Italy, and France, near a century before the conquest of Egypt by Selim.
Yet the belief that Gypsies were of Egyptian origin is parallel with their existence in Europe.
It arose from the report circulated by the first of them, that they were pilgrims from Egypt; and this statement was not only adopted by the common people, but here, and there, obtained credit among men of learning. Grellmann observes, that had this opinion not been received at a time when almost every thing was taken upon trust, with little examination; had it not been propagated by the first Gypsies, and then obtained a sanction, it would have been impossible for it to have gained such general acceptation, or to have maintained itself to the present times. Till the 17th century, the Egyptian descent of the Gypsies rested entirely on tradition. Afterwards, Aventin, Krantz, and Miinster openly contradict it.
Aventin relates that they wished it to be thought they came from that country, but that, in his time, nothing was known concerning them, but what came from their own mouths; those who accounted them Egyptians, rested their belief entirely on the veracity of their informants.
This is collected with greater certainty from Krantz and Miinster, for they declare expressly, that every thing which could be discovered by any other means than their own assertions, contradicted, rather than confirmed their Egyptian descent. But it is not merely that their Egyptian descent is entirely destitute of proof, the most circumstantial evidence can be adduced against it.
Their language differs entirely from the Coptic, and their customs, as Ahasuerus Fritsch has remarked, are diametrically opposite to the Egyptian; but what is, if possible, of greater weight, they wander about in Egypt, like strangers, and there, as in other countries, form a distinct people.
The testimony of Bellonius is full and decisive on the point. He states; “No part of the world, I believe, is free from those banditti, wandering about in troops; whom we, by mistake, call Gypsies, and Bohemians. When we were at Cairo, and the villages bordering on the Nile, we found troops of these strolling
thieves sitting under palm-trees; and they are esteemed foreigners in Egypt.”