“These tribes are looked upon as aborigines, which simply means that their predecessors are unknown.[96]
“Such were the notices collected by me in manuscript some years before 1849. At that time the Orientalists of Europe were almost unanimous in identifying the Gypsies with the Nat’h, a scattered Indian tribe of itinerant tinkers and musicians, the ‘poor players’ of the great Peninsula, utterly ignorant of horse-couping, cattle-breeding, and even poultry-snatching. And the conviction still holds its ground; only lately my erudite correspondent, Dr. J. Burnard Davis, reminded me of it.
“Of course the humble linguistic labours of a perpetual explorer can hardly be familiar to the professionally learned world; but I cherish a hope that you will aid me in resurrecting my buried and forgotten work.”
FOOTNOTES:
[85] In this reprint of the original letter the only changes are a few verbal corrections and suppressions of the parts elsewhere enlarged upon.
[86] The famous work Die Zigeuner in Europa und Asien, 2 vols. 8vo (Halle, 1844-5). It was followed by two Nachtrags (which I have not seen). The first contains a Syro-Gypsy vocabulary; and the second, notices of their manners and customs in Turkey and other countries. See Zeitschrift d. Deut. Morgen. Gesell., III., pp. 321-325, of 1849; and Ibid., Vol. VII., p. 393.
[87] Dr. Ernest Trumpp’s Sindhi Grammar. (Trübner, 1872.)
[88] The literati of Europe form a guild into which none but members are admitted. At times their absolute disregard of meum and tuum, especially when they plunder an obscure name, is a fine study of trade morality—or its reverse.
[89] These words were afterwards added to my MS. copy.
[90] The full title is Dabistán-i-Mazáhib, or School of Faiths (not “of Manners”): there is a translation by David Shea and Anthony Troyer for the Oriental Trans. Fund, 3 vols. 8vo (Paris, 1843).