“I again find this name (p. 44) under the form of Djatt and Djatty in a fifth account of the same matter by the Persian Mirkhond (fifteenth century); and, after having remarked that the same name is given by the Kamûz under the form Zotth as the Arabian equivalent of Djatt, an Indian race, and that, according to Ellious Bocthor, it serves precisely, under the form Zott, to designate the Gipsies at Damascus, I start from thence to gather from the important Mémoire, etc., sur l’Inde, by M. Reinaud, a few data upon the history of the Zath or Djatt of India, and to establish, pp. 45-48, the probable identity of this race and the Gipsies. I repeat that this is precisely the essential object of my ‘Additional Note.’
“I am not an Orientalist, and besides, as I have not failed to mention, this note of ten large pages was written when my memoir was already in the press. But I had the kind assistance of the learned and lamented M. Reinaud, to whose memory I am glad here to render my tribute of gratitude.
“Also, the eminent scholar of Leipzig, the same who had first opened the way for discovering the connexion between the Gipsies and the Djatt, Professor Fleischer, in a general account embracing the scientific publications of three years (the same Zeitschrift, Vol IV., 1850, p. 452), has not disdained to mention my work in these terms:
“Bataillard, the author, etc., taking up the supplement to Pott, published in our journal, III., pp. 321-335, has, with the aid of Reinaud, shown the great probability of the opinion that the Zigeuner descend from the G’at or G’et, the most ancient inhabitants of the north-west of India; and might not the name Zigeuner, Zingani, Zingari, [Greek: Τζιγγανοι: Tzinganoi], etc., by the intermedium of the form Gitanos, be derived from the name of this people?
“This last supposition of Professor Fleischer’s does not appear to me admissible, for there is no doubt that Gitanos is derived from Egipcianos, as Gipsies is from Egyptians.
“I come at last to Professor Pott’s article ‘Last Contributions towards the Knowledge of the Gipsies and their Language,’ in the same Zeitschrift of 1853 (Vol. VII., pp. 389-399), mentioned in the Academy, quoting Professor de Goeje, as the starting-point for the identification of the Gipsy and the Jat. What do we find there upon this subject? The following lines (p. 393):
“I am indebted to the obliging friendship of Professor Fleischer, of Leipzig (see our Zeitschrift, III., p. 326), for an important passage upon the Zuth of Hamza Ispahani, whose Annals are anterior to the Shahnameh, as M. Bataillard demonstrates in his Nouvelles Recherches, p. 42. For the origin of the Gipsies we ought to consider very attentively these Zotth, who, according to what Rödiger communicates to me, are also confounded with the Zengi (called also Aethiopes, and whose name is even sometimes employed for Zingari: see my Zigeuner, i., p. 45). In fact, the Zuth appear to be the same as the Jats, or, according to the Turkish Kamûz, Tchatt, concerning whom we find in Elliot, Biogr. Index, i. 270-27 (sic) (and especially, Ibid. in Masson, Journey to Kelat, pp. 351-353), an interesting article. See, moreover, Reinaud, Mém. sur l’Inde, 1849, p. 273, note 3 upon the Dschats, which may also be compared with the Proverb. Arab. of Freytag, Vol. II., p. 580 (communicated also by Fleischer, to which I must add the further statement of Bataillard). Above all, it would be very important for us to have some details concerning their language.
“Thus the learned professor of Halle here contents himself with the fresh mention of the passage in Hamza, for which he was indebted to Fleischer, and with pointing out some fresh sources to be consulted for the Zotth, Jats, etc., which had been made known to him by the same savant, and refers besides to my ‘further statements (weitere Auseinandersetzung)’; and, as he afterwards devotes a long page to the analysis of the principal part of my Nouvelles Recherches, which he had mentioned at full length (pp. 389-390), and which he quotes again in several other places, one would think that he had done enough.
“This mention has none the less escaped, according to all appearances, Professor de Goeje, of Leyden, who nevertheless was acquainted with this passage of Pott (since he mentions it, p. 16, so as to induce the belief that the learned professor of Halle was the first to establish a connexion between the Zott or Djatt and the Tsigans), and who quotes in several places my long articles in the Revue Critique on ‘Les derniers travaux relatifs aux Bohémiens dans l’Europe Orientale’ (of which the tirage à part forms an octavo volume of 80 pages, 1872), but who says not a word of my work of 1849. This is an omission such as the most conscientious savants sometimes make; and I do not intend to address a reproach to the learned professor of Leyden, whose work must besides have all the superiority belonging to a deep study made twenty-five years later by a most competent Orientalist. But since the question of priority upon this subject has been raised in your paper, you will, I think, perceive, in perusing what I wrote in 1849, which I send you with this letter, that I have a right not to be completely forgotten, especially when it concerns an interesting point in the history of the Gipsies upon which I have hitherto published only some fragmentary works, but to the study of which I have devoted so many years.
“My letter is already long: allow me, nevertheless, to add yet a few more words. Although I have in my possession the work of Professor de Goeje (the author has had the kindness to send it to me), I cannot say that I am acquainted with it, because I cannot read Dutch, and have not yet found an opportunity of having it translated, which I doubly regret under the present circumstances. I think, however, that I may say that the point treated by the professor of Leyden, and twenty-five years ago by myself, although it be already sufficiently complex, is only one side of the very much more complicated question of the origin of the Gipsies, considered in all its bearings. I hope to be able to show that the historical documents of Eastern Europe, of Western Asia, and of Egypt itself furnish very important data, hitherto very insufficiently considered, upon the question. I think I have also the means of giving an explanation of the word tsigan, and of the other names approaching to it, more certain and more interesting than those proposed by Professor de Goeje and Mr. Burton.