“The women, notwithstanding their almost frightful faces, are covered with amber and coral beads, presents heaped on them by the Joloffs, from a notion that the favours, alone, of these women will be followed by those of fortune. Ugly or handsome, all the young Laaubé females are in request among the Negroes.
“The Laaubés have nothing of their own but their money, their tools, and their asses; the only animals on which they travel. In the woods, they make fires with the dung of the flocks. Ranged round the fires, the men and women pass their leisure time in smoking. The Laaubés have not those characteristic features and high stature which mark the Joloffs, and they seem to form a distinct race. They are exempted from all military service. Each family has its chief, but, over all, there is a superior chief, who commands a whole tribe or nation. He collects the tribute, and communicates with such delegates of the king as receive the imposts: this serves to protect them from all vexation. The Laaubés are idolaters, speak the Poula language, and pretend to tell fortunes.”
[290] Bell, in an account of his journey to Pekin, [1721.] says that upwards of sixty Gipsies had arrived at Tobolsky, on their way to China, but were stopped by the Vice-Governor, for want of passports. They had roamed, during the summer season, from Poland, in small parties, subsisting by selling trinkets, and telling fortunes.
[291] Mr. Borrow says, with reference to the Spanish Gipsy language: “Its grammatical peculiarities have disappeared, the entire language having been modified and subjected to the rules of Spanish grammar, with which it now coincides in syntax, in the conjugation of verbs, and in the declension of its nouns.” We might have naturally expected that of the Gipsy language, in the course of four hundred years, from the people speaking it being so much scattered over the country, and coming so much in contact with the ordinary natives. But something different might be looked for, where the Gipsies have not been persecuted, but allowed to live together in a body, as in Hungary. Of the Hungarian Gipsy language, Mr. Borrow says, that in no part of the world is the Gipsy language better preserved than in Hungary; and that the roving bands of Gipsies from that country, who visit France and Italy, speak the pure Gipsy, with all its grammatical peculiarities. He estimates that the Spanish Gipsy language may consist of four or five thousand words; a sufficient number, one might suppose, to serve the purpose of everyday life. A late writer in the Dublin University Magazine estimates that five thousand words would serve the same purpose in the English language. Four thousand words is a very large language for the Gipsies of Spain to possess, in addition to the ordinary one of the country.
[292] I cannot agree with Mr. Borrow, when he says, that the Gipsies “travelled three thousand miles into Europe, with hatred in their hearts towards the people among whom they settled.” In none of the earliest laws passed against them, is anything said of their being other than thieves, cheats, &c., &c. They seem to have been too politic to commit murder; moreover, it appears to have been foreign to their disposition to do aught but obtain a living in the most cunning manner they could. There is no necessary connection between purloining one’s property and hating one’s person. As long as the Gipsies were not hardly dealt with, they could, naturally, have no actual hatred towards their fellow-creatures. Mr. Borrow attributes none of the spite and hatred of the race towards the community to the severity of the persecutions to which it was exposed, or to that hard feeling with which society has regarded it. These, and the example of the Spaniards, doubtless led the Gitanos to shed the blood of the ordinary natives.
[293] I accidentally got into conversation with an Irishman, in the city of New York, about secret societies, when he mentioned that he was a member of a great many such, indeed, “all of them,” as he expressed it. I said there was one society of which he was not a member, when he began to enumerate them, and at last came to the Zincali. “What,” said I, “are you a member of this society?” “Yes,” said he; “the Zincali, or Gipsy.” He then told me that there are many members of this society in the city of New York; not all members of it, under that name, but of its outposts, if I may so express it. The principal or arch-Gipsy for the city, he said, was a merchant, in —— street, who had in his possession a printed vocabulary, or dictionary, of the language, which was open only to the most thoroughly initiated. In the course of our conversation, it fell out that the native American Gipsy referred to at [page 420] was one of the thoroughly initiated; which circumstance explained a question he had put to me, and which I evaded, by saying that I was not in the habit of telling tales out of school.
In Spain, as we have seen, a Gipsy taught her language to her son from a MS. I doubt not there are MS. if not printed, vocabularies of the Gipsy language among the tribe in Scotland, as well as in other countries.
[294] Among the various means by which the name of Gipsy can be raised up, it may be mentioned, that beginning the word with a capital is one of no little importance. The almost invariable custom with writers, in that respect, has been as if they were describing rats and mice, instead of a race of men.
[295] This sensation, in the minds of the Gipsies, of the perpetuity of their race, creates, in a great measure, its immortality. Paradoxical as it may appear, the way to preserve the existence of a people is to scatter it, provided, however, that it is a race thoroughly distinct from others, to commence with. When, by the force of circumstances, it has fairly settled down into the idea that it is a people, those living in one country become conscious of its existence in others; and hence arises the principal cause of the perpetuity of its existence as a scattered people.
[296] The fact of these Indians, and the aboriginal races found in the countries colonised by Europeans, disappearing so rapidly, prevents our regarding them with any great degree of interest. This circumstance detracts from that idea of dignity which the perpetuity and civilization of their race would inspire in the minds of others.