and, of course, as believers in the Christian faith,

notwithstanding that they subsisted by the perpetration of every
kind of robbery and imposition; Aventinus (ANNALES BOIORUM, 826)

speaking of them says: 'Adeo tamen vana superstitio hominum
mentes, velut lethargus invasit, ut eos violari nefas putet, atque

grassari, furari, imponere passim sinant.'
This singular story of banishment from Egypt, and Wandering through

the world for a period of seven years, for inhospitality displayed
to the Virgin, and which I find much difficulty in attributing to

the invention of people so ignorant as the Romas, tallies strangely
with the fate foretold to the ancient Egyptians in certain chapters

of Ezekiel, so much so, indeed, that it seems to be derived from
that source. The Lord is angry with Egypt because its inhabitants

have been a staff of reed to the house of Israel, and thus he
threatens them by the mouth of his prophet.

'I will make the land of Egypt desolate in the midst of the
countries that are desolate, and her cities among the cities that

are laid waste shall be desolate forty years: and I will scatter
the Egyptians among the nations, and will disperse them through the

countries.' Ezek., chap. xxix. v. 12. 'Yet thus saith the Lord
God; at the end of forty years will I gather the Egyptians from the

people whither they were scattered.' v. 13.
'Thus saith the Lord; I will make the multitude of Egypt to cease,

by the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon.' Chap. xxx. v. 10.
'And I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and disperse

them among the countries; and they shall know that I am the Lord.'
Chap. xxx. v. 26.

The reader will at once observe that the apocryphal tale which the
Romas brought into Germany, concerning their origin and wanderings,

agrees in every material point with the sacredprophecy. The
ancient Egyptians were to be driven from their country and

dispersed amongst the nations, for a period of forty years, for
having been the cause of Israel's backsliding, and for not having

known the Lord, - the modern pseudo-Egyptians are to be dispersed
among the nations for seven years, for having denied hospitality to

the Virgin and her child. The prophecy seems only to have been
remodelled for the purpose of suiting the taste of the time; as no

legend possessed much interest in which the Virgin did not figure,
she and her child are here introduced instead of the Israelites,

and the Lord of Heaven offended with the Egyptians; and this legend
appears to have been very well received in Germany, for a time at

least, for, as Aventinus observes, it was esteemed a crime of the
first magnitude to offer any violence to the Egyptian pilgrims, who

were permitted to rob on the highway, to commit larceny, and to
practise every species of imposition with impunity.

The tale, however, of the Romas could hardly have been invented by
themselves, as they were, and still are, utterly unacquainted with

the Scripture; it probably originated amongst the priests and
learned men of the east of Europe, who, startled by the sudden

apparition of bands of people foreign in appearance and language,
skilled in divination and the occult arts, endeavoured to find in

Scripture a clue to such a phenomenon; the result of which was,
that the Romas of Hindustan were suddenly transformed into Egyptian

penitents, a title which they have ever since borne in various
parts of Europe. There are no means of ascertaining whether they

themselves believed from the first in this story; they most
probably took it on credit, more especially as they could give no

account of themselves, there being every reason for supposing that
from time immemorial they had existed in the East as a thievish

wandering sect, as they at present do in Europe, without history or
traditions, and unable to look back for a period of eighty years.

The tale moreover answered their purpose, as beneath the garb of
penitence they could rob and cheat with impunity, for a time at

least. One thing is certain, that in whatever manner the tale of
their Egyptian descentoriginated, many branches of the sect place

implicit confidence in it at the present day, more especially those
of England and Spain.

Even at the present time there are writers who contend that the
Romas are the descendants of the ancient Egyptians, who were

scattered amongst the nations by the Assyrians. This belief they
principally found upon particular parts of the prophecy from which

we have already quoted, and there is no lack of plausibility in the
arguments which they deduce therefrom. The Egyptians, say they,

were to fall upon the open fields, they were not to be brought
together nor gathered; they were to be dispersed through the

countries, their idols were to be destroyed, and their images were
to cease out of Noph! In what people in the world do these

denunciations appear to be verified save the Gypsies? - a people
who pass their lives in the open fields, who are not gathered

together, who are dispersed through the countries, who have no
idols, no images, nor any fixed or certain religion.

In Spain, the want of religion amongst the Gitanos was speedily
observed, and became quite as notorious as their want of honesty;

they have been styled atheists, heathen idolaters, and Moors. In
the little book of Quinones', we find the subject noticed in the

following manner:-
'They do not understand what kind of thing the church is, and never

enter it but for the purpose of committing sacrilege. They do not
know the prayers; for I examined them myself, males and females,

and they knew them not, or if any, very imperfectly. They never
partake of the Holy Sacraments, and though they marry relations

they procure no dispensations. (35) No one knows whether they are
baptized. One of the five whom I caused to be hung a few days ago

was baptized in the prison, being at the time upwards of thirty
years of age. Don Martin Fajardo says that two Gitanos and a

Gitana, whom he hanged in the village of Torre Perojil, were
baptized at the foot of the gallows, and declared themselves Moors.

'They invariably look out, when they marry, if we can call theirs
marrying, for the woman most dexterous in pilfering and deceiving,

caring nothing whether she is akin to them or married already, (36)
for it is only necessary to keep her company and to call her wife.

Sometimes they purchase them from their husbands, or receive them
as pledges: so says, at least, Doctor Salazar de Mendoza.

'Friar Melchior of Guelama states that he heard asserted of two
Gitanos what was never yet heard of any barbarous nation, namely,

that they exchanged their wives, and that as one was more comely
looking than the other, he who took the handsome woman gave a

certain sum of money to him who took the ugly one. The licentiate
Alonzo Duran has certified to me, that in the year 1623-4, one

Simon Ramirez, captain of a band of Gitanos, repudiated Teresa
because she was old, and married one called Melchora, who was young

and handsome, and that on the day when the repudiation took place
and the bridal was celebrated he was journeying along the road, and

perceived a company feasting and revelling beneath some trees in a
plain within the jurisdiction of the village of Deleitosa, and that

on demanding the cause he was told that it was on account of Simon
Ramirez marrying one Gitana and casting off another; and that the

repudiated woman told him, with an agony of tears, that he
abandoned her because she was old, and married another because she

was young. Certainly Gitanos and Gitanas confessed before Don
Martin Fajardo that they did not really marry, but that in their

banquets and festivals they selected the woman whom they liked, and
that it was lawful for them to have as many as three mistresses,

and on that account they begat so many children. They never keep
fasts nor any ecclesiastical command. They always eat meat, Friday

and Lent not excepted; the morning when I seized those whom I
afterwards executed, which was in Lent, they had three lambs which

they intended to eat for their dinner that day. - Quinones, page
13.