n his observations in "Popular Antiquities," is of opinion also
that the Gipsies fled from Hindustan when Timur Beg ravaged India with a
view of making Mohammedans of the heathens, and it is calculated that
during his deeds of blood he butchered 500,000 Indians. Some writers
suppose that the Gipsies, in order to escape the sword of this human
monster, came into Europe through Egypt, and on this account were called
English Gipsies.

In a paper read by Colonel Herriot before the Royal Asiatic Society, he
says that the Gipsies, or Indians--called by some Suders, by others Naths
or Benia, the first signifying rogue, the second dancer or tumbler--are
to be met in large numbers in that part of Hindustan which is watered by
the Ganges, as well as the Malwa, Gujerat, and the Deccan.

The religious crusades to the Holy Land commenced in the year 1095 and
lasted to 1270. It was during the latter part of the time of the
Crusades, and prior to the commencement of the wars by Timur Beg, that
the Gipsies flocked by hundreds of thousands to Asiatic Turkey. While
the rich merchants and princes were trying to outvie each other in their
costly equipages, grandeur, and display of gold in their pilgrimage to
the Holy Land, and the tremendous death-struggles between Christianity,
Idolatry, and Mohammedism, the Gipsies were busily engaged in singing
songs and plundering, and in this work they were encouraged by the
Persians as they passed through their territory. The Persians have
always been friendly to these wandering, loafing Indians, for we find
that during the wars of India by Timur Beg, and other monsters previous,
they were harbouring 20,000 of these poor low-caste and outcast Indians;
and, in fact, the same thing may be said of the other countries they
passed through on their way westward, for we do not read of their being
persecuted in these countries to anything like the extent they have been
in Europe. This, no doubt, arises from the affinity there is between the
Indian, Persian, and Gipsy races, and the dislike the Europeans have
towards idlers, loafers, liars, and thieves; and especially is this so in
England. Gipsy life may find favour in the East, but in the West the
system cannot thrive. A real Englishman hates the man who will not work,
scorns the man who would tell him a lie, and would give the thief who
puts his hands into his pocket the cat-o'-nine-tails most unmercifully.
The persecutions of the Gipsies in this co