rabic _z_ being the
legitimate representative of the Indian _dj_. Now Zuth or Zatt, as it is
indifferently written, is one of the designations of the Syrian Gipsies,
and Djatt is the tribal appellative of the ancient Indian race still
widely diffused throughout the Punjab and Beloochistan. Thus we find
that the modern Lury, who may, without fear of error, be classed as
Persian Gipsies, derive a traditional origin from certain Indian
minstrels called by an Arab author of the tenth century _Zuth_, and by a
Persian historian of the fifteenth, _Djatt_, a name claimed, on the one
hand by the Gipsies frequenting the neighbourhood of Damascus, and on the
other by a people dwelling in the valley of the Indus." The Djatts were
averse to religious speculation, and rejected all sectarian observances;
the Hindu was mystical and meditative, and a slave to the superstitions
of caste. From a remote period there were Djatt settlements along the
shores of the Persian Gulf, plainly indicating the route by which the
Gipsies travelled westward from India, as I have before intimated, rather
than endure the life of an Indian slave under the Mohammedan
task-masters. Liberty! liberty! free and wild as partridges, with no
disposition to earn their bread by the sweat of the brow, ran through
their nature like an electric wire, which the chirp of a hedge-sparrow in
spring-time would bring into action, and cause them to bound like wild
asses to the lanes, commons, and moors. They have always refused to
submit to the Mohammedan faith: in fact, the Djatts have accepted neither
Brahma nor Budda, and have never adopted any national religion whatever.
The church of the Gipsies, according to a popular saying in Hungary, "was
built of bacon, and long ago eaten by the dogs." Captain Richard F.
Burton wrote in 1849, in his work called the "Sindh, and the Races that
Inhabit the Valley of the Indus:"--"It seems probable, from the
appearance and other peculiarities of the race, that the Djatts are
connected by consanguinity with that singular race, the Gipsies." Some
writers have endeavoured to prove that the Gipsies were formerly
Egyptians; but, from several causes, they have never been able to show
conclusively that such was the case. The wandering Gipsies in Egypt, at
the present day, are not looked upon by the Egyptians as in any way
related to them. Then, again, others have tried to prove that the
Gipsies are the descendants of Hagar; but this ar