ple who dwelt
amongst thickets and furze bushes, in tents as tawny as their faces, and
whom the generality of mankind designated, and with much semblance of
justice, as thieves and vagabonds. But where did this speech come from,
and who were they who spoke it? These were questions which I could not
solve, and which Jasper himself, when pressed, confessed his inability to
answer. 'But, whoever we be, brother,' said he, 'we are an old people,
and not what folks in general imagine, broken gorgios; and, if we are not
Egyptians, we are at any rate Rommany Chals!'

'Rommany Chals! I should not wonder after all,' said I, 'that these
people had something to do with the founding of Rome. Rome, it is said,
was built by vagabonds, who knows but that some tribe of the kind settled
down thereabouts, and called the town which they built after their name;
but whence did they come originally? ah! there is the difficulty.'

But abandoning these questions, which at that time were far too profound
for me, I went on studying the language, and at the same time the
characters and manners of these strange people. My rapid progress in the
former astonished, while it delighted, Jasper. 'We'll no longer call you
Sap-engro, brother,' said he; 'but rather Lav-engro, which in the
language of the gorgios meaneth Word-master.' 'Nay, brother,' said Tawno
Chikno, with whom I had become very intimate, 'you had better call him
Cooro-mengro, I have put on _the gloves_ with him, and find him a pure
fist-master; I like him for that, for I am a Cooro-mengro myself, and was
born at Brummagem.'

'I likes him for his modesty,' said Mrs. Chikno; 'I never hears any ill
words come from his mouth, but, on the contrary, much sweet language.
His talk is golden, and he has taught my eldest to say his prayers in
Rommany, which my rover had never the grace to do.' 'He is the pal of my
rom,' said Mrs. Petulengro, who was a very handsome woman, 'and therefore
I likes him, and not the less for his being a rye; folks calls me
high-minded, and perhaps I have reason to be so; before I married Pharaoh
I had an offer from a lord--I likes the young rye, and, if he chooses to
follow us, he shall have my sister. What say you, mother? should not the
young rye have my sister Ursula?'

'I am going to my people,' said Mrs. Herne, placing a bundle upon a
donkey, which was her own peculiar property; 'I am going to Yorkshire,
for I can stand this no longer. You say you like