The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Gypsies, by Charles G. Leland

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: The Gypsies

Author: Charles G. Leland

Release Date: October 10, 2007 [eBook #22939]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GYPSIES***

Transcribed from the 1882 Houghton, Mifflin and Company edition by David
Price, ccx074@pglaf.org

THE GYPSIES

BY
CHARLES G. LELAND

AUTHOR OF "THE ENGLISH GYPSIES AND THEIR LANGUAGE," "ANGLO-ROMANY
BALLADS," "HANS BREITMANN'S BALLADS," ETC.

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
The Riverside Press, Cambridge

Copyright, 1882,
BY CHARLES G. LELAND.

_All rights reserved_.

PREFACE.

The reader will find in this book sketches of experiences among gypsies
of different nations by one who speaks their language and is conversant
with their ways. These embrace descriptions of the justly famed musical
gypsies of St. Petersburg and Moscow, by whom the writer was received
literally as a brother; of the Austrian gypsies, especially those
composing the first Romany orchestra of that country, selected by Liszt,
and who played for their friend as they declared they had never played
before for any man; and also of the English, Welsh, Oriental, and
American brethren of the dark blood and the tents. I believe that the
account of interviews with American gypsies will possess at least the
charm of novelty, but little having as yet been written on this extensive
and very interesting branch of our nomadic population. To these I have
added a characteristic letter in the gypsy language, with translation by
a lady, legendary stories, poems, and finally the substance of two
papers, one of which I read before the British Philological Society, and
the other before the Oriental Congress at Florence, in 1878. Those who
study ethnology will be interested to learn from these papers,
subsequently combined in an article in