ing, a tent, but a tent is a dwelling,
or stopping-place; and so from earliest Aryan time, the word _tan_ is
like Alabama, or "here we rest," and may be found in _tun_, the ancestor
of town, and in _stan_, as in Hindostan,--and if I blunder, so much the
better for the philological gentlemen, who, of all others, most delight
in setting erring brothers right, and never miss a chance to show,
through others' shame, how much they know.

There was a bark of a dog, and a voice said, "The Romany rye!" They had
not seen us, but the dog knew, and they knew his language.

"_Sarishan ryor_!"

"_O boro duvel atch' pa leste_!" (The great Lord be on you!) This is
not a common Romany greeting. It is of ancient days and archaic. Sixty
or seventy years ago it was current. Old Gentilla Cooper, the famous
fortune-teller of the Devil's Dike, near Brighton, knew it, and when she
heard it from me she was moved,--just as a very old negro in London was,
when I said to him, "_Sady_, uncle." I said it because I had recognized
by the dog's bark that it was Sam Smith's tan. Sam likes to be
considered as _deep_ Romany. He tries to learn old gypsy words, and he
affects old gypsy ways. He is pleased to be called Petulengro, which
means Smith. Therefore, my greeting was a compliment.

In a few minutes we were in camp and at home. We talked of many things,
and among others of witches. It is remarkable that while the current
English idea of a witch is that of an old woman who has sold herself to
Satan, and is a distinctly marked character, just like Satan himself,
that of the witch among gypsies is general and Oriental. There is no
Satan in India. Mrs. Smith--since dead--held that witches were to be
found everywhere. "You may know a natural witch," she said, "by certain
signs. One of these is straight hair which curls at the ends. Such
women have it in them."

It was only recently, as I write, that I was at a very elegant art
reception, which was fully reported in the newspapers. And I was very
much astonished when a lady called my attention to another young and very
pretty lady, and expressed intense disgust at the way the latter wore her
hair. It was simply parted in the middle, and fell down on either side,
smooth as a water-fall, and then broke into curls at the ends, just as
water, after falling, breaks into waves and rapids. But as she spoke, I
felt it all, and saw that Mrs. Petulengro was in the right. The girl
with the