n with Hindi in good Romany, it
is quite unmistakable, though I can recall no writer who has attached
sufficient importance to a fact which identifies gypsies with what is
almost preeminently the land of gypsies. I once had the pleasure of
taking a Nile journey in company with Prince S---, a Persian, and in most
cases, when I asked my friend what this or that gypsy word meant, he gave
me its correct meaning, after a little thought, and then added, in his
imperfect English, "What for you want to know such word?--that _old_
word--that no more used. Only common people--old peasant-woman--use that
word--_gentleman_ no want to know him." But I did want to know "him"
very much. I can remember that one night, when our _bon prince_ had thus
held forth, we had dancing girls, or Almeh, on board, and one was very
young and pretty. I was told that she was gypsy, but she spoke no
Romany. Yet her panther eyes and serpent smile and _beaute du diable_
were not Egyptian, but of the Indian, _kalo-ratt_,--the dark blood,
which, once known, is known forever. I forgot her, however, for a long
time, until I went to Moscow, when she was recalled by dancing and
smiles, of which I will speak anon.

I was sitting one day by the Thames, in a gypsy tent, when its master,
Joshua Cooper, now dead, pointing to a swan, asked me for its name in
gypsy. I replied, "_Boro pappin_."

"No, _rya_. _Boro pappin_ is 'a big goose.' _Sakku_ is the real gypsy
word. It is very old, and very few Romany know it."

A few days after, when my Persian friend was dining with me at the
Langham Hotel, I asked him if he knew what Sakku meant. By way of reply,
he, not being able to recall the English word, waved his arms in
wonderful pantomime, indicating some enormous winged creature; and then,
looking into the distance, and pointing as if to some far-vanishing
object, as boys do when they declaim Bryant's address "To a Water-Fowl,"
said,--

"Sakku--one ver' big bird, like one _swen_--but he _not_ swen. He like
the man who carry too much water up-stairs {22} his head in
Constantinople. That bird all same that man. He _sakkia_ all same wheel
that you see get water up-stairs in Egypt."

This was explanatory, but far from satisfactory. The prince, however,
was mindful of me, and the next day I received from the Persian embassy
the word elegantly written in Persian, with the translation, "_a
pelican_." Then it was all clear enough, for the pelican bears wa