e, however, gypsy, and not Egyptian. And as she sat
there quietly I wondered how a woman could feel in her heart who was
looked down upon with infinite scorn by an Egyptian, who might justly be
looked down on in his turn with sublime contempt by an average American
Methodist colored whitewasher who "took de 'Ledger.'" Yet there was in
the woman the quiet expression which associates itself with
respectability, and it is worth remarking that whenever a race is greatly
looked down on by another from the stand-point of mere color, as in
America, or mere religion, as in Mahometan lands, it always contains
proportionally a larger number of _decent_ people than are to be found
among those who immediately oppress it. An average Chinese is as a human
being far superior to a hoodlum, and a man of color to the white man who
cannot speak of him or to him except as a "naygur" or a "nigger." It is
when a man realizes that he is superior in _nothing_ else save race,
color, religion, family, inherited fortune, and their contingent
advantages that he develops most readily into the prig and snob.

I spoke to the woman in Romany, using such words as would have been
intelligible to any of her race in any other country; but she did not
understand me, and declared that she could speak nothing but Arabic. At
my request Mahomet explained to her that I had come from a distant
country in Orobba, or Europe, where there were many Rhagarin, who said
that their fathers came from Egypt, and that I wished to know if any in
the old country could speak the old language. She replied that the
Rhagarin of Montesinos could still speak it; but that her people in Egypt
had lost the tongue. Mahomet, in translating, here remarked that
Montesinos meant Mount Sinai or Syria. I then asked her if the Rhagarin
had no peculiar name for themselves, and she answered, "Yes; we call
ourselves Tataren."

This at least was satisfactory. All over Southern Germany and in Norway
the gypsies are called Tartaren, and though the word means Tartars, and
is misapplied, it indicates the race. The woman seemed to be much
gratified at the interest I manifested in her people. I gave her a
double piaster, and asked for its value in blue glass armlets. She gave
me four, and as I turned to depart called me back, and with a
good-natured smile handed me four more as a present. This generosity was
very gypsy-like, and very unlike the habitual meanness of the ordinary
Egyptian.