ram
Gour, a ruler of the Sassanian dynasty in Persia, ten thousand minstrels,
male and female, called _Luri_. Though lands were allotted to them, with
corn and cattle, they became from the beginning irreclaimable vagabonds.
Of their descendants, as they now exist, Sir Henry Pottinger says:--

"They bear a marked affinity to the gypsies of Europe. {335} They
speak a dialect peculiar to themselves, have a king to each troupe,
and are notorious for kidnapping and pilfering. Their principal
pastimes are drinking, dancing, and music. . . . They are invariably
attended by half a dozen of bears and monkeys that are broke in to
perform all manner of grotesque tricks. In each company there are
always two or three members who profess . . . modes of divining,
which procure them a ready admission into every society."

This account, especially with the mention of trained bears and monkeys,
identifies them with the Ricinari, or bear-leading gypsies of Syria (also
called Nuri), Turkey, and Roumania. A party of these lately came to
England. We have seen these Syrian Ricinari in Egypt. They are
unquestionably gypsies, and it is probable that many of them accompanied
the early migration of Jats and Doms.

The Nats or Nuts are Indian wanderers, who, as Dr. J. Forbes Watson
declares, in "The People of India," "correspond to the European gypsy
tribes," and were in their origin probably identical with the Luri. They
are musicians, dancers, conjurers, acrobats, fortune-tellers,
blacksmiths, robbers, and dwellers in tents. They eat everything, except
garlic. There are also in India the Banjari, who are spoken of by
travelers as "gypsies." They are traveling merchants or peddlers. Among
all these wanderers there is a current slang of the roads, as in England.
This slang extends even into Persia. Each tribe has its own, but the
name for the generally spoken _lingua franca_ is _Rom_.

It has never been pointed out, however, by any writer, that there is in
Northern and Central India a distinct tribe, which is regarded, even by
the Nats and Doms and Jats themselves, as peculiarly and distinctly
gypsy. There are, however, such wanderers, and the manner in which I
became aware of their existence was, to say the least, remarkable. I was
going one day along the Marylebone Road when I met a very dark man,
poorly clad, whom I took for a gypsy; and no wonder, as his eyes had the
very expression of the pur