ger it like a swagler's
toov," "When a blind-worm dies it is as hard as a stick, and you can
break it like a pipe-stem." They also believe that the Nag is gifted, so
far as his will goes, with incredible malignity, and say of him--

"If he could dick sim's he can shoon,
He wouldn't mukk mush or grai jal an the drum."

"If he could see as well as he can hear, he would not allow man or horse
to go on the road."

The Hindi alphabet Deva Nagari, "the writing of the gods," is commonly
called Nagari. A common English Gipsy word for writing is "niggering."
"He niggered sar he could pooker adree a chinamangree." The resemblance
between _nagari_ and _nigger_ may, it is true, be merely accidental, but
the reader, who will ascertain by examination of the vocabulary the
proportion of Rommany words unquestionably Indian, will admit that the
terms have probably a common origin.

From Sanskrit to English Gipsy may be regarded as a descent "from the
Nile to a street-gutter," but it is amusing at least to find a passable
parallel for this simile. _Nill_ in Gipsy is a rivulet, a river, or a
gutter. Nala is in Hindustani a brook; nali, a kennel: and it has been
conjectured that the Indian word indicates that of the great river of
Egypt.

All of my readers have heard of the Nautch girls, the so-called
_bayaderes_ or dancing-girls of India; but very few, I suppose, are aware
that their generic name is remotely preserved in several English Gipsy
words. Nachna in Hindustani means to dance, while the Nats, who are a
kind of Gipsies, are generally jugglers, dancers, and musicians. A
_natua_ is one of these Nats, and in English Gipsy _nautering_ means
going about with music. Other attractions may be added, but, as I have
heard a Gipsy say, "it always takes music to go _a-nauterin_' or
_nobbin_'."

_Naubat_ in the language of the Hindu Nats signifies "time, turn, and
instruments of music sounding at the gate of a great man, at certain
intervals." "Nobbet," which is a Gipsy word well known to all itinerant
negro minstrels, means to go about with music to get money. "To nobbet
round the tem, bosherin'." It also implies time or turn, as I inferred
from what I was told on inquiry. "You can shoon dovo at the wellgooras
when yeck rakkers the waver, You jal and nobbet." "You can hear that at
the fairs when one says to the other, You go and nobbet," meaning, "It is
your turn to play now."

_Nachna_, to dance (Hindustani), appe