gypt call themselves Saaideh--_i.e_., people from Said, or Upper
Egypt (_vide_ Kremer, i. 138-148). According to Von Gobineau, they are
called in Syria Kurbati, [ARABIC TEXT which cannot be reproduced] (_vide_
'Zeitschrift der D. M. G.,' xi. 690)."

More than this of the Gipsies in Egypt the deponent sayeth not. He has
interrogated the oracles, and they were dumb. That there are Roms in the
land of Mizr his eyes have shown, but whether any of them can talk
Rommany is to him as yet unknown.

* * * * *

Since the foregoing was printed, I have found in the _Journal of the
Royal Asiatic Society_ (Vol. XVI., Part 2, 1856, p. 285), an article on
The Gipsies in Egypt, by the late Captain Newbold, F.R.S., which gives
much information on this mysterious subject. The Egyptian Gipsies, as
Captain Newbold found, are extremely jealous and suspicious of any
inquiry into their habits and mode of life, so that he had great
difficulty in tracing them to their haunts, and inducing them to
unreserved communication.

These Gipsies are divided into three kinds, the Helebis, Ghagars
(Rhagarin), and Nuris or Nawer. Of the Rhagars there are sixteen
thousand. The Helebi are most prosperous of all these, and their women,
who are called Fehemis, are the only ones who practice fortune-telling
and sorcery. The male Helebis are chiefly ostensible dealers in horses
and cattle, but have a bad character for honesty. Some of them are to be
found in every official department in Egypt, though not known to be
Gipsies--(a statement which casts much light on the circumstance that
neither the chief of police himself nor the Shekh of the Rhagarin, with
all their alleged efforts, could find a single Gipsy for me). The
Helebis look down on the Rhagarin, and do not suffer their daughters to
intermarry with them, though they themselves marry Rhagarin girls. The
Fehemi, or Helebi women, are noted for their chastity; the Rhagarin are
not. The men of the Rhagarin are tinkers and blacksmiths, and sell cheap
jewellery or instruments of iron and brass. Many of them are athletes,
mountebanks, and monkey-exhibitors; the women are rope-dancers and
musicians. They are divided into classes, bearing the names of Romani,
Meddahin, Ghurradin, Barmeki (Barmecides), Waled Abu Tenna, Beit er
Rafai, Hemmeli, &c. The Helebis and Rhagarin are distinctly different in
their personal appearance from the other inhabitants of Egypt, having the
eyes and expression peculia