this fact seems originally to have arisen the
notion that they were Egyptians. But this seems less like an assertion
of their origin than like a piece of Scriptural phraseology. The
Hussites used in that way a Biblical imagery, like the Puritans of a
later age. Like the Puritans, they called their opponents Moabites,
Amalekites, and so on. With the Puritans, Egypt was always "the house of
bondage," and that name was the common designation of any place of
persecution.

Grellman refers to the name Polgar as Indian, and as common with the
Gypsies; but he does not notice that the men in all the original Gypsy
parties bore such sufficiently Christian appellations as Michael,
Andrew, John, and Peter. _Rommany_ is the Gypsy name for a Gypsy, and
this is referred to the Sanscrit _Rama_, man, by one author, and by
others to the Coptic _Rom_. Either is possible, but sufficiently remote.
By the kind of deception referred to above, which made the Gypsies call
themselves Catholics when in Catholic countries, it is probable that
they may sometimes have gone so far as to say that they were
Romans,--that is, adherents of Rome,--and habit may have fastened the
name. This derivation is as good as either of the others.

But the language of the Gypsies has been most relied upon to prove their
derivation from Hindostan, both by Grellman and Borrow. Remarkable
similarities have been shown to exist between the Hindoo dialects and
the Gypsy tongue. But the argument of language is better for Bohemian
than for Hindoo origin. The Bohemians were Cechs, a branch of the great
Slavic race of undoubted Asiatic origin; and the Cech language descended
from the Sanscrit almost as directly as the Hindoo dialects did. Here is
a good reason why the Hindoo dialects and the Gypsy tongue--if the
Gypsies were Bohemians--should closely resemble one another. They were
from the same parent stem. The learned Buesching said, "The Gypsy
language is a mixture of corrupt words from the Wallachian, Slavonian,
Hungarian, and other nations." These are the cognate languages of the
Slavic race, all descended from the same source, and that also the
source of the Cech. The first list of Gypsy words ever made was cited to
prove an Egyptian origin, and they were Slavic. That was, perhaps, the
best list ever made, as later ones show the results of the use of the
languages of the various lands in which the Gypsies wander.

The complexion, habits, and character of the Gypsies re