CHAPTER I.

_Various Appellations of these People_.

IT is not uncommon for the same people to be called by different names, in different nations; such is the case with the Gipseys. The French received their first accounts of them from Bohemia; which occasioned their giving them the name of Bohemians (_Bohémiens_); the Dutch, supposing they came from Egypt, called them Heathens (_Heydens_). In Denmark, Sweden, and some parts of Germany, Tartars were thought of: the Moors and Arabians, perceiving the propensity the Gipseys have to thieving, adopted the name _Charami_ (robbers) for them. In Hungary, they were formerly called Pharaohites (_Pharaoh nepek_, Pharaoh’s people); and the vulgar, in Transylvania, continue that name for them. The English do not differ much from these latter (calling them Egyptians—Gipseys); any more than the Portuguese and Spaniards (_Gitanos_). The Clementines, in Smyrnia, use the appellation _Madjub_; and the inhabitants of the lesser Bucharia, that of _Diajii_. The name of Zigeuner has obtained the most general adoption: the Gipseys are so called not only in all Germany, Italy, and Hungary (_Tzigany_), but frequently in Transylvania, Wallachia, and Moldavia (_Cyganis_). Moreover the Turks, and other eastern nations, have no other than this name for them (_Tschingenés_); and perhaps the before-cited Diajii of the Bucharians may be the very same. It has been said, they call themselves Moors; but that is false; Moor is only an adjunct, not the name of any people: it is really a pity, since this name would have been so fair a pretence to make Amorites of them, as some writers have done! It is not by any means proved, that the modern Greeks called them _Athingans_; this opinion is supported more by the arbitrary assertions of some learned men, than by real facts: which is also the case with the rest of the catalogue of names that have been dispersed, in various treatises on the origin of the Gipseys; as will be hereafter demonstrated.