ies," certain ethnological false shadows and philological
mystifications, the little glow-worm in the hedge-bottom on a dark night,
which our great minds have been running after for generations, and
"natural consequences," "objects sought," and "certain results"--we shall
find that the same thing has happened to the Gipsies, or Indians,
centuries ago, that has happened to all nations at one time or other.
There can be no doubt but that terrible internal struggles took place,
and hundreds of thousands of the inhabitants were butchered in cold
blood, in India, during the tenth, eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth
centuries; there can be no question, also, that the 200,000,000
inhabitants, in this over-populated country, would suffer, in various
forms, the direst consequences of war, famine, and bloodshed; and, it is
more than probable, that hundreds of thousands of the idle, low-caste
Indians, too lazy to work, too cowardly to fight in open day, with no
honourable ambition or true religious instincts in their nature, other
than to aspire to the position similar to bands of Nihilists, Communists,
Socialists, or Fenians of the present day, would emigrate to Wallachia,
Roumania, or Moldavia, which countries, at that day, were looked upon as
England is at the present time. The Gipsies, many centuries ago, as now,
did not believe in yokes being placed round their necks. The fact of
200,000 of these emigrants, about whom, after all, there is not much
mystery, emigrating to Wallachia in such large numbers, proves to my mind
that there was a greater power behind them and before them than is
usually supposed to be the case, and than that attending wandering
minstrels, impelling them forward. Mohammedism, soldiers, and death
would not be looked upon by the Gipsies as pleasant companions. By
fleeing for their lives they escaped death, and Wallachia was to the
Gipsies, for some time, what America has been to the Fenians--an ark of
safety and the land of Nod. Many of the Gipsies themselves imagine that
they are the descendants of Ishmael, from the simple fact that it was
decreed by God, they say, that his descendants should wander about in
tents, and they were to be against everybody, and everybody against them.
This erroneous impression wants removing, or the Gipsies will never rise
in position.

In no country in the world is there so much caste feeling, devilish
jealousy, and diabolical revenge manifested as in India. These are t