and condemned to wander for seven years in want
and misery. These chroniclers add that they were very honest people, who
scrupulously followed all the practices of the Christian religion; that
they were poorly clad, but that they had gold and silver in abundance;
that they lived well, and paid for everything they had; and that, at the
end of seven years, they went away to return home, as they said. However,
whether because a considerable number remained on the road, or because
they had been reinforced by others of the same tribe during the year, a
troop of fifty men, accompanied by a number of hideous women and filthy
children, made their appearance in the neighbourhood of Augsburg. These
vagabonds gave out that they were exiles from Lower Egypt, and pretended
to know the art of predicting coming events. It was soon found out that
they were much less versed in divination and in the occult sciences than
in the arts of plundering, roguery, and cheating.

In the following year a similar horde, calling themselves Saracens,
appeared at Sisteron, in Provence; and on the 18th. of July, 1422, a
chronicler of Bologna mentions the arrival in that town of a troop of
foreigners, commanded by a certain Andre, Duke of Egypt, and composed of
at least one hundred persons, including women and children. They encamped
inside and outside the gate _di Galiera_, with the exception of the duke,
who lodged at the inn _del Re_. During the fifteen days which they spent
at Bologna a number of the people of the town went to see them, and
especially to see "the wife of the duke," who, it was said, knew how to
foretell future events, and to tell what was to happen to people, what
their fortunes would be, the number of their children, if they were good
or bad, and many other things (Fig. 370). Few men, however, left the house
of the so-called Duke of Egypt without having their purses stolen, and but
few women escaped without having the skirts of their dresses cut. The
Egyptian women walked about the town in groups of six or seven, and whilst
some were talking to the townspeople, telling them their fortunes, or
bartering in shops, one of their number would lay her hands on anything
which was within reach. So many robberies were committed in this way, that
the magistrates of the town and the ecclesiastical authorities forbad the
inhabitants from visiting the Egyptians' camp, or from having any
intercourse with them, under penalty of excommunication and o