. It is, however, hardly fair to speak
in these general terms of the gipsy race at present. As already stated,
many of them occupy very honourable positions in society; and some years
since a German writer predicted what is now taking place, namely, a
fusion of the gipsies with the Roumanians.[37] We were informed by a
learned philologist in Bucarest that this process is rapidly going on;
the castes are not so clearly defined; intermarriages with Roumanians
are of daily occurrence; many of the gipsies do not even know their own
language; and their number is rapidly diminishing. Intellectually they
are talented, but lazy. Many of the men, and still more of the women,
are very handsome. Although every gradation of shade is to be found
amongst their faces, pretty much as one sees in the negro race in the
United States, the features of the Roumanian gipsies are generally
well-formed Indo-European. Nothing is more striking than to see two
women pass each other, or walking side by side: the one a Roumanian,
fair, florid, and blue-eyed, the other a gipsy with a skin as black as a
sloe, jet-black hair, and black eyes, and yet the features similar in
both cases, and each woman in her way handsome.[38]

Many stories have been related concerning the gipsies, and their
character has often been invested with romance; but we cannot afford
them more space, and we are loth to give _any_ to another class of
beings whom one sees in Roumania, namely, the self-mutilated sect of
Lipovans, well known to persons who are, or rather were formerly,
acquainted with Russia, out of which country they were driven when they
took up their abode in Roumania. They are chiefly hackney-carriage
drivers, and wear the Russian dress, consisting of a long cloth coat
bound at the waist by a belt, and a round peaked cap. We were informed
that the police are making efforts to get hold of the leaders of this
sect, which is undoubtedly a blot upon the civilisation of any country
in which its members are to be found.

[Footnote 35: Raicewich gives a similar account of them in 1789.]

[Footnote 36: Wilkinson, pp. 168-176.]

[Footnote 37: 'Und da sie ein sehr schoener Volksstamm sind, und
andrerseits die uebrige Bevoelkerung sie darchans nicht zurueckstoesst, so
sicht nichts entgegen dass sie in einer ziemlich nahen Zukunft mit der
Masse der roumaenischen Bevoelkerung verschmelzen.'--Petermann's
Mittheilungen, Ergaenzungsheft 4, 8. 12. Gotha: J. Perthes.]

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