And here I may well be allowed an unintended digression, as to whether Bunyan were really a Gipsy.  In a previous chapter of this work, I, with little thought of Bunyan, narrated the fact that an intelligent tinker, and a full Gipsy, asked me last summer in London, if I thought that the Rommany were of the Ten Tribes of Israel?  When John Bunyan tells us explicitly that he once asked his father whether he and his relatives were of the race of the Israelites—­he having then never seen a Jew—­and when he carefully informs his readers that his descent was of a low and inconsiderable generation, “my father’s house being of that rank that is meanest and most despised of all the families of the land,” there remains no rational doubt whatever that Bunyan was indeed a Rom of the Rommany. “Applico” of which, as my own special and particular Gipsy is wont to say—­it is worth noting that the magician Shakespeare, who knew everything, showed himself superior to many modern dramatists in being aware that the tinkers of England had, not a peculiar cant, but a special language.

And now for the letters.  One day Ward’engro of the K’allis’s Gav, asked me to write him a letter to his daughter, in Rommany.  So I began to write from his dictation.  But being, like all his race, unused to literary labour, his lively imagination continually led him astray, and as I found amusement in his so doing, it proved to be an easy matter to induce him to wander off into scenes of gipsy life, which, however edifying they might be to my reader, would certainly not have the charm of novelty to the black-eyed lady to whom they were supposed to be addressed.  However, as I read over from time to time to my Rommany chal what I had written, his delight in actually hearing his own words read from writing, partook of all the pride of successful authorship—­it was, my dear sir, like your delight over your first proof sheet.

Well, this was the letter.  A translation will be found following it.

THE PANNI GAV, Dec. 16, 1871.

MY KAMLI CHAVI,—­Kushti bak!  My cammoben to turo mush an’ turo dadas an’ besto bak.  We’ve had wafri bak, my pen’s been naflo this here cooricus, we’re doin’ very wafro and couldn’t lel no wongur.  Your dui pals are kairin kushto, prasturin ’bout the tem, bickinin covvas. {65} Your puro kako welled acai to his pen, and hatched trin divvus, and jawed avree like a puro jucko, and never del mandy a poshero.

Kek adusta nevvi.  A rakli acai lelled a hora waver divvus from a waver rakli, and the one who nashered it pens:  “Del it pauli a mandi and I wont dukker tute!  Del it apre!” But the waver rakli penned “kek,” and so they bitchered for the prastramengro.  He lelled the juva to the wardo, and just before she welled odoi, she hatched her wast in her poachy, an’ chiv it avree, and the prastramengro hatched it apre.  So they bitchered her for shurabun.

(Here my Gipsy suggested that stardo or staramangro might be used for greater elegance, in place of shurabun.)