At last I was successful.  I had frequently employed as donkey-driver an intelligent and well-behaved man named Mahomet, who spoke English well, and who was familiar with the byways of Cairo.  On asking him if he could show me any Rhagarin, he replied that every Saturday there was a fair or market held at Boulac, where I would be sure to meet with women of the tribe.  The men, I was told, seldom ventured into the city, because they were subject to much insult and ill-treatment from the common people.  On the day appointed I rode to the market, which was extremely interesting.  There were thousands of blue-shirted and red-tarbouched or white-turbaned Egyptians, buying or selling, or else merely amusing themselves; dealers in sugar-cane, pipe-pedlars, and vendors of rosaries; jugglers and minstrels.  At last we came to a middle-aged woman seated on the ground behind a basket containing beads, glass armlets, and similar trinkets.  She was dressed like any Arab woman of the lower class, but was not veiled, and on her chin blue lines were tattooed.  Her features and whole expression were, however, evidently Gipsy.

I spoke to her in Rommany, using such words as would have been intelligible to any of the race in England, Germany, or Turkey; but she did not understand me, and declared that she could speak nothing but Arabic.  At my request Mahomet explained to her that I had travelled from a distant country in “Orobba,” where there were many Rhagarin who declared that their fathers came from Egypt, and that I wished to know if any in the latter country could speak the old language.  She replied that the Rhagarin of “Montesinos” could still speak it, but that her people in Egypt had lost the tongue.  Mahomet declared that Montesinos meant Mount Sinai or Syria.  I then asked her if the Rhagarin had no peculiar name for themselves, and she replied, “Yes, we call ourselves Tataren.”

This was at least satisfactory.  All over Southern Germany and in Norway the Rommany are sailed Tataren; and though the word means Tartars, and is simply a misapplied term, it indicates a common race.  The woman seemed to be very much gratified at the interest I manifested in her people.  I gave her a double piastre, and asked for its value in blue-glass armlets.  She gave me two pair, and as I turned to depart called me back, and with a good-natured smile handed me four more as a present.  This generosity was very Gipsy-like, and very unlike the usual behaviour of any common Egyptian.

While on the Nile, I inquired of people in different towns if they had ever seen Gipsies where they lived, and was invariably answered in the negative.  Remembering to have read in some book a statement that the Ghawazi or dancing-girls formed a tribe by themselves, and spoke a peculiar language, I asked an American who has lived for many years in Egypt if he thought they could be Gipsies.  He replied that an English lady of title, who had also been for