no more rebellions in Samarcand.'

It has of late years been one of the favourite theories of the
learned, that Timour's invasion of Hindostan, and the cruelties
committed by his savage hordes in that part of the world, caused a
vast number of Hindoos to abandon their native land, and that the
Gypsies of the present day are the descendants of those exiles who
wended their weary way to the West. Now, provided the above
passage in the work of Arabschah be entitled to credence, the
opinion that Timour was the cause of the expatriation and
subsequent wandering life of these people, must be abandoned as
untenable. At the time he is stated by the Arabian writer to have
annihilated the Gypsy hordes of Samarcand, he had but just
commenced his career of conquest and devastation, and had not even
directed his thoughts to the invasion of India; yet at this early
period of the history of his life, we find families of Zingarri
established at Samarcand, living much in the same manner as others
of the race have subsequently done in various towns of Europe and
the East; but supposing the event here narrated to be a fable, or
at best a floating legend, it appears singular that, if they left
their native land to escape from Timour, they should never have
mentioned in the Western world the name of that scourge of the
human race, nor detailed the history of their flight and
sufferings, which assuredly would have procured them sympathy; the
ravages of Timour being already but too well known in Europe. That
they came from India is much easier to prove than that they fled
before the fierce Mongol.

Such people as the Gypsies, whom the Bishop of Forli in the year
1422, only sixteen years subsequent to the invasion of India,