The men of the Rhagarin are tinkers and blacksmiths, and sell cheap jewellery or instruments of iron and brass.

Many of them are athletes, mountebanks, and monkey-exhibitors; the women are rope-dancers and musicians.

They are divided into classes, bearing the names of Romani, Meddahin, Ghurradin, Barmeki (Barmecides), Waled Abu Tenna, Beit er Rafai, Hemmeli, &c.

The Helebis and Rhagarin are distinctly different in their personal appearance from the other inhabitants of Egypt, having the eyes and expression peculiar to all Gipsies.

Captain Newbold, in fact, assumes that any person "who remains in Egypt longer than the ordinary run of travellers, and roams about the streets and environs of the large towns, can hardly fail to notice the strange appearance of certain females, whose features at once distinguish them from the ordinary Fellah Arabs and Cophts of the country." "The Nuris or Nawers are hereditary thieves, but are now (1856) employed as police and watchmen in the Pacha's country estates.