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.