The gold-washers in Transylvania and the Banat, pay four guilders annually in gold dust. The tribute collected in Wallachia and Moldavia does not go into the public treasury, but belongs to the Princesses for pin-money.
The consort of the Wallachian Hospodar, Stephen Rakowitza, in the year 1764, received from her Rudars, being two hundred and forty in number, twelve hundred and fifty-four drachms. The gold-washers in the Banat and Transylvania, dispose of their shares at the Royal Redemption-Office, in Zalatuya. The earnings of these people vary with time, and at different places; during heavy rains and floods they are usually most successful. The Transylvanian rivers yield the most gold. It is said, all the rivers and brooks which the rain forms, produce gold; of these the river Aranyasch is the richest; insomuch, that Historians have compared it to the Tagus and Pactolus.
In Travels through the Banat of Temeswar, Transylvania, and Hungary, in the year 1770, described in a series of letters to Professor Ferber, on the mines and mountains of these different countries, by Baron Inigo Born, Counsellor of the Royal Mines, in Bohemia, page 76, is the following account:
“Observations on the Gold-washings, in the Banat, by Counsellor Koezian. Translated by R. E. Ruspe.
“After the several natural advantages of the _Temeswar Banat_, some of its rivers are known to yield gold dust; I could not neglect the object when I travelled in these parts.
“The gold-washing in the Banat, is properly the business of the Gypsies, _Zigeuner_, and left, as it were, to this poor people, as an exclusive trade. This laid me under the necessity of applying to them for instruction.
“The river Nera, in Almash, carries gold dust; and seemed to me the fittest for my purpose; accordingly I caused some Gypsies, reputed to be skilful, to make a washing, near a village called Boshowitz; and I saw with pleasure, that with much dexterity, and in a few minutes time, they cleared in the trough, the value of some groshes of gold: they showed me likewise among their gold dust, some pieces of remarkable bigness.”
It has been stated, that when Gypsies first arrived in Europe, they had leaders and chiefs to conduct their various tribes in their migrations.