161 CRANIA BRITANNICA. [CHAP. VI.
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M f
Both M. Broca and M. de BeUoguet impart force to tlieii- views by appealing to tlie varied
appearance presented in much of the population of Prance, and inferring that such variety m the
prominent physical featm-es is an evidence of a mixtm^e of race. This would be the case no
question if it could be shown to satisfaction that uniformity of these features was the characteristic
of ««pure races. The instance of the black hair among the Indians of America, the
Chinese, Hindoos, Sub-Himalayan tribes, &c., may not deserve to be taken as a parallel case.
The phenomenon extends over numerous tribes and over large geographical ai-eas; hence, however
<.reat the intermixture may have been within these areas, no change in this appearance could
have been produced; whereas in the limited area of Em-ope we see most of the usual hues of
hair in almost every country and race-not equally vai-ied in each, yet still existing m each We
might, therefore, with the same right infer that variety is the law in the one case, as that umformity
is in the other. A predominance of light or of dark tints among the different races of
Europe, not any uniformity, is all that we can now employ for the definition of those races. And
so of the other features usuaUy referred to. If this have been the case always, and we know
of no proof to the contrary, a meaning may be attached to diversity, in makmg it the basis of
the inferences we have alluded to, which it will not bear.
In endeavoui-ing to refer to some Uving representatives of the Belgic Gauls, we probably
could not select any of more unexceptional validity than the Walloons. They have always occupied
a somewhat secluded and not very accessible country in the forest districts of the Ai-demies; their
name is of shnilar form and import to om- Welsh; "they pride themselves upon bemg of the
most ancient GauKsh lineage " * ; they have never amalgamated with the surrounding Elemmgs
towards whom thev manifest no community of feeUng ; they speak a peculiar tongue, afcmed
bv Dr Latham " t ^ be a form of the Romano-Keltic, so peculiar and independent that it must
be of great antiquitv, and * * * must have been foi-med on a Keltic basis t . " There probably
is not any other people to whom reference can be made, having such great claims to be
regarded as the descendants of the ancient Belga., and, at the same thne, as provmg their
alUance with the Celtic tribes of the Belgse, in contradistinction to those of German origm. Of
theh. physical pec-oUarities Dr. Latham informs us that "the Walloons - kss bulky than
the Eleiings, dark-eyed and black-habed." Dr. Beddoe says, " On crossing the WaUoon frontier
one cannot fail to observe the dark, often black hah- of the people, which, equaUy with their
.aimt angular faces, square foreheads, and narrow pointed chins, distinguish them a once from
the mainly Teutonic peoples that almost surround them " J . Hence we are led to the eondu-
.ion, that some of the people of Eranee to whom Dr. W. E. Edwards has applied the denomination
Kimris cannot be of Celtic, but are of Germanic extraction. However ancient may be the
settlement of these people in Gaul, however much they may have become cliffased among the other
Gauls i assumes that the smaUer, dark, short-headed people of
France must have a more southern origin; and deduces them
immediately from the Ligurians, for whom he is inclined to
claim a North African source.
* H. L . Long's " Early Geography," p. 17, who refers them
in a special manner to the inhabitants named by Cffisar as occuOTing
the district.
r e a i / i , a foreigner. Wallm s.nd Guallus, & Gml. The name
Walloon is synonymous with Gallons, or Gauls.—Wood's
Prim. Inhab. of Ireland, p. 70.
t The Ethnology of Europe. 1852, p. 74. M. J . des Mottelettes
contends for the essentially Celtic origin of the Walloon
language, although a lingm romana nistica. His opinions
have been severely criticized. Ethnographic du royaume de
Belgique, Bull, de I'Acad. Roy. de Belgique, 1850, vol. xvii.
pp. 151, 545. And it must not be inferred that all inquirers
admit the Celtic origin of the Walloons. It is far otherwise. ^
J " On the Phys. Char, of the Anc. and Mod. Germans."
Read at the Meet, of Brit. Assoc. at Dublin, 1857. Dr. B. has
since added, " The Walloons I saw were of good stature,
spare form and square-shouldered ; they had long faces, squore,
high foreheads, with narrow chins, the face being prominently
rounded when seen in profile, or of a hatchet-form ; and they
had short, squarish skulls."
CHAP. VI.] ETHNOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OP SUCCESSIVE POPULATIONS. 165
and more numerous population, and whencesoever theii- Teutonic blood has been derived—from
the German tribes which, we learn from Csssax, crossed the Rhine as settlers in and before his
time, from the Visigoths and Burgundians of the south, from the Prankish conquerors of
Gaul, from the Northmen of Normandy, or from the incorporation of German populations in the
Prench monarchy in more modern times, all which influences are patent and, we tliink,
proved by the seats of these " Kimris " as observed by Dr. W. P. Edwards, and of some of those
tabulated by Drs. Boudia and Broca,—we are ready to conclude that they cannot be considered
as of Celtic or GaUic origin. But that the tribes which sent colonies to Britain from among the
Belgas in early times belonged to the Celtic portion of these people is sufficiently proved by the
Celtic names of rivers, towns, &c. in that district of Gaul from which they were derived, and of
those parts of Britain ia which they settled *. Consequently these latter, in the same manner,
cannot rightfully claim to be classed with the " Kimris " of Am. Thierry and W. P. Edwards, or,
if so classed, they must be called Kimris in a very different sense.
The Celtic tribes of the Belgse were denominated by Schoepflitt " prise® indigena;," and
Thierry claims for the Gauls an equaUy indigenous origin, which he also allows to our Gaels.
We do not see any sufadent reason for hesitating to assume that the great majority of the tribes
of the British Islands must have been alike aboriginal, as affirmed by Caesar and Diodorus. It
may perhaps be questioned whether, when Ccesar affords us two sources for the population of the
Islands, it is not superfluous to look for other hypothetical ones, and also whether this most
obscure problem has received any satisfactory elucidation from the various theories supported by
philological investigations. The highest authorities upon questions of ancient language are
agreed that no traces of any older than the Celtic have been found in the British Islands f-
Du-ect evidence we obviously cannot have upon any true autochthonous inhabitants of any
country. As far as our knowledge goes, the gradual diminution of the number of different
peoples and of diflPerent languages, by the progressive absorption and extinction of both (for this
is the constant process going on in aU parts of the earth, probably never reversed), weighs
analogicaUy in favoiu- of the primordial diversity of the British tribes. That kind of family relationship,
too, which we generally perceive grouping distinct races of men within certain areas, in
different regions, would lead to the inference that there may bave been other tribes coexistent
with those of the Continent at the most remote period in these large islands, such as are now
met with on the discovery of islands off continents in almost every quarter of the globe t The
strongly marked improbability that, at this pristine period, man, without assignable motive,
should be seized with an impulse for boundless wanderings and migrations—and the impossibUity
of carrying these out, had the desire been developed, by the simple and utterly inadequate
means at his disposal—are arguments which tend to the same conclusion. The question is one
* Prichard's Researches, iii. 117, and A. L . Long's Survey,
21, where this question is fully discussed.
f Speaking of Ireland, Mr. Wilde remarks, " There are but
the remains of one language known in manuscripts, or spoken
amongst us."—Beauties of the Boyne, p. 223. The Irish
legendaries make all their feigned people to agree in speaking
the Gaoidhealg, or Gaelic language. Prichard, Researches, iii.
144. Gwydhelian is the Welsh equivalent of this latter term,
which, as well as its root, has a great latitude of orthography.
X This grouping of resemblances in natural provinces," as
is well kuown, embraces the whole animal kingdom. Professor
Owen, in his recent Lectures on Palteontology (May 1860),
gave an account of the gigantic fossil marsupials lately brought
to light in Australia, —among others the Diprotodon and Nototherium,
herbivorous animals rivalling the rhinoceros and the
ox in size, and the Thylacoleo, a carnivorous quadruped of the
same series, as large as a lion. In conclusion, he explained how
extensivelv this grouping has prevailed during all ages, and in
every division of the globe :—" Thus it was shown that, with
regard to the last extinct (pliocene) kinds, as with the existing
kinds of mammalia, particular forms were assigned to particular
continents or provinces; and, what was still more interesting and
suggestive, the same forms were restricted to the same provinces
at a former geological period as they are at the present day."
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