168 CRANIA BEITANNICA. [CHAP. VI.
annihilates the creations of a vain fancy, points our attention to one and the same race who have
had a continuous existence in the Emerald Isle from the dawn of its first population, viz. the
Gaels *.
Of this earliest population of Hibernia little is to be learned from reKable sources; yet the
little we do learn affords us a picture of savage life solely. Of their reputed anthropophagism,
related by Diodorus and Strabo, we have already spoken. The latter had some hesitation about
the authority for this extreme indication of bai-barism, such as is common in most cases of the
kind. Mela, in the first centui-y, celebrates the luxurious pastures of the island and its well-fed
flocks, giving to those who tended them the negative characters of a want of civilization, an
ignorance of ail virtues, and of being entii-ely devoid of religion. SoUnus, soon after, repeats
the praises of Hibernian fertility, whilst he designates the isle "inhuman" fi.-om the cruel
customs of its inhabitants. He relates that they smeared theii- faces with the blood of their
slaughtered enemies before they drank it, that they accounted right and wrong of equal import,
and that the new-bom male child was gently offered food by its mother on the point of her
husband's sword as an augury of valour, when she devoted it to war and a death of glory t-
That the Hibernians, in every portion of the primeval period, were a ruder people than the Britons
has been inferred, ^vith probability, from their having carried on theii- trade by barter solely,
there being no Hibernian coLas to be placed by the side of those belonging to the ancient Britons.
The fact may be explained by the want of the imitative spirit of emulation and improvement
among the ancient Hibernians, and also by the absence of the great commercial people of that
age, who did not visit the island. As an aigument against the Pirbolg hypothesis and the
settlement of Belgic tribes in Hibernia at the period often supposed, it is of great weight—
pesrhaps conclusive J.
* The name Celts, now BO freely applied to the Irish, was
not so used before the 17th century. Dr. John 0'Donovan,
"Ulster Journal of Archaiology," loc. at.
t There is intrinsic evidence that these accounts are in the
main trustworthy, in the perennial fame of the rich pasturage
of the green isle, and not less so in the singular incidental
remark of the latter writer, iUic nullus anguis, avis rara."
The absence of snakes in the island, eageriy ascribed in
saintly legends to their miraculous expulsion at a later time,
is a remarkable phenomenon in natural history, very difficult
to reconcile with doctrines generally held among zoologists on
the distribution of animals—doctrines which have a misleading
influence when applied to anthropology. Mr. Thomas Bell, the
distinguished President of the Linneau Society, says, " It
would appear not only that the Common Snake {Natrix torquata,
Ray), is not indigenous to Ireland, but that several attempts
to introduce it have totally failed." And the late Mr.
William Thompson, " In this Order {Ophidia) there is not
now, nor, I believe, ever was there, any species indigenous to
Ireland." Mr. Bell concludes, " nor is there reason to believe
that their absence from Ireland is other than purely accidental."
—Hist, of Brit. Reptiles, 1839, pp. M and 55. Further inquiry
would have discovered " accidents " of this kind so numerous
that they ought to be embraced in any view of the
distribution of animals which is to be regarded as consistent
and scientific. It is said that the same " accidents " are established
laws in the Channel Islands also, if they be not in
zoological philosophy, and likewise in the islands of the Indian
Archipelago. The Island of Java is only twelve miles from
the south-eastern extremity of Sumatra, and lies almost exactly
m the same parallel of latitude, yet there is a surprising dissimilitude
in the zoologies of the two. This dissimilitude is reciprocal,
and not confined to serpents, the mammalia and even
the birds of one island not occurring in the other, and vice vend.
Crawfurd's " Descr. Diet, of the Indian Islands," 1856, p. 417.
The same phenomenon may be observed in many parts of the
worid, in the case of man, whom a high zoological authority so
often assures us is a comofolite. Van Diemen's Land and
Australia held two distinct races, the Tasmanians and Australians
i Fernando Po and the neighbouring continent, the Bail
or Bawii (which Dr. Baikie, the amiable and most adventurous
explorer of the Kwiira, informs us he believes to be the correct
name of the inhabitants of the former, who have been called
Bubis and Edeeyah: Dr. T. R. H. Thomson, Journ. of the
Ethnol. Soc. 1850, ii. p. 105; Dr. W. B. Baikie, "Narrative
of an Exploring Voyage up the Rivers Kwdra and Binue,"
1856, p. 343), and the Negroes ; the Andaman and Nicobar
Islands, with their respective inhabitants (Selections from the
Records of the Gov. of India, No. xxv.. The Andaman Islands,
1859, pp. 61 and 69), &c. So that the late Prof. Ed. Forbes's
laborious efforts to raise by geological revolutions the Straits
of Dover, and to make a drj- landway for the passage of plants
as well as animals to the British Islands, seem to have been
quite superfluous. The rareness of the smaller birds, of species
so common in this island, impresses the traveller iu Ireland
at the present day with surprise as great as it could excite
eighteen hundred years ago.
t Vide supra, p. 112.
CHAP. VI.] ETHNOGBAPHICAL SKETCH OF SUCCESSIVE POPULATIONS. 169
The geographer Marcianus Heracleota, considered to belong to the third centui-y or perhaps
later, teUs us nothing more than the number of the tribes of Ireland. In the Cosmography
ascribed to ^thicus, of about the end of the fourth century, the island is mentioned with the
statement " a Scotorum gentibus colitur," to whom also the Isle of Man is given—which is
almost the earliest mention of this celebrated name*.
The well-known testimony of Tacitus regarding Hibernia is, " Solum ccelumque, et
ingenia cultusque hominum haud multum a Britannia differunt" t- But when we turn to the
acute and elegant historian to learn what he recounts of an ethnological character of the inhabitants
of the British Islands, we at once perceive a defection from our previous guide. Unlike
CiBsar, there is not any show of proof that Tacitus ever visited Britain or Germany. It has been
surmised that the Cornelius Tacitus mentioned by Pliny as a Procurator in Belgic Gaul was
the father of his friend the historian. If such were the case, a source of personal knowledge
might have been open to Tacitus. But the son-in-law and biographer of the illustrious general
Agricola most probably derived his knowledge of both the British and German tribes from
current report and the private communications of others, among the chief of whom, for those
of Britain, we may safely presume to place Agricola himself. Tacitus most likely had very
slight self-experience, or he would not have left us to surmises on this point. His own statement
is that the many writers who had preceded him had described Britain before it was subdued;
therefore he possessed the advantage of the more complete conquest and exploration under
Agricola. Probably it is to the fact of his not having been in the island, and seen the native
tribes with his own eyes, that we are to attribute the comparative and hypothetical phi-ases on
their origins in which he indulges, when he speaks of the physical characters of the three
classes he selects for remark, in the famous Eleventh Chapter of Ms Life of Agricola.
We do not attach importance to the speculations of Tacitus as to the Germanic derivation
of the Caledonians because of their red hair and tall stature i, or the Iberic descent of the
SUures because of their dai-k complexion and curly locks, no doubt of nigrescent hue. Such
speculations, as we have ah-eady explained, are natural to a reasoning mind searcliing out the
origins of things; and, as they are universal, they are often based on the slightest grounds.
They are of value chiefly as poiating to the facts whence they derive their source.
Perhaps the point most worthy of attention in the recital of Tacitus is the observation he
makes, that the corporeal features of the Britons varied. The latitude of this variation, ab initio,.
has been too much overlooked in ethnological inquiries. There are peoples who are distinguished
by a uniformity in their complexional peculiarities. Black hair is almost universal in
some races, as the North-American Indians and the Chinese. One of the commonest periphi
astic names the latter give themselves is that of " the black-haii-ed." European races do not
anywhere present such uniformity, but vary, within moderate limits; and the testimony of
Tacitus leads to the inference that they always have varied, yet without ceasing to exhibit
general national features that may be recognized §. Modern observations confirm the testimony
* " Camden has the merit of having discovered that Porphyry,
who flourished under Diocletian, at the close of the
third century, flrst mentioned the Scoticse gentes, the Scotish
nations of the Britannic world." Chalmers's " Caledonia," i.
269. Critics generally believe that Camden erred in this inference,
and that Ammianus, in the fourth ceutury, makes the
earliest reference to the Scoti.
t De vita Agricolse, c. xxiv.
J Chalmers's " Caledonia," i. 202, note.
§ As an example we may point to the fair hair, light complexion,
great stature, broad foreheads, and large platycephalic
heads of the Germanic race. These are features patent to
every observer. They have lasted from the age of Tacitus, at
least, and are unchanged to the present day. A few exceptional
instances, probably arising from intermixture, misled
Niebuhr and Prichard and induced them to form erroneous