possibly be induced to form this post, to secure a landing-place for any necessaries the country might want; for the entrance into the port Segontium is often, even at present, very difficult; much more so in the earlier times of navigation.

That intelligent traveller and able botanist Mr. Thomas Johnson1 speaks thus of Dinas Dinlle, "Stationem hic in ipso littore Romani milites habuerunt, cujus adhuc satis clara vestigia manent." Possibly there may be another of the same kind; for I find in the old maps, both of Saxton and Speed, the name Caer Ierienrode, a little lower down, at the mouth of the Llyfni; and by the addition of the word Caer, it must have been a fortified place.

When I made my visit to Dinas Dinlle, I was under the guidance of a worthy friend, and learned antiquary, the Reverend Richard Farrington (now deceased). He conducted me to his residence at Dinas Dinoethwy, about four miles distant. In the way In the way he shewed to me Dinas y Prif, or, The Post of the Chieftain; a small camp, about forty-four yards square. Each corner is elevated above the ramparts; and withinside are foundations of some stone buildings. By the name, it might be the summer station of the Roman commander in chief, resident in winter at Segontium.-Pennant's Tour, vol. ii. pp. 212, 213.

Two small posts, one called Dinas Bwlan, the other of uncertain name, close to Llandwrog, occur in the immediate vicinity of this larger post. There are several traces of Roman occupation in this part of the country besides Segontium, as might naturally be expected; but there are no points of defence along the Caernarvonshire coast clearly ascertained to be of Roman construction. At the mouth of the Seiont, indeed, and in front of the Roman capital of this district, it is supposed that the remarkable eminence of Coed Helen was occupied as a place of defence for naval purposes; and, indeed, its name may refer to some tradition of the kind.

On the south eastern shore of the Menai we find near Felin Hely a strong Dinas or camp commanding the ferry of Moel Don, the Porthamel of other times. This was no doubt used not only by the Romans, but also by the Anglo-Normans, for their passage into Mona; and the Roman road from Segontium to Caer Gybi (Holyhead) is believed to have started from the shore a little south of this station; never

1 An ingenious apothecary, the editor of Gerard's Herbal. He travelled through North Wales in 1639, to collect plants. He published his tour in 1691, a small volume, under the title of Mercurius Botanicus. He was slain in the defence Basingstoke House, in 1644.

theless, the form and look of the work are decidedly British. Further to the north east is Garth point, above Bangor, where a camp may be traced on the north western side of the valley in which the town lies, answered by another fort (said to be of Anglo-Norman construction) on the opposite side. Whether any British posts occurred in the level district overflowed by the sea, in the seventh century, and now known as the Lafan sands, it is of course impossible to say; but the next British station along the present line of coast is that of Braich y Dinas, on the summit of Penmaen Mawr; and beyond this again none occur till Penmaen Bach is reached, on the top of which mountain and its arms, are a small Dinas or fort, and the large town and citadel of Castell Caer Seion.1 This latter position amply sufficed for the defence of the mouth of the Conwy on the southern side; but perhaps the summit of the little hill of Bodlondeb was used as an outpost close to the water's edge, and answered to the fortified top of Diganwy (afterwards an Anglo-Norman station) on the other side of the river. The defences of the Conwy were completed by the fort of Pen-y-Ddinas on the promontory of Llandudno or Great Orme's Head, that remarkable hill which is itself an immense fortress, the Gibraltar of North Wales.

O. T. E.

REMARKS ON THE ORIGIN OF THE CELTIC

NATIONS.

FROM AN UNPUBLISHED MS. BY F. E. VEMBERGUE, ESQ.

THE following historical and ethnographical remarks on the Iberians, the Gaels, and the Cymry, have been communicated to us, in the most obliging manner, by the learned author. The study of ethnography is one in which the savans of France and Germany have gained peculiar distinction; and its importance with regard to the philosophical study of political history, and national polity, can hardly be overrated. It is always a subject of peculiar interest to the Welsh antiquary to see the connection pointed out between his own

1 In No. I. this camp is erroneously called Castell Caer Lleion, after Pennant. The spelling of the Ordnance map is more correct; and it occurs as given in the text of the above article in a poem contained in the Myvyrian Archaiology, vol. i. p. 476. -EDD. ARCH. Cambr.

nation and those related people, who have not now the same intercommunications as they formerly kept up; and, with this view, the labours of many learned men of the present day are directed towards researches of the same kind as the subject of the following extract:

According to an almost unanimous tradition, all the nations of Europe have successively come from the centre of Asia, through the north-west side of that part of the world. This community of road, and other circumstances, are a strong presumption in favour of a primitive identity. The different names by which they are called are by no means an argument against this hypothesis. All these names are epithets by which each migrating horde sought, in its pride, to distinguish itself. These denominations did not establish radical differences, but titles of honour, the meaning of which is now well understood; they answer to the qualifications of brave, bold, or strong.

All the nations which inhabit Europe may be traced to a few great branches: the Iberian; the Gallic or Celtic; the Germanic, which includes the Teutonic, Gothic, and Scandinavian; and lastly, the Slavonian.

It is not possible, at such distant epochs, to draw divisions and separations as clear and as distinct as we now find established among the nations of Europe. In a migrating mass of people, the main body may have settled in one point, whilst large detachments of the same horde would seek a more favourable climate, more fertile lands, or, perhaps, more liberty. We find also a great mixture of the primitive tribes. The Galls, for instance, have retraced their steps towards the east, whilst the Teutons invaded the countries occupied by the Galls.

History and philology lead us to infer that the Iberians were the first inhabitants of western Europe; that the Gallic migration preceded the Teutonic; and that the Slavonian was the latest of all.

THE IBERIANS.

The Iberians appear to have occupied the whole of Spain; and this is proved by a considerable number of names of places, the meaning of which is found only in the Iberian language. About seventeen hundred years before our era, the Galls, after having spread over a great part of Europe and settled in France, Switzerland, and Britain, invaded Spain. They drove the primitive inhabitants into the mountains, or became amalgamated with them under the name of Celtiberians. One of the districts abandoned by the Iberians was peopled by the Galls, and is known to this day under the name of Gallicia.

Meanwhile two Iberian hordes, the Sicani and the Ligori, flying before the conquerors, entered the south of Gaul and established themselves there and in Italy, along the coast of the Mediterranean. They were, however, soon followed by the Galls, who mustered in

great numbers under the collective name of Ambra, or Ombra, the brave, and entered Italy. There they founded the empire of Ombria, which was divided into three provinces, Oll-ombria, Is-ombria, and Vil-ombria; this last province became afterwards Etruria.

The Iberians, still retreating before the Galls, took refuge in Calabria and Sicily, where they soon became mixed with the Pelasgic Siculi (from Dalmatia). There remain, however, to this day descendants of these the oldest inhabitants of western Europe, I mean the Bask, who speak a language totally different from any that ever existed in Europe. This language is called by the Bask, "Euscara ;' the root of the word is "Ask;" from which are derived the names of Vascons, Gascons, and Bask. In the transactions of the historical and literary committee of the American Philosophical Society, held at Philadelphia, Dr. Duponceau states, upon the authority of Adelung's Mithridates, that there is a tribe in central Asia, the Grusinians, whose language appears to have a certain resemblance with the Bask, in some of the forms of its verbs, and in its polysynthetic (or syntactic) structure. (Polysynthetic structure is that in which the greatest number of ideas are comprised in the least number of words.) The origin of the Iberians is rather uncertain. Some suppose, with some reason, they were a Phenician colony; others, finding a slight resemblance between the roots of words in the Bask and Coptic languages, are inclined to think the Iberians came from Egypt. There is a third hypothesis, (of my own, which I venture to suggest.) If the Iberians be not a Phenician colony, they must have formed, as it were, the vanguard of all the great migrations from the east. It is most probable that these migrations came from beyond the Euxine. Now, it is well known that Georgia was, in the most ancient times, called Iberia. May we not suppose, that the Iberians of Spain were the first emigrants from Asia, and that, as such, having no need to distinguish themselves, they preserved the name of their mother country? This hypothesis resting merely on a name, I will not dwell upon it, but proceed to the Celts, or Galls, which last I consider the generic name; for the word Celta, or Keltæ, signifies inhabitant of the forests, and, consequently, only applies to one portion of the Galls, who distinguished their different tribes by localities; as, for instance, "armorika," maritime, from ar near, muir sea; "Albania" in Scotland, the region of the mountains; maïta," the plain; "Callydonia" the region of the forests, (from the Kymric word" Callydon," forest, or the Gælic ceiltean, which has the same meaning, caoill daoin, people of the forests.

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The Galls, as we have seen, occupied the greatest part of France, Switzerland, England, and Ireland; they had conquered Spain; founded an empire in Italy;-they had also spread over Corinthia, Illyria, Pannonia, Epirus, and Thrace, assuming different names; such as Carnes, from carn, the Gaelic word for rock; Tauriskes, from tor, mount; "Albania," also a Gaelic word for mountain. I may observe, en passant, that the present language of the last mentioned Turkish province contains a very great proportion of Gaelic words.

For the comparatively modern conquests of the Galls in Italy and

Greece, I must refer to the excellent work of Thierry; the nature and object of this sketch do not admit of farther details. I therefore pass on to the Cimbri or Kimris.

CIMBRI.

The descendants of the Scythians or Asiatic Goths, who settled in the northern part of Germany, were known to the Romans under the name of Cimbri, (the word Cimber is derived from the Gothic word Kimber, a valiant warrior,) and to the Greeks under the name of Cimmerii. Their language so resembles the Gaelic, that there cannot be the least doubt that they belonged to the Gallic migration, and had settled in those countries, whilst the main body continued their route westward. Their name has been preserved in some of the countries which they inhabited; one is still called Krim or Crimea. Another of their detatchments, the Boïes, which signifies "terrible," were established in the country now called Bohemia. Those who lived nearer the Rhine were named Bolga or Belgæ, Kimrice, warlike.

It is probable that the Cimbri, or Kimris, had lived for many centuries in what may be called the centre and north-eastern part of Europe, when some Scythians (631 B.C.), driven from Asia by the Massagetes, fell like a torrent upon the banks of the Euxine and Palus Mæotis, and penetrated as far as the Araxes, now the Volga.

The Cimbri did not oppose the invasion of these Scythians; they fell back westward and attacked the Galls of Gaul and Britain. (Ynis Prydain, Kimrciè.) They established themselves in different parts of Fance, amongst others in Languedoc, where they were known afterwards under the name of Volkes Tectosages (380 B.C.) and in Armorika or Britany, where their language is spoken to this day. They also conquered the whole of England, drove the inhabitants into Ireland and Scotland, and occupied their place until, conquered in their turn by the Anglo-Saxons, (fifth and sixth centuries of our era) they were forced to seek a retreat in the mountains of Wales, where the Cimric language has been preserved to this present time.

A remarkable and highly interesting proof of the identity of the Armorikans and the Welsh was given at a late Eisteddfod which took place at Abergavenny in Monmouthshire.

Two gentlemen from Britany, Messrs. Rio and De Lavillemerqué, attended this festival by order, and at the expense of, the French government. They were, as might be expected, received with marked attention. But it is impossible to describe the surprise, the delight, the enthusiasm, which was excited at one of the meetings, when Mr. De Lavillemerqué recited, in the Armorikan language, a short poem, composed, I believe, for the occasion, which every person present perfectly understood.

As in geology the different strata, with their different fossil remains, prove the successive revolutions of the globe, so in philology the Iberian, the Gælic, and the Kimric languages, superposed one upon another, if so I may express it, are irrefragible proofs of the events to which I have briefly alluded.