Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 2.djvu/211

 952 GALLIA TRANS. Calais and B<nilogne, AU the streams tiorth of this watershed, the Schelde, the Maas, and the west- em branches of the Rhine, belong to the great flat which extends northward along the coast from Ce^ Oris Nez to the mouths of the Rhine. The streams which lie south of this watershed, and between it and the Pyrenees, flow into the Engluh Channel and the Atkntic, — the SommBj the 5etiK, the Loire^ the Garotme, and other smaller rivers. Thus four large rirer-basins west of the C^veimet and the Vosgea discharge th«r waters into the Atlantic. The basin of the great central stream, the Lotrej drabis a surface as laige as England. One laige river-basin, the Rhone, discbaiges its waters into Uie inhind sea. The rest of the surface of Gailia is drained into the Rhme, and the North Sea. The Mosel and part of the course of the Maa» lie in a deep bed sometimes several hundred feet below the level of the high irr^nlar plains through which thej flow; and part of this country, which extends from the Rhine at CobUm in a western direction through Luxembourg and the north of France into Belgium, is the Atdu- enna Silva of Caesar (ilrdeiuies), to which he gives an extent hx beyond the truth. [Arduenna.] Nearly the whole of Qallia west of a line drawn from Narbimne to Coblenz is a plain country. A man may walk from Leiden to the Aueergne for 450 miles without meeting with a mountain or a really hilly country. The pentnsuUi of Bretagne, which contained the Armorioae Civitates of Caesar, is rough and hilly, but not mountainous. The centre of France is the only mountainous country which is completely within the modem limits, the Auvergne, an extensive r^ion of extinct volcanoes, which on the east is connected, so far as elevation of surface makes the connection, with the rugged Ctvennet, This country of the Anremi of Caesar contairo many lofty summits, some of them 6000 feet high. The Awfergne and the highest parts of the Cevemtee have n short summer, and a long cold winter, during which the mountains are covecod with snow, which, when it melts, swells the Duranins (^Dordogne), Oltis (LoO» ^^^ Tamis (^Tam tliree of the great brsnches of the Garonne ; and the heavy rains in the upper valley of the Loire and its great brant^ the £laver (^AWer) pour down floods into the basin of the Lower Loire which fill the river (Caes. B, G. viL 35), and often do great damage. This outline of the geography of Gallia, if it is well understood, will enable a student to comprehend many things in the history <^ the people which are otherwise unintelligible. He will see that tins ex- tensile country has natural Umits, two seas, two great mountain ranges, and a large river. It is subdivided into a westem and north-western, and into an eastem and south-eastern, part by natural, well-defined boundaries. Caesar divides this country into four parts. The first is the Provincia, afterwards Narbonensis, which lies altogether in the basin of the Rlione, except that small part of the basin of the Garonne between Tou. loueetatd iVar6onn« which for political reasons was in- cludedintheProvinciabeforeCaesar'stime. He divides the rest of Gallia into three parts, the limits of which he marks in a general way. Between the Pyrenees and the Garamna he places the Aquitani. North of them he pUices the people whom the Romans called Gain, but who called themselves Celtae or Celts, as he says {B. G. i. 1). He makes the Sequana and the Matrona (Mame)^ its chief branch, the northem lunit of these Celtae; and though he does not ex- GALLIA TBAN& press himsdf with great predsion, he mems to wmj that they extended from the ocean to the Rhine. The Helvetii were Celtae, and abo their northfen neighbonra the Sequani, who reached to the ^ine; and north of them; the Lingones. North of the gones were the Lenci, in the highest part of the of the Maae and the Motel ; and north of them tin Mediomatrid, on the Motelf whose position is shonni by Divoduram (Afete): the Lend iad Mediomafrici were Bdgae. North of the Seine and the Marme were the Belgae. [Bxusab.] We should conclade that there was a great diversity in the language and manners of a pei^le spread over such n comxtiy as Gallia, if nobody told us so, for the fiKt is the same even now. But Caesar, who obaorved this divenitj, saw also that there was both difference enough be- tween the peoples of the great divisions to show that they vrere not the same, and resemUanoe oioagh among the peoples of the several divisions to show a nearer relationship among them. The division of the Aqnitani seems satisfactorily established. They were Iberians, probably mixed with Celts. The Celtae form a well-determined division, hnft th^ were not confined to this country between the G^ rwme and the Seine: they were the natives of the Provincia, a fact that Caesar of course knew, and that the Ligurians also were there; bat in hia general description he purposely omits the Pruvinda. The Belgae properly so called may have been a pore nee; but the Germans had long been in this part of Gallia, and we must suppose an mteimixture to have taken place between them and some of the native Belgae, if Belgae was their true name. As an hypothesis which rests on probable groonds is better than no opinion at all, if the hypothecs is not accepted as final, and so as to exclude inquiry, we may take that of Thierry (Hietoire dee Gamloie) without taking all his reasons and all his histmy. The Gallic race seems to consist of two great divi- sions, which we may call Galli and Gumri; and, while we admit the relationship of these races to be shown by their language, religion, and usages, we may also admit that the differences are suflicaently marked to distmguish Uiem. The modem r^iresen- tatives of the Cumri, the Welsh, have preserved their integrity better than any of the Gallic tribes. Of the other peoples in the north of Great Britain, and in Ireland, who belong to the Gallic race, the writer has no distinct opinion, and is not required toexpieas any here ; nor has he the knowledge that would enable him to form an opinion. The Belgae, as calls the Galii north of the Seine, though the properly belonged in his time to the inhabitants of a part only of Uiis country, were difliefent from the Celtae, and they may be the Cumri ; and this, pn»- bably, was the race that occupied all the Annoriea or the sea-coast as fiir as the Xosre. The represen- tatives of these people are the modem Brebms, a fact which cannot be denied, whatever o^nim there may be about the (Mrigin of thdr present name and that of their country {Breiagne), or about settlers from Britannia having gone over there in the fourtli c»itury of our aera, or later. Of the two races the Celtae seem to be superior in intelli- gence, and we found this opinion on the duuraeterof the French nation at the present day; for it is ad« mitted by all competent judges, that though the Romans formed a dominion in Gaul which lasted se- veral centuries, though many Germanic nations havu settled in it, and though the Franks founded the em- pire now called the French, the great mass of the