Page:Essays ethnological and linguistic.djvu/42

30 as Mid-Gaul may be easily assumed to have been already densely occupied and this island comparatively if not entirely uninhabited.

It would however be highly unphilosophical to rest on mere probabilities and assumptions, and we will therefore in accordance with the rules of our Science of Ethnology proceed to show that this must certainly have been the course adopted from every consideration and conclusion which the Science exacts in its reasonings. The argument we undertake to prove is that the modern Cymri or Welsh are the representatives of the renowned Cimbri who so nearly overthrew the rising greatness of Rome, and notwithstanding the ridicule cast on such a supposition by even such an authority as Niebuhr proceed to prove it not only by 1st the probability referred to, but also 2nd by historical references; 3d by traces of the language left in the country whence they were so driven, 4th by traces of the fact in the country to which they fled, and 5th by the traditions yet existing in this country of a character to be relied on and such as in reality to amount even to history. —

1. Proceeding on the basis of probability that the people of the opposite shores of the Continent were those who first came to inhabit this island, we come next to show from historical references that those peoples on the Continent were the remnants of the Cimbri so renowned in history, and that the modern Cymri or Welsh are of kindred descent.

2. Strabo on the authority of Posidonius connects the Cimbri with the ancient Cimmerians on the Mæotic lake and alleges them to have traversed through Europe in arriving at its western shores, naming the Boii who gave their name to the country of Bohemia as part of their nation. Plutarch in his life of Marius on the authority of ancient writers whom he does not name adopted the same history. If this were the case they must have been a numerous and powerful people swelling on in the course of population until they arrived at the western limits of the Continent after which they either from choice or necessity precipitated themselves upon the South of Europe and finally were nearly exterminated by the arms or policy of Marius.

Two centuries nearly had elapsed when Strabo wrote since the Cimbri had entered Italy and carried dismay and disgrace to the very gates of Rome. There is an intimation given by him that they had been driven out of their own country by an inundation, and as this is not an improbability considering the nature of the country, we may understand the motive of such a movement of almost the whole