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Rh Water through Winchester to Cirencester. This road can be followed at the present time for the greater part of its course, so that there can be no doubt whatever of the facilities it offered for a migration from the south coast. At Cirencester it joined the Fosse Way that connected Bath with Lincoln. By proceeding along this latter road colonists could pass to north-east Gloucestershire, where the observations of Beddoe upon the present ethnological character of the people show that the original settlers were probably fair people of the so-called Saxon type. The ancient place-names along the border of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire are of much interest, and point to settlers of various tribes and races, as will be discussed in a subsequent chapter. From Cirencester, also, the road known as Akeman Street passed eastward, through the middle of Oxfordshire, and thence into Buckinghamshire and the country that was brought under the West Saxon rule in the time of Ceawlin. The east and south of Berkshire were connected with Southampton Water by the great road from Winchester through Silchester, although its course beyond the north gate of Silchester cannot now be followed. A way of less importance also passed from Hampshire northwards through Speen, near Newbury, so that there were three roads which led directly into the Thames valley from the south.

The available evidence relating to the dialects that have survived also points to migrations from the south-Eastern counties up the Thames. The researches made on English dialects by Prince Lucien L. Bonaparte and A. J. Ellis agree in the conclusion that the dialect of the south-eastern part of England extends up the Thames valley into Oxfordshire. The dialect of east