Page:Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race.djvu/89

Rh Hunaland from Reidgotaland, the latter name having been identified as referring to Jutland. In the province of Drenthe in Holland, where the river Hunse has its source, there still exists a remnant of a more ancient population than the old Frisian. These people are of different physical characters from their neighbours. They are broad-headed, while the true Frisians are long-headed. They are brown in aspect, while the Frisians are fair, and they are supposed to be descendants of a remnant of the very ancient brown race of Europe who were left when their country was overrun at a remote period by people of the Gothic or Germanic stock. We have no knowledge of the physical characters of the Hunsings or Hunni mentioned by Bede, but as these brown people of Holland who are to be found in Drenthe and Overijssel occupy the country which was in part occupied by the Hunsings, there may have been some connection between them.

Among the tribes or allies of the Frisians the most important was the Chauci or Chaucians. Tacitus mentions them as living on both sides of the Weser. Those settled between the Weser and the Elbe he called Chauci majores; and those on the west of the Weser, but higher up the river, Chauci minores. His description of them is that of a considerable nation. He says that the land from Hessia was under the dominion of, and inhabited by, Chauci. He has left two accounts of them somewhat different, but that in his ‘Germania’ is believed to have been written later than that in his ‘Annals,’ or ‘History,’ and it may well have been that before writing his later account he had had opportunities of learning more about them and correcting his previous statements. He says that the Chauci never excited wars nor harassed their neighbours, and that they wished to support their grandeur by justice. This description agrees