Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 38.djvu/365

Rh of languages. The "blond long-heads of Europe speak, or have spoken, Lithuanian, Teutonic, or Celtic dialects, and they are not known to have ever used any but these Aryan languages. A large proportion of the "brunet broad-heads once spoke the Ligurian and the Rhætic dialects, which are believed to have been non-Aryan. But, when the Romans made acquaintance with Transalpine Gaul, the inhabitants of that country between the Garonne and the Seine (Cæsar's Celtica) seem, at any rate for the most part, to have spoken Celtic dialects. The brunet long-heads of Spain and of France appear to have used a non-Aryan language, that Euskarian which still lives on the shores of the Bay of Biscay. In Britain there is no certain knowledge of their use of any but Celtic tongues. What they spoke in the Mediterranean islands and in south Italy does not appear.

The blond broad-heads of Poland and west Russia form part of a people who, when they first made their appearance in history, occupied the marshy plains imperfectly drained by the Vistula on the west, the Duna on the north, and the Dnieper and Bug on the south. They were known to their neighbors as Wends, and among themselves as Serbs and Slavs. The Slavonic languages spoken by these people are said to be most closely allied to that of the Lithuanians, who lay upon their northern border. The Slavs resemble the south Germans in the predominance of broad-heads among them, while stature and complexion vary from the, often tall, blonds who prevail in Poland and Great Russia to the, often short, brunets common elsewhere. There is certainly nothing in the history of the Slav people to interfere with the supposition that, from very early times, they have been a mixed race. For their country lies between that of the tall blond long-heads on the north, that of the short brunet broad-heads of the European type on the west, and that of the short brunet broad-heads of the Asiatic type on the east: and throughout their history they have either thrust themselves among their neighbors, or have been overrun and trampled down by them. Gauls and Goths have traversed their country, on their way to the east and south: Finno-Tataric people, on their way to the west, have not only done the like, but have held them in subjection for centuries. On the other hand, there have been times when their western frontier advanced beyond the Elbe; indeed, it is asserted that they have sent colonies to Holland and even as far as southern England. A large part of eastern Germany; Bohemia, Moravia, Hungary; the lower valley of the Danube and the Balkan Peninsula, have been largely or completely Slavonized; and the Slavonic rule and language, which once had trouble to hold their own in west Russia and Little Russia, have now extended their sway over all the Finno-Tataric populations of Great Russia; while they are advancing,