478 



NOTES AND QUEEIES. 



[2nd S. NO 102., Dec. 12. '67. 



Kent, Wensum in Norfolk. Let us look farther 

 back for the Horse of Kent. In the people over- 

 come and dispersed by Odin's followers, we may 

 probably find our earliest, — in Dr. Prichard's 

 nomenclature — our Allophyllian race. The first 

 inhabitants of northern Russia, Lapland, Finland, 

 were the Ugrian race ; one tribe of whom, the 

 Arimaspfe of the Greeks, Dr. Latham thinks were 

 the present Tscheremis, while Davies suggests 

 that they were Finns. Beyond the Arimaspas, 

 Herodotus places the Issedones or Essedones, 

 whom he calls Oigurs, and beyond them were the 

 Hyperboreans. The " one-eyed Arimaspians " are 

 probably the Ogres of our nursery tales. Our pre- 

 sent concern is with their neighbours, the Isse- 

 dones, who appear to have left their name in the 

 very heart of France — Issondun, Dep. Indre. 

 Essedones was also the name of the ancient British 

 war-chariot. This brings us to the " Finn hypo- 

 thesis," which supposes that 



"The earliest European population was once compara- 

 tively homogeneous from Lapland to Grenada, from 

 Tornea to Gibraltar. But it has been overlaid* and dis- 

 placed ; the only remnants extant being the Finns and 

 Laplanders, protected by their Arctic climate, the Bas- 

 ques by their Pyrenean fastnesses, and perhaps the Al- 

 banians." — Latham's Nat. Hist, of the Varieties of Man, 

 p. 653. 



The Basques, as in native tongue, Enskaldunes, 

 are supposed to have spread from the south, meet- 

 ing the Ugrians in Armorica, which country bears 

 strong evidence of having been Ugrian. I am 

 inclined to think that the Enskaldunes also came 

 originally from the north ; we have scarcely an 

 instance of a large tribe pressing northward as 

 colonisers. Facts show the ancient connection of 

 Armorican with Britain ; that country even dis- 

 putes our King Arthur with us, and some circum- 

 stances of his life much favour the claim. It may 

 be that his famous Round Table was one of those 

 Celtic or Druidical monuments on which, in Ar- 

 morican legends, the lover plighted his troth, and 

 on which, even to the eleventh century, bargains 

 were concluded and money paid; perhaps the 

 origin of our custom on a post. By what means 

 the Ugrians reached England may, I think, be 

 satisfactorily answered : their motive might be 

 gold. In that case the earliest settlers in the 

 eastern counties were not of the first tribe. I 

 wish we could cast aside the idea of our Saxon 

 ancestry, to which we are so much wedded, and 

 that some resolute archaeologist would undertake 

 works like those of M. Boucher de Perthes at 

 Abbeville ; he would be rewarded, I think. Above 

 all, I hope that, where it is possible, the form of 

 every ancient skull found in these counties (and 

 elsewhere too) will be closely examined and fully 

 described. F. C. B. 



MEDIAEVAL MAPS. 



(2"'i S. iv. 434.) 



In answer to your correspondent's 4th and 5th 

 Queries concerning maps and map-makers of the 

 thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, I can refer 

 him for the fullest information to the Geographic 

 duMoyen Age, etudiee par Joachim Lelewel, 4 tomes 

 8vo., Breslau, 1852. Lelewel's work, though 

 somewhat wanting in arrangement, is a mine of 

 learning, and a monument of industry and re- 

 search on this most interesting subject. The text 

 is illustrated with numerous facsimiles, and the 

 volumes are accompanied by an atlas containing 

 fifty copies of maps, engraved by the author ; un- 

 fortunately on so minute a scale, as to require, in 

 many instances, the aid of a powerful lens before 

 the names of the places can be read. This minute- 

 ness was necessary, as the author states, in order 

 to render the work accessible to the literary world 

 at large in point of cost. For those who can 

 afford it, M. Jomard's splendid collection of fac- 

 similes of maps, globes, and planispheres, now 

 in course of publication, leaves nothing to de- 

 sire. The plates are exact reproductions of the 

 originals in every respect, size included. The 

 work is, therefore, necessarily very costly. It is 

 entitled, Les Monvments de la Geographic. Six or 

 seven parts have been published. I cannot say 

 exactly how many parts and plates have appeared, 

 as I am not writing in my library ; but, if I re- 

 member rightly, the latter amount to about forty 

 in number. I presume that your .correspondent 

 is aware of the excellent account of the Catalan 

 Atlas (accompanied by facsimiles) inserted by 

 MM. Buchon and Taster in the 14th volume of 

 the Notices et Extraits des Manuscrits de la Bi- 

 bliotheque du Roi. The date of this curious atlas 

 is 1375. William H. Morley, 



P.S. In special answer to your correspondent's 

 4th Query, I refer him to p. cxxv. et seq. of Le- 

 lewel's " protdgomenes " to the Geographic du 

 Moyen Age, where he will find a " Table Chrono- 

 logique de la Cartographic du Moyen Age Arabe 

 et Latine." In this table every map-maker and 

 map of note, during the periods your correspon- 

 dent wishes to investigate, are summarily men- 

 tioned, with references to the body of the work, 

 where a fuller description occurs. 



I beg to say in answer to your Querist, that the 

 "Mappa Mundi" does still exist, and can be seen 

 in the Camera dei Mappi at the Ducal Palace, Ve- 

 nice, where I saw it this summer. One great pecu- 

 liarity I noticed in it was that it reversed our 

 modern custom, and put the South at the top of 

 the map ; consequently the visitor is somewhat 

 surprised at finding the East on his left hand. 

 May I ask how long such a custom continued in 



