By the Rev. W. C. Lukis. 163 



crossing the Bosphorus, and in course of time hitting upon the 

 Danube, they would move along its shores until they reached the 

 Rhine, and so gained the western coasts of Europe. But their 

 journey, if that may be called a journey which was a slow and 

 gradual advance, must have occupied a.very long period, and during 

 this time they must have greatly multiplied wherever they formed 

 temporary settlements. It is ver}' likely that at first, after crossing 

 the Bosphorus they occupied Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece, for a 

 considerable time, where sepulchral monuments corresponding with 

 ours are said to have been observed and described by Homer, 

 Pausanias and others, as objects of antiquity; and were subsequently 

 driven thence westward by the advancing Scythians, until they 

 were finally concentrated in Gaul, Britain, and Denmark. 



It is natural to suppose that in their slow movement westward 

 they would stretch out right and left, yet in approaching Gaul 

 there was an almost insuperable barrier on their right, in the 

 enormous Hercynian forest extending from the Rhine in a north- 

 easterly direction for hundreds of miles towards the Baltic sef- 

 This must have prevented their ready admission into the lands to" 

 the north of that river, and compelled them to enter Gaul first. 

 I should therefore be inclined to believe that Gaul and probably 

 Britain were occupied by the Celts for some time before Denmark 

 was inhabited. After all, this is mere conjecture ; but I am 

 endeavouring, on the supposition that Europe was first peopled by 

 the descendants of Japheth, and that they were Celts, to account 

 for difierences or changes in the construction of Danish cromlechs, 

 and in burial customs which I think possess features of a later date 

 than those of Gaul. It is not improbable, however, that Denmark 

 was peopled, not by the Celts, but by a Teutonic race. 



On this point there has been as much speculation as about the 

 period of the erection of cromlechs. Men of ability have taken 

 very difierent views of the matter, though most, if not all, agree 

 in saying that the Celts came from Asia. One of them, Dr. Meyer, 

 (see Latham's Pritchard, p. 380) thinks that they came from Asiatic 

 Scythia, by two principal routes, to western Europe and thia 

 country. The one stream took a south-west direction through 



