1890-91.] CELTIC, ROMAN AND GIIEEK TYPES. 177 



Jesuits,* the voyages of Champlain, we hear of Bretons and Basques as 

 the only frequenters of our Gulf — and I have often thought that even 

 before Columbus, some of these Bretons, with perhaps a few Icelanders 

 and a stray Englishman from the British Channel, occasionally fished in 

 American waters, without knowing or caring much about longitudes or 

 the rotundity of the earth. But France has so extensive a sea-coast that 

 I was not prepared for such a sweeping statement as the above, " none 

 but the Bretons follow the sea," but on further enquiry I found it true. 



These Bretons have been sea-faring folk from the dawning of their 

 history, and we got a brilliant picture of their ways, two thousand years 

 ago, from the masterly pen of Caesar. Let us review the page. 



Having at a somewhat advanced age, but nevertheless burning with 

 the energy which springs from the consciousness of supreme ability and 

 the ambition of finishing a great task within a fast lessening tale of 

 years — Caesar, I say, having obtained a free hand in Gaul, had rapidly 

 crushed the emigrating Swiss, absorbed the unsubdued portions of the 

 Rhone valley, driven back the Germans from Alsace and Lorraine, and 

 mastered the country from the Bay of Biscay to the Rhine. So he sent 

 his armies into winter quarters and prepared to journey into Italy, to 

 consult his party friends in Rome. 



But he reckoned without the Bretons, then called the Veneti, How 

 could this people patiently see the Roman Eagles grasping on one side 

 the coasts of Flanders with the estuaries of the Schelde and Meuse, and 

 on the other hand those of the Loire and the Garonne ? They must 

 shake that grasp or prepare to forfeit their independence. Their country 

 is a hilly, rocky district, broken into deep bays by ocean tides and 

 currents, and by the warm and frequent rains which edge the waters of 

 the Gulf stream. Their towns, we learn, were chiefly near the points of 

 the numerous promontories, and in this (which may indicate that they 

 were intruders on the soil) we may perhaps see some foundation for the 

 etymological idea which connects them with the Northern Wends, though 

 they were Celts in language and religion. 



We may perhaps credit them with the capacity to organise an uprising 

 throughout France ; at any rate the storm of war broke suddenly out 

 upon the Alps, where Galba had been ordered to secure himself firmly 

 in the mountain passes. With difficulty Galba's legion extricated itself 



*Ce pais a et^ ptemierement descouvert par les Fran5ois bretons, I'an 1504. Relations, 

 161 1, chap. 1. 



II est assure et confess^ de tous que les Bretons et Normands trouverent premi^rement le 

 grand Banq et les Terres neuves. Relations, 161 1, chap. 26. 



