1810-91.] CELTIC, ROMAN AND GREEK TYPES. 181 



running parallel to the coast, but sending down spurs enclosing valleys 

 which are cut off from each other by the sea. One of these valleys he 

 said would be inhabited by a swarthy, dark-eyed clan ; the next by a 

 fair-haired, blue-eyed race. The former, he supposed, were the ancient 

 people of Spain, driven north by Roman arms ; the latter Visigoths, 

 who had taken refuge from the Moors. I did not ascertain if there were 

 any differences in dialects, folklore or customs. The district is an 

 isolated one, and so out of the way of ordinary ethnologists that it has 

 been neglected. 



Attention has been given to the Iberians, Aquitanians or Basques, 

 that curious old race who clung to the Pyreneean slopes and the vicinity 

 of the Bay of Biscay, but as I have nothing new to say of these I merely 

 note their existence, a people whose origin is as yet quite obscure ; pre- 

 Aryan it would seem ; their language so peculiar that our Mr. Chamber- 

 lain (whose familiar face we sadly miss, and of whom we all expect a 

 distinguished career among the literary men of the United States) busied 

 himself in tracing its analogies with Esquimaux ! 



TROGLODYTES IN SOUTH WESTERN FRANCE. 



Leaving Santander, and the snow-tipped mountains of the Spanish 

 coast, we crossed the Bay of Biscay to the low lying, sandy and gravelly 

 shores of France, and entered the Gironde, a noble river, muddy as the 

 Mississippi at its mouth. As we approached the Dordogne, the shores 

 began to rise, and near Blaie the north bank is a cliff of soft rock, where 

 I was surprised to find a race of troglodytes. For a couple of miles or 

 more there is a continuous settlement, one can scarcely say a town or 

 village, of these people, and the appearance of the spot is very peculiar 

 and picturesque. I asked in Bordeaux, in Paris and in London for 

 photographs of the locality, but the enterprising camera man has not 

 been there yet. In the rock face a door is cut ; a room is hollowed out 

 behind, then perhaps another, a chimney is pierced through to the top, a 

 window chiselled out beside the door, and the house is ready. I saw in 

 several cases one house above another, and there the chimney would be 

 built up outside the cliff. Some of the house fronts had an attempt at 

 architectural ornament, a rude cornice or frieze or architrave over doors 

 and windows. The stone is now an article of commerce ; it is cut and 

 taken to Bordeaux and other places. I saw parts where quarries had 

 interfered with the houses, exposing the interiors. It seemed that the 

 rooms had been well squared and were of a good size. The rock is very 

 easy to work, it can be carved with a stout knife, there is a road-way, or 

 at least a good path-way on the talus at the foot of the cliff, by which 



