34 Transactions of the Canadian Institute. [Vol. VII. 



which we hold as vocabularies of the Guanche language. Had the 

 Canary Islanders a common tongue, or, at least, a common origin ? " 



So far Dr. Bethencourt, who, the writer sincerely hopes, will not be 

 tempted to apply to him the Italian proverb, " Traditore non Tradut- 

 tore." The foregoing paragraphs present at least the gist of his 

 introduction to the vocabularies, and nothing in it has been omitted. 

 Many books have been written on the Canary Islands, both before and 

 after the publication of the English histories of Glasse and Thomas 

 Nicols. The writer has had access to some of these, among them to the 

 work of M. E. Pegot-Ogier on the " Fortunate Isles." This author and 

 others contend for the Celtic origin of the Guanches, and for their 

 relation with the Berber tribes of northern Africa, whence old Guanche 

 traditions concur in bringing their ancestors. The Berber dialects are 

 much corrupted with Arabic and in part with negro languages, but their 

 substance in vocabulary and grammar is Celtic. While a very consider- 

 able body of Celts emigrated from the East through Europe, leaving 

 colonies in Bavaria, the Tyrol and Umbria, and peopling Gaul and the 

 British Islands, a large number of them, even according to British 

 traditions, Welsh, Irish and Scottish, passed westward through Africa 

 and left their name to the province of Numidia. Of these latter some, 

 at least, must have crossed over into Spain accompanied by the Iberic 

 Mauretani, to constitute together the Celt-Iberian population of that 

 peninsula. A smaller, yet not insignificant, emigration took place, at 

 some remote period, from Cape Nun, in Morocco, or some more western 

 point, to Lanzarote and the adjoining islands. Was this last tide of 

 migration purely Celtic or, like that into Spain, was it Celt-Iberian? 



Not to speak here of antiquities, such as architectural remains, 

 arms and utensils, manners and customs, of which the writer has treated 

 elsewhere, there remain two sources of information as to the affiliation 

 of the Canary Islanders ; the evidences of their written and of their 

 spoken language. Of inscriptions the writer has translated about 

 sixty, thirty and more of which have been already published, leaving 

 twenty-seven, that have not so far seen the light, to illustrate this paper. 

 They are, with no single exception, Iberic, their characters being those 

 of Etruria and Iberic Spain, and the language they yield being archaic 

 Basque. The best Basque scholars of France and Spain have homolo- 

 gated the translations already published, and have thus placed them 

 beyond the reach of cavil. The fact seems, therefore, to be established, 

 that, not only in Hierro, whence came most of the inscriptions, but also 

 throughout the archipelago, a population akin to the Basques of the 

 Pyrenees existed in a state of literary culture, and holding the reins of 



