EARLY SETTLEMENT OF THE BRITISH ISLES BY CELTS, 313 
claim that the Indians were at least the earliest occupants of any 
permanence or strength in Canada, and that whatever alterations 
may occur in eur population owing to the unrest of modern times, 
the very names of our lakes and rivers will continue to remind us of 
a time when the Indians had supreme, if not undisputed, sway in 
our Dominion. 
It will frequently be found that the leading names of rivers and 
mountains are very expressive, enabling us to perceive how very 
observant those early and untutored tribes were, and how remarka- 
ble their suecess was in framing names whereby the characteristics 
of stream, and hill, and loch, and headland are pourtrayed with 
faithful accuracy. 
In his article on Gaelic Language and Literature in the Huacyclo- 
pedia Britannica, Dr. MacLauchlan remarks that “ Topography is 
a remarkable source of evidence and one that will be made to serve 
purposes it has never served as yet.” Skene asserts ‘that ‘the oldest 
names in a country are those which mark its salient physical features 
—large rivers and mountains—islands and promontories jutting out 
into the sea. The names of rivers and islands are usually root- 
words, and sometimes so archaic that it is difficult to affix a meaning 
to them. In countries where the Topography obviously belongs to 
the same language with that spoken by the people who still possess 
it, though perhaps in an older stage of the language, it presents 
little difficulty. It is only necessary to ascertain the correct ortho- 
graphy of the names and apply the key furnished by the language 
itself in that stage of its form to which the words belong. This is 
the case with the greater part of Ireland and with the Highlands of 
Scotland, where the local names obviously belong to the same Gaelic 
language which is still the vernacular speech of its population.” 
The conjecture is at least pardonable that in the earliest migra- 
tion of the human race, when the knowledge and ingenuity of men 
were in the rudest form, and when in the tiny craft that then 
obtained, even adventuorous races would not care to face the storms 
of an open sea, the Celts who had their home in Gaul would natur- 
ally select the narrowest portion of the strait that divides England 
from Europe for the purpose of entering the British Isles. Calais 
is a faithful reproduction of Caolas—a Gaelic word which signifies 
1 Celtie Scotland, vol I., pp. 212, 213. 
