Ethnographical Memoir on the Nations of Slavonian Race. 1 9 



clothing skins ; their bed the ground. Their only dependence is on their 

 arrows, which, for want of iron, are headed with bone ; and the chase is 

 the support of the women, as well as the men, who wander with them in 

 the pursuit, and claim a share of the prey. Nor do they provide any other 

 shelter for their infants, from wild beasts and storms, than a covering of 

 branches twisted together. This is the resort of youth — this is the recep- 

 tacle of old age." 



I am much inclined to believe that these Venedi of Tacitus, the Wenedas 

 of Ptolemy, were in fact the people who were described some time after- 

 wards by Jordanes, as inhabiting the same country ; but I must not omit 

 to mention that Dobrowsky is of a contrary opinion. This learned writer 

 supposes that the Slavi were a different people from the old Veneti, or 

 OvEvecai, and that Jordanes, the Gothic historian, gave them the name 

 of Winidae, owing to his ignorance of this fact. This, however, does not 

 account for the circumstance that the Germans in general gave the name 

 of Wends to people of Slavonian origin. 



Whether the Slavonians were the Veneti of Roman historians or not, 

 there will still be some reason for including them among the ancient in- 

 habitants of Europe. Both Von Schlotzer and Dobrowsky have remarked 

 that the Slavonic language has many roots common to it and to the Gothic, 

 a circumstance which evidently denotes an ancient connection of the Sla- 

 vonians with that northern race. On the other hand, it must be allowed 

 that the Slavonian idioms approximate in many respects to the Asiatic 

 dialects of the Indo-European language. In the frequent use of sibilant 

 and soft palatine letters, and in the forms of words, it bears many striking 

 resemblances to the Sanskrit, and is intermediate between that language 

 and its European correlatives.* Dobrowsky is inclined to the opinion, 

 that the Slavonians inhabited from very early times, the country behind 

 Lettland and Livonia, on the upper Borysthenes, and the upper Volga. 

 Thence they moved to the vvestward, when the Goths emigrated towards 

 the South of Europe. It was not till that era certainly that the Slavonic 

 race appeared on the great theatre of nations : they had until then never 

 shewed themselves on the western side of the Vistula, or southward of the 

 Carpathian chain. When the Goths, Burgundians, Longobards, Vandals, 

 and other Teutonic tribes, in the north, moved towards the confines of the 

 Roman empire, room was afforded for the progress of the Slavonic tribes, 

 who advanced and occupied the empty space. The eastern division of the 

 race termed Antes, had gained the country on the Danube before the age 

 of Procopius. The western tribes, termed Wends and Obotrites, advanced 

 along the Baltic into Mecklenburg and Hoistein : they had occupied on 



• For exam)>Ic, the root of the verb to hear, in Greek, kKv ; in Celtic, chi; is in 

 the Slavonic, slu ; in Sanskrit, am. Quatuor, four; in Erse, keal hair, becomes in 

 Rusnian, cheture, In Sanskrit, chaiur. Many examples might be cited of a similar 

 (Icicription. 



