240 



CALEDONIA. 



ave orders for the utter extermination of the bar- 

 jarians, without sparing the very infants in their 

 mothers wombs. His death, however, prevented the 

 execution of this cruel determination, and Caracalla, 

 anxious to quit Britain, concluded a peace with the 

 devoted nations. After this period little more is 

 heard of the Caledonians ; their name, in the pages 

 of the Greek and Roman writers, falls gradually into 

 disuse ; and the population of their country, during 

 the third century, begins to be known under the two 

 celebrated denominations of Scots and Picts. 



Thr Caledonians, according to the account of Ta- 

 citus, resembled the Germans in their large limbs, 

 red hair, and blue eyes, differing remarkably in all 

 these respects from the Silures. or inhabitants of 

 Wales, who were of a darker complexion. They are 

 represented by the writers of the second and third 

 centuries, as having neither walls, towns, nor culti- 

 vated lands ; subsisting by pasturage, hunting, and 

 rapine, and on the wild fruits of their barren coun- 

 try. Hardy beyond belief, they are said to have 

 gone naked, at least in battle, plunging, when pur- 

 sued, up to the neck into their morasses, where they 

 continued for several days without tasting food. In 

 winter especially, and perhaps on all ordinary occa- 

 sions, they must have used, like the southern Britons 

 of Caesar, the skins of beasts to protect them from 

 the cold. They had a custom, in common with all 

 the other natives of the island, of staining their bo- 

 dies of a blue colour. This was done, at least in af- 

 ter times, with some degree of art, as the skin was 

 punctured with a sharp instrument, and the colour- 

 ing matter rubbed into it, so as to exhibit permanent 

 lines and figures, in the manner of some of the South 

 Sea islanders. The arms of the Caledonians were, a 

 very long pointless sword, a small buckler or target, 

 a short spear, having a knob of metal on one end, 

 and a dagger. As far as we have read on the sub- 

 ject, they are not remarked as using bows and ar- 

 rows. The covinus, or war chariot, used by the 

 Caledonians, was probably armed with scythes and 

 hooks, to cut down the ranks of the enemy. Upon 

 the whole, the military apparatus of the Caledonians 

 evinces a greater proficiency in the arts, than the 

 writers of that period allow them. Their horses 

 were small, but extremely active ; and their infantry 

 famous for their quick movements. The bravery and 

 unsubdued spirit of our ancestors, whom the Ro- 

 mans could never bend to their yoke, and who, on 

 that account, form a splendid contrast to the other 

 nations of the world, are such as to give us just rea- 

 ion to glory in being their descendants, all barba- 

 rous and uncultivated as they were. Their manners 

 seem to have been much of the same description as 

 those of the southern Britons, before their subjuga- 

 tion by the Romans. Caesar says of these, that eve- 

 ry ten or twelve men had their wives in common, and 

 that the children were accounted to belong to him 

 who had first married the mother. Nearly the same 

 thing is said of the Caledonians, only that in this 

 case the children -were brought up by the communi- 

 ty, as being claimed by no particular man as their 



father. It has been ignorantly asserted, that the New 

 Caledonians had no houses, because they had no Caledouiju 

 walls nor towns : Tacitus expressly tells us, that af- 

 ter the great battle, they set fire to their houses. 

 We suspect that if there exist any of tho^e circular 

 fortifications, called by Mr Chalmers Pictish forts, 

 within the proper limits of Caledonia, they must be 

 accounted the work of a later period.* Both Dio and 

 Herodian, as well as Tacitus, allow that Caledonia 

 was inhabited by several distinct tribes. Of the Ca- 

 ledonian government, we know nothing more thaa 

 that it was democratic, being probably a sort of fe- 

 deral union. Galgacus does not appear to have been 

 a king ; but merely a chief selected from many others, 

 for his birth and talents, to conduct the operations 

 of the campaign. (E) 



CALEDONIA (New), an island in the South 

 Sea, and, after New Holland and New Zealand, the 

 most considerable that has yet been discovered in it. 

 This island was first seen by Captain Cook in 1772. 

 His survey of it extended no farther than to its north- 

 eastern parts. Twenty years afterwards, it was vi- 

 sited by M. D'Entrecasteaux, during his voyage in 

 search of La Perouse, when a more extended obser- 

 vation was directed both to its coasts and to the in- 

 terior. According to the account of the former of 

 these navigators, it is situated between 19 37' and 

 22 30' Lat. S., and 163 37' and 167 14' E Long. 

 The position assigned to it by the latter is for the 

 southern extremity, Lat. 22 31' S., Long. 164 3(X 

 E. ; for the northern, Lat. 19 58' S. and Long. 161 

 10' E. Its length from S. E. to N. W. may be esti- 

 mated at about 90 leagues : its greatest breadth does 

 not exceed 10 leagues. The coast of this island is 

 extremely bold, and difficult of access. Independent- 

 ly of the obstacle to an easy landing upon it, arising 

 from the height and steepness of its own moun- 

 tains, which, in some directions, extend even to 

 the water's edge, it is on almost all sides envi- 

 roned with numerous rocks, islets, shoals, and sand- 

 banks, which either form a continued chain, passing 

 in the line of the shore, often at a considerable dis- 

 tance, and shutting it up completely from the open 

 sea, or assuming the yet more dangerous aspect of 

 numerous unconnected points shooting up irregular- 

 ly from the surrounding deep. A principal chain 

 of the connected rocks is that which skirts the south- 

 east coast of the island, at a distance from the land 

 generally of from two to three miles, still more in 

 some situations, and thence proceeding, first in a 

 southerly, afterwards in a westerly direction, to a 

 distance from it of 20 miles or upwards. Towards 

 the east and north, the islets aud rocks appear chief- 

 ly in the more detached state just alluded to, forming 

 as it were so many protuberances, issuing from the 

 extended base of the principal summit in the island. 

 The danger and the difficulty of navigation must in 

 those parts, therefore, be peculiarly great, as many 

 of these rocky points hardly rise above the level of 

 the water ; and they seem to extend outwards to a 

 distance even beyond sight of land. The interrup- 

 tions to this sort of irregular wall, if it may be so 



" It is indeed remarkable, that the Roman and Greek writers make no mention whatever of sieges in the campaigns of* 

 Agricola and Sevirus in this country ; so that the forts in question, if thejr then really existed, seem to have been totally use 

 .fK its strongholds. 



