The Races of the Danube. 229 



peoples of Europe present such marked varieties 

 of complexion. 



So much, at least, is probable, though more 

 or less hypothetical. In following the successive 

 stages of Aryan invasion, we gradually emerge 

 from this twilight of plausible hypothesis into the 

 clearness of authentic history. The Aryans came, 

 as just observed, in successive swarms. The first 

 series of swarms got naturally the most mixed up 

 with the Iberian aborigines, and the result of 

 their gradual settlement was the formation of the 

 Keltic, Italic, and Hellenic peoples. In Spain the 

 aborigines held their own most successfully, and 

 hence the mixture was recent enough to be rec- 

 ognized by Roman historians, who called the 

 Spaniards Kelt-Iberians; but elsewhere it was 

 accomplished so early as to be forgotten before 

 people began to write history. It has been fash- 

 ionable to sneer at zealous Irish writers for their 

 propensity to find traces of the Kelts everywhere. 

 But there is no doubt whatever that the Kelts 

 were once a very widely diffused people. They 

 have left names for rivers and mountains in al- 

 most every part of Europe. The name of the 

 river Don in Russia, for example, is one of the 

 common Keltic names for water, and so we find 

 a river Don in Yorkshire, a Dean in Nottingham- 



