218 THE RACES OF THE DANUBE. [xi. 



contained little more wisdom than is usually to be 

 found in such smart sayings based on hasty generali- 

 sation from inadequate and half-understood data. 

 On the whole, the principal intermixture of the Slavs 

 has been with their nearest congeners and neighbours, 

 the Teutons. Slavonic tribes, pushing their way far 

 into the centre of Europe, still hold Bohemia, Moravia, 

 and Silesia, while further south, in Carinthia and 

 Istria, the Slav country comes up close to the Tyrol 

 and to Venice. 



In the Middle Ages, this border region, from the 

 head of the Adriatic to the mountains of Bohemia, 

 was the seat of everlasting war ; and such immense 

 numbers of the eastern invaders were captured from 

 time to time and sold into slavery in all parts of 

 Germany that their national name became the 

 common appellative for wretches doomed to involun- 

 tary servitude. Such seems to have been the origin 

 of our English word "slave." Until lately it was 

 supposed that the vernacular meaning of the national 

 name was " the glorious," as slava is a common word 

 for "glory" in most of the Slavonic languages; and 

 frequent comment was made on the curious fate 

 whereby the proud name of a noble race of warriors 

 became perverted into a common noun to describe 

 the most abject condition of humanity. It is very 



