V BRITISH ETHNOLOGY 269 



guages ; "but there is evidence to show that a non- 

 Aryan language was at one time spoken over a 

 large extent of the area occupied ~by Mclanochroi in 

 Europe. 



The non-Aryan language here referred to is the 

 Euskarian, now spoken only by the Basques, but 

 which seems in earlier times to have been the 

 language of the Aquitanians and Spaniards, and 

 may possibly have extended much further to the 

 East. Whether it has any connection with the 

 Ligurian and Oscan dialects are questions upon 

 which, of course, I do not presume to offer any 

 opinion. But it is important to remark that it 

 is a language the area of which has gradually 

 diminished without any corresponding extirpation 

 of the people who primitively spoke it ; so that the 

 people of Spain and of Aquitaine at the present 

 day must be largely " Euskarian" by descent in 

 just the same sense as the Cornish men are 

 " Celtic " by descent. 



Such seem to me to be the main facts respect- 

 ing the ethnology of the British islands and of 

 Western Europe, which may be said to be fairly 

 established. The hypothesis by which I think 

 (with De Belloguet and Thurnam) the facts may 

 best be explained is this : In very remote times 

 Western Europe and the British islands were 

 inhabited by the dark stock, or the Melanochroi, 

 alone, and these Melanochroi spoke dialects allied 

 to the Euskarian. The Xanthochroi, spreading 



