VIII 



ON SOME FIXED POINTS IN BRITISH 

 ETHNOLOGY. 



IN view of the many discussions to which the compli- 

 cated problems offered by the ethnology of the British 

 islands have given rise, it may be useful to attempt to 

 pick out, from amidst the confused masses of assertion 

 and of inference, those propositions which appear to rest 

 upon a secure foundation, and to state the evidence by 

 which they are supported. Such is the purpose of the 

 present paper. 



Some of these well-based propositions relate to the 

 physical characters of the people of Britain and their 

 neighbours ; while others concern the languages which 

 they spoke. I shall deal, in the first place, with the 

 physical questions. 



I. Eighteen hundred years ago the population of 

 Britain comprised people of two types of complexion 

 the one fair, and the other dark. The dark people 

 resembled the Aquitani and the Iberians; the fair 

 people were like the Belgic Gauls. 



The chief direct evidence of the truth of this proposi- 

 tion is the well-known passage of Tacitus : 



" Ceterum Britanniam qui mortales initio coluerint, indigenes an 

 advecti, ut inter barburos, paruin compertum. Hubitus corporum 



