i 



CLASSES AND BREEDS OF BRITISH HORSES. 505 



usually denominated Teutones or Gothi ; the one, it has been 

 said, apparently derived from the countries south of the line 

 of the Caucasus, the other from the ruder regions extending 

 northward. The southern emigrants were usually found in 

 patriarchal communities of tribes or clans, generally dis- 

 united, and at war with one another, or only combined for 

 the purpose of aggression or mutual defence. The people 

 were submissive to authority, and had an order of priests of 

 great influence and power, who taught the immortality and 

 transmigration of the soul, worshipped in groves, erected 

 altars and sacred enclosures of unhewn stone, of which innu- 

 merable remains are yet spread over Europe, paid, like the 

 Persian Magi, a reverence to fire, to the heavenly bodies, 

 and to certain plants, and adopted the horrid rite of human 

 sacrifices, as practised by the Phoenicians and other Syrians. 

 On the other hand, the ultra- Caucasian or Scythian colonists 

 formed larger communities, under a system rather feudal 

 than patriarchal. The people, although influenced by a wild 

 superstition, were tenacious of individual rights, like the free 

 Scythians in every age. They had horses, whose flesh they 

 sometimes used as food, and which they offered up in sacri- 

 fices to their divinities, but which, so far as is known, they 

 never attached to chariots of war, like the true Celtae. 



The Celtse, continually pressed upon and driven westward, 

 were found, at the period of the Roman conquests, in Spain, 

 Gaul, part of Germany, and the Islands of Britain ; and the 

 latter Islands appear to have been in their exclusive posses- 

 sion at the time of the Roman invasion. Some, indeed, have 

 supposed, that at this period a nation of Gothic origin had 

 found its way to Britain, and occupied, under the name of Belgae, 

 the part of the country where Csesar landed. This is probable ; 

 but, at the same time, the Belgoe rather appear to have been 

 themselves a Celtic people, at least the testimony of Strabo, 

 and the description which Cassar gives of them, seem to shew 

 that they were a race differing in no essential respects from 

 the other Britons. But be this as it may, it was not for many 



