THE BAY OF BISCAY. 195 



come chiefs by the privilege of age, administered 

 justice and regulated the affairs of the nation. The 

 Basques believed in the immortality of the soul, and 

 in rewards and punishments after this life. In their 

 eyes natural death was nothing more than a long 

 sleep, and the grave, in their language, is called the 

 bed of profound repose* 



A people whose religion had always possessed this 

 spiritual character would of necessity be easily led 

 to embrace Christianity. The Basques themselves 

 boast of having been the first Christian nation. 

 Their national traditions readily accommodated 

 themselves to the new faith. The Euskarians have 

 thus, as it were, arrogated to their own use the claims 

 advanced by the other Spanish tribes in reference to 

 the antiquity of their race. The Spaniards generally 

 claim as their special ancestors the immediate descen- 

 dants of Noah, without, however, being entirely 

 agreed as to the precise period when these first 

 colonists arrived in Spain. Mariana, Joseph Moret, 

 Gabriel de Henao, Florian d'Ocampo, and Ferreras, 

 have all adopted the version which Alphonso Tostat 



* Augustin Chaho. We leave to this writer, to the Abbe 

 d'Hiarce, and to the Basque authors who have preceded them in the 

 same track, the entire responsibility of these assertions regarding 

 the ancient spiritualism of the Euskarians. M. d'Avezac, whose 

 opinion ought here to have great weight, regards all these pre- 

 tended traditions as so many modern inventions, and even as having 

 been entirely forged by those who have quoted them as evidences of 

 popular belief. However it seemed to us that it might be interest* 

 ing to our readers to know what has been recently advanced by 

 Spanish archaeologists, or by the eccentricities of an exaggerated 

 patriotism, in reference to the origin of the Basques. 



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