THE HUMAN SPECIES. 293 



the Helotes, and other indigenous tribes reduced to 

 slavery by conquering Heleni, who themselves acknow- 

 ledged gods of high northern origin, and venerated milk- 

 eating Scythse. What could these tribes be but Finnic 

 or Gomerian Celts, who, in the east of Europe, as in 

 the west, were fused into later and more powerful 

 tribes, with far less resistance than is often shown when 

 kindred nations oppose the pretensions of each other.* 

 Hence races of Finnic origin passed, in antiquity, by 

 conquest or mutual consent, into Celto-Scythae and Pe- 

 lasgians, so that in many cases it is impossible to trace 

 the nations further up than to their second or third amal- 

 gamation. We find this substantiated by words belong- 

 ing in common to the Etruscan, Basque, Ligurian, and 

 ancient languages of western Asia : such, for example, 

 as Tar, in Tarchon, Brig, in Briga, Larch, in Larissa, 

 Gur, in Calagurris, Maitagurra, the Durga of the Py- 

 renees, &c. ; and there are others, in the traditions of 

 tribes that appear to have been connected by Finnic 

 consanguinity, such as the Basque Haitor, the most 

 early British Heytor, the first, if not both, being a 

 denomination of a superior divinity, probably allied to 

 Thor. There is a still more remarkable coincidence in 

 the Navarrese and Cantabrian legend of the blue cow, 

 lowing from the verge of the mountain forest, when 



* The river Alpheus bears a Finnic name, for Alf Elf, 

 in Lapland and Finland, still denotes a torrent, and, it may 

 not be amiss to observe, that Eric Erk, in Sweo-Finnic, is 

 still a proper name, always considered a synonym of Her- 

 cules. The Heraclidse in fact were Finnic Goths. 



