298 



NATLRAL HISTORY OF 



arrows, bone spear heads, and the remains of horses, 

 stags, elks, and bears. 



THE BASQUES. 





FROM the foregoing- remarks, we believe ourselves 

 justified to claim the Basque, Esquara, or Vascon 

 people, to be the most southern of the Finnic stem in 

 Europe. Coming up the Garonne from the sea, it 

 evidently spread towards the western Pyrenees; for 

 the ancient frontier fastnesses of these tribes are his- 

 torically unknown to the north of that river, excepting 

 Calagurris, now St. Lizier, on the Salat, an affluent at 

 no great distance from the stream where it is but first 

 emerging from the mountains. The nation extended, 

 on the south of the great ridge, to the Ebro, where a 

 similar fortress, likewise denominated Calagurris, now 

 Calahorra, commanded the upper Ebro. The capital 

 was Pompelo, in the district of the Husia tribe. 



Denominations of places and early superstitions in- 

 dicate a Finnic western Caucasian origin. In Spain 

 the Cantabrians were always celebrated for valour, and 

 for arresting the conquests of the Moors, after the 

 overthrow of the Goths; perhaps evincing, by their 

 support, a community of origin, which they alone pos- 

 sessed beyond the Pyrenees. Aided by these hardy 

 mountaineers, the Goths resisted the southern in- 

 vaders, and in the Asturian mountains formed the 

 little kingdom of Oviedo, which soon again expanded 

 into that of Leon. It was in the defiles of this region 



