304 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



assigning them to the same stock as the Liburnians ; 

 also the Tauricians, who, like the Ligurian Taurini, 

 had no doubt a Taurine, or Tor god; the Yindelicians, 

 still more allied to the tribes of the Baltic, with the 

 Brennians and Genaunians; all at one time derived 

 from the northern shores of the Euxine. Beyond the 

 Liburni and Veneti, the Sigynnse were the only people 

 known to Herodotus, as far as the Ister (Danube) ; but 

 as this name in the Ligurian tongue merely denotes 

 traders, (Zigeuner,* pedlars, tinkers), we may believe 

 that it was a denomination of the Yenetic merchants, 

 who went overland to that river, and thence traversed 

 Germany to the Baltic, where they had tribes of kin- 

 dred origin. Therefore the whole may be claimed as 

 of Finnic source, collectively originators of the nume- 

 rous markets (nationally Ventae) existing before the 

 extension of the Roman sway to beyond the Rhine 

 and Danube, like a commercial net-work over the west 

 of Europe. In Italy the word Forum was substituted 

 for vent or guent by the Latin nations, while they 

 left Venta to be used beyond the Alps. These were 

 what are now known by the name of Scalae among the 

 more modern Italians ; Markt, Fair, and Kioping, of 

 the Gothic nations. The existence of these emporia 



* It may be remarked, that both the present Armenians 

 and the gypsies Zincali (Zigeuner of the Germans) have a 

 cranial structure very much resembling the high northern 

 tribes of Finnic Hyperboreans, and are similarly nomads 

 and soothsayers, sharp in dealing, and ever, like the others, 

 averse to war. 



