THE HUMAN SPECIES. 445 



time about the lake of Ladoga, made that water a 

 sacred centre, until they migrated to Scandinavia. 



The Getae, found by Ovid occupying the west coast 

 of the Euxine, were then already a century in moving 

 onwards towards the north-west of Europe, taking 

 again the great rivers of the present Poland to reach 

 the Baltic. With the Thuringians and Saxons, or 

 Sacasunen, among them, they forced their way to the 

 German Ocean, dislodging the Cymbers, excepting 

 remnants that clung to the swamps, and the then sub- 

 merging islands of the deltas formed by the great 

 rivers which discharge their waters into the German 

 Ocean. They were most likely the subsequent Friesen 

 and Si-Cambers, or Water Cymbers, who, with other 

 tribes of so called Germanii, formed the posterior 

 offensive confederacy of the Franks (Freye-Anke) ; 

 among these the clan of Merovingians (Meervingen), 

 notwithstanding that the site they inhabited is pointed 

 out to have been on the Merwe in Holland, seems 

 nevertheless to indicate a clan of sea rovers, whose 

 first intelligible historical chief, Pharamund (Vaare- 

 mund), or commander of the navigation, had performed 

 some great exploit in the then fresh career of distant 

 marine expeditions, such as that of plundering and 

 ravaging the coasts of Africa and Spain. They and 

 "tfieir chief may perhaps refer to the remarkable escape 

 of the Frankish exiled prisoners, who, in A.D. 280, 

 seized upon shipping on the coasts of the Euxine, and 

 forced their way homeward, plundering Syracuse and 



