" NATIONALITY." 283 



withstanding the ob\aous hindrance which it offers to com- 

 mercial advancement, still holds its own close to, and even 

 in the centres of, the greatest commercial and intellectual 

 activities of the world, yet English is surely and steadily 

 creeping in, and must eventually drive it out. 



In our j^resent enquiry the language spoken by a people 

 goes for very little except so far as it appears in place-names. 

 New-comers asked the names of prominent features and 

 adopted them at once for convenience of reference without 

 any knowledge of their significance. The practice of chang- 

 ing old names in order to conceal the associations connected 

 with them, or to glorify by a new name some easily achieved 

 modification of old work, was reserved for modern scientific 

 nomenclature and Parisian political sentiment. Ancient place- 

 names can generally be trusted. 



Although the men of Gwynerld,* the northern district, can 

 detect one of the Hwntwsf of the Deheubarth, or southern 

 parts, by his speech, yet there is not in Wales any such differ- 

 ence as exists between tlie dialects of different counties in 

 England. And yet all the evidence that can be collected 

 on the subject, the nature of which is indicated in the few 

 examples which I am laying before you to-night, leads to the 

 inference that the people of Wales belongs to many very dif- 

 ferent races. 



It becomes, therefore, a matter of interest to enquire 

 whether any marked characteristics of physical feature can be 

 now observed in different well-defined areas, and whether 

 any connection can be made out between these and the early 

 races mentioned in history or suggested by place-names. 



We have, of course, all round the coast a belt of more 

 recently mixed races. There was the English occupation 

 along the line of the mediteval castles: there were the Flem- 

 ings settled in Lloegr fach tu hwnt i Gymru (Little 

 England beyond Wales). That is a district in the south of 

 Pembrokeshire where Flemings and English were planted 

 by Henry I and the Earl of Pembroke. 



Of the mercenary soldiers who followed the feudal lords 

 along the Marches and held the castles round the coast it 



* Gwynedd, a not very clearly defined district including nearly the 

 whole of North Wales. A similar name is applied in Brittany to the 

 country of the Veneti : the Diocese of Vannes is now called Eskopti 

 Gwened or Escobty Guened. 



t Hwntws, from hwnt=outside, foreign, cf. forestieri. 



