422 



NATURE 



[Sept. 2, 1880 



says that the Britons nearest to Gaul resembled the Gauls.i If 

 he refers liere to the sea-coast tribes in the south-east of Briton, 

 the comparison must be with the Belgic and not with the Keltic 

 Gauls. But his subsequent reference to the resemblance between 

 the sacred rites of the Bri:ons and those of the Gauls sujgeits 

 that his remarks may be fairly extended to the inland tribes 

 beyond tlie limits of tlie Belgic Britons, in which case tlie 

 resemblance may be rather with the Gaulish Kelts. Indeed 

 this inference, apart from the testimony of language, is the chief 

 evidence upon \A'hich ethnologists have based their conclusions 

 as to the Keltic origin of the Britons. 



Our data for restoring the anthropological characteristics of 

 the ancient Britons are but few and small. It is true that a 

 description of Banduica, or Boadicea, has been^ left to us by 

 Xiphiline, of Trebizond ; but then it will be objected that he 

 did not write until the twelfth century. Yet it must be remem- 

 bered that he merely abridged the works of Dion Cassius, the 

 historian, who wrote a thousand years earlier, and consequently 

 we have grounds for believing that what Xiphiline describes is 

 simply a description taken from the lost books of an early 

 historian who is supposed to have drawn liis information from 

 original sources. Ivow Boadicea is described in these terms: 

 "She was of the largest size, most terrible of aspect, most 

 savage of countenance, and harsh of voice, having a profusion of 

 yellow liair which fell down to her hips." ^ Making due 

 allowance for rhetorical exaggeration, making allowance too for 

 the fact that in consequence of her royal descent she is likely to 

 have been above the average stature, and even admitting tliat 

 she dyed her hair, it is yet clear that this British queen must be 

 regarded as belonging to the xanthous type — tall and fau". The 

 tribe of the Iceui, over which this blonde amazon ruled, is 

 generally placed beyond the limits of the Belgic Britons ; though 

 some authorities have argued in favour of a Belgic origin. If 

 the latter view be correct, we should expect tlie queen to be tall, 

 light-haired, and blue-eyed ; for, from what we know of the 

 Eelgce, such m ere their features. Cccsar asserts that the majoriiy 

 of the Belg£e were derived from the Germans.^ But notwith- 

 standing this assertion most etlniologists are inclined to ally them 

 with the Ceiti, without, of course, denying a strong Teulomo 

 admixture. Straloo says * that the Belgo; and Celti had the same 

 GaulisJi form, though both differed widely in physical characters 

 from the Aquitanians. As to language, Cjesar's statement tliat 

 the Belgic and Keltic differed, probably refers only to dialectical 

 differences.'' If a close ethnical relationship can be established 

 between the Celti and the Belgce, British ethnology clearly gains 

 in simplification. To what extent the Belgic settlers in this 

 country resembled the neighbouring British tribes must remain a 

 moot point. According to Strabo '' the Britons were taller than the 

 Celti, with hair less yellow, and they were slighter in build. By 

 the French school of ethnologists the Belgx are identified witli 

 the Cyinry, and are described as a tall fair people, similar to the 

 Cimbri already mentioned ; and Dr. Pritchard, the founder of 

 English anthropology, was led long ago to describe the Keltic 

 type in similar terms.' 



Yet as we pass across Britain westwards, and advance towards 

 those parts which are reputed to be predominantly Keltic, the 

 proportion of tall fair folk, sp2al;ing in general terms, dimi- 

 nishes, while the short and dark element in the population 

 increases, until it probably attains its maximum somewhere in 

 this district. As popular impressions are apt to lead us astray, 

 let us turn for accuracy to the valuable mass of statistics 

 collected in Dr. Beddoe's A\ell-known paper " On the Stature 

 and Bulk of Man in the British Isles," ' a paper to which every 

 student refers with unfailing confidence, and which will probably 

 remain our standard authority until the labours of our own 

 Anthropometric Committee are sufficiently matured for publica- 

 tion. Dr. Beddoe, summing up his observations on the physical 

 characters of the Welsh as a whole, defines them as of *' short 

 stature, with good weight, and a tendency to darkness of eyes, 

 hair, and skin." With regard to this tendency to darkness, it 

 is well to look more searchingly at the district in which we are 



* "Proximi Gallis et similes sunt." — AgricoUi^z. xi. 



° " Mon. Hist. Brit.," Excerpta, p. Ivi. 



3 "Plerosque Belgas esse ortos ab Germaiiis."— Z^c Beth Gall., lib. ii. 

 c. 4. ^ Lib. iv. c. i. 



5 "Quand Cesar dit : Hi omncs lingua, instilutis. Ugibus. iittcy sc 

 tliffernHt. \\ faut traduire ici le mot lingua par dialccte." — " Les Deraicrs 

 Bretons." Par Emile Souvestre. vol. i. p. 141. 6 Lib. iv. c. 5. 



^ "Researclies into the Physical History of Mankind." By J. C. 

 Prichard, M.D., F.R.S., vol. iii. p. 189. 



'* Mem. Anthrop. Soc. Lend., vol. iii., 1S70, p. 384. 



assembled. Dr. Beddoe, in another paper, ^ indicated the 

 tendency by a numerical expression which he termed the index 

 of nigrescence. "In the coast-districts and lowlands of Mon- 

 mouthshire and Glamorgan, the ancient seats of Saxon, Norman, 

 and Flemish colonisation, I find," says this observer, "thi 

 indices of hair and eyes so lovi- as 33-5 and (it,; while in the 

 interior, excluding the children of English and Irish immigrants, 

 the figures rise to 57-3 and 109-5— this last ratio indicating a 

 prevalence of dark eyes surpassing what I have met with in any 

 other part of Britain " (p. 43). 



Many years ago Mr. Matthew Moggridge, whose scientific 

 work is well known in this district, furnished the authors of the 

 "Crania Britannica " with notes of the physical characteristics 

 of the Welsh of Glamorganshire. He defined the people ai 

 having "eyes (long) bright, of dark or hazel colour, hair gene- 

 rally black, or a very dark brown, lank, generally late in turning 

 grey."^ 



There can be no question then as to the prevalence of melanism 

 in this district. Nor does it seem possible to account for this 

 tendency, as some anthropologists have suggested, by the influ- 

 ence of the surrounding media. Even those who believe most 

 firmly in the potency of the environment will hardly be inclined 

 to accept the opinion seriously entertained some years ago by 

 the Rev. T. Price, that the black eyes of Glamorganshire are 

 due to the pre\'alence of coal fires. ^ Long before coal came 

 into nse there was the same tendency to nigrescence among the 

 Welsh. This may be seen, as Dr. Nicholas has pointed out, in 

 the bardic names preserved in ancient Welsli records, where the 

 cognomen of du, or "black," very frequently occurs. Thus, in 

 the " Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales," between a.d. 1280 and 

 1330, there are registered four "blacks" to one "red" and one 

 "grey," namely GwUym Ddu, Llywelyn Ddu, Goronwy Ddu, 

 and Dafydd Ddu.^ 



The origin of this dark element in the Welsh is to be ex- 

 plained, as every one will have anticipated, by reference to the 

 famous passage in Tacitus, which has been worn threadbare by 

 ethnologists. Tacitus tells us that the ancient British tribe of 

 ■Silures — a tribe inhabiting what is now Glamorganshire, Mon- 

 mouthshire, Herefordshire, and parts at least of Brecknockshire 

 and Radnor — had a swarthy complexion, mostly with curly hair, 

 and that from their situation opposite to Spain there was reason 

 to believe that the Iberians had passed over the sea and gained 

 possession of the country." It will be observed that although 

 Tacitus speaks of their dark complexion, he does not definitely 

 state that the hair was dark ; but this omission has, curiously 

 enough, been supplied by Jornandes, a Goth who, in the sixth 

 century, wrote a work which professes to be an extract from the 

 lost history of Cassiodorus, Viherein the very words of Tacitus 

 are reproduced with the necessary addition.'' With these pas- 

 sages before us, can we reasonably doubt that the swart blood 

 in the Welsh of the present day is a direct legacy from their 

 Sihirian ancestors ? 



Setting what Tacitus here says about the Silures against what 

 he says in the next sentence about the Britons nearest to Gaul 

 (p. 5), it is clear that we must recognise a duality of type in the 

 population of Southern Britain in his day. This fact has been 

 clearly pointed out by Prof. Huxley as one of the few " fixed points 

 in British ethnology." " At the dawn of history in this country, 

 eighteen centuries ago, the population was not homogeneous, but 

 contained representatives both of Prof. Huxley's Mclanochroi 

 and of his Xanthochyoi. If we have any regard whatever for 

 the persistence of anthropological type;, we should hesitate to 

 refer Ijoth of these to one and the same elementary stock. We 

 are led then to ask, W'hich of these two types, if either, is to 

 be regarded as Keltic ? 



It is because both of these types, in turn, have been called 



" •• On the Testimony of Local Phenomena in the West of England to the 

 Permanence of Anthropological Types." — Ibid. vol. ii. 1866, p. 37. 

 ^ " Cran, Brit.,'* vol. i. p. 53. 



3 " Essay on the Physiognomy and Physiology of the Present Inhabi- 

 tants of Britain," 1829. 



4 '• The Pedigree of the English People," fifth edition, 1878, p. 467. 



5 *' Silurum colorati vultus et torti plerumque crines, et posita contra 

 Hispania, Ibeoros veteres trajecisse, easque sedes occupasse, fidem faciunt. " 

 — .Xricola, c. xi. 



<> "Sylorum [= Silurum] colorati vultus, torto plerique crine, ct nigro 

 nascuntur."— " De Rebus Geticis," c. ii, ; quoted in " Mon. Hist. Brit.," 

 Excerpta, p. Ixxxiii. It is conjectured that the classical word Silures is 

 derived from the British name Essylhvyr, the people of Essyll'Mg. See 

 Nicholas's "History of Glamorganshire." 1874, p. i. It is difficult to 

 determine how far and in what respects the Silures resembled, or differed 

 from, the other inland tribes. Of the Caledonians and of the Belgse .we 

 know something, but of the other inhabitants we are quite ignorant. 



? " Critiques and Addresses," p. 166. 



