374 PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE 



hur, Prichard, Laurence, Latham, and other writers, hare debated the 

 questions : were the Gauls xanthous or swarthy ; yellow, red, or dark- 

 haired ; and blue or black-eyed ? and of the Britons, in like manner, 

 it is still a moot point, whether they were fair or dark, and their 

 long shaggy locks were black,^ brown, red, or yellow. Dr. Beddoe, an 

 intelligent observer, applied the test of personal experience, a few 

 years since, to determine some of the same questions ; and found it 

 little less puzzling to arrive at any definite results in reference to their 

 modern representatives, than to reconcile conflicting evidence relative 

 to the Celts or Gauls of two thousand years ago.* Niebhur, con- 

 founded by the assurance conveyed to him by an English correspond- 

 ent, that all modern British Celts have black hair : in the last edition 

 of his Roman History, places this supposed fact in contrast with the 

 yellow hair assigned by Ammianus Marcellinus, a resident in Gaul, to- 

 the continental Celts. Dr. Beddoe, on the contrary, was forced at 

 last to the conclusion '' that black and red hair are not so diametri- 

 cally apposed as is generally imagined ;" and he ended by assigning- 

 to the British Celt : — eyes grey or blue, passing through dark grey 

 into brown and black ; hair bright red or yellow, passing through 

 various shades of bright brown, into dark brown and coal black. The 

 Teutonic Briton differed in the red hair being light, and the yellow 

 flaxen ; while the brown tints were dull ; and neither eye nor hair ex- 

 hibited the pure black. 



Difficult as it thus appears to be to determine the coraplexional pe- 

 culiarities of the Gaul or Briton, either of ancient or modern times : it 

 might seem an easier task to define the form of head eharacteristie of 

 each. The light of their eyes may be quenched in dust, and the bright 

 locks have yielded up their lustre to the grave ; but the skull, though 

 not imperishable, has in many cases resisted decay. Of the Romani 

 fiupplanters of the Gaul and Briton, many skulls are preserved ; some 

 of which, recovered from inscribed sarcophagi, not only reveal the race 

 of the deceased, but the name, age, rank, and term of military service 

 or foreign residence of eaeh. When we turn to the contemporary 

 Gaulish or British barrow, we look in vain for information, so minute 

 or exact. Nevertheless, the evidence is sufficient for all practical re- 

 quirementSy and it is indisputable that hundreds of Crania have beeu 



* A Contribufion to Scottish Ethnology : by John Beddoe, B.A., MD. ; London 

 1853. On the Ancient and Modern Ethnography of Scotland^ Proceed. Soci 

 Autiq. Scot. Yol. 1 p. 256. 



\ 



