INHABITANTS. 31 



battle ; they also wear their hair long, and shave every part of the body except 

 the head and the upper lip. Every ten or twelve of them have their wives in 

 common, especially brothers with brothers, and parents with children ; but 

 if anv children are born they are accounted the children of those by whom 

 each maiden was first espoused." Druidism flourished among these Britons as 

 vigorously as with their kinsmen in Gaul. Amongst these British tribes were 

 Morinii, Bhemi, and Atrebatii, as in Northern France. The Atrebatii were more 

 civilised than the others, and had grown wealthy through their agriculture and 

 industry. 



The Roman uccupation, however great its influence upon the progress of 

 civilisation, affected but little the ethnical composition of the population. "When 

 the great empire fell to pieces, and Britain became a prey to anarchy, the Teutonic 

 tribes of Northern Europe, who had long harassed its coasts, obtained a permanent 

 footing in it, exterminating or reducing to a state of servitude the inhabitants 

 whom they found dwelling there, or driving them to the sterile hilly districts. 

 Warlike Jutes established themselves on the Isle of Thanet, in Kent, on the Isle 

 of Wight, and on the coast of Hampshire ; Saxons, with kindred tribes from Lower 

 Germany, amongst whom the Eriesians were the most prominent, occupied the 

 basin of the Thames as well as the coasts of Essex and Sussex, still named after 

 them ; Angles, from the southern part of the Cimbrian peninsula, drove the 

 Britons out of Central and Northern England. Later still an invasion of Danes 

 and Northmen took place, and last of all William the Conqueror, with his 

 fifty thousand French-speaking Normans, landed. No warlike invasion has taken 

 place since then, but tbe population of the British Islands, alread}' of such 

 diverse origin, has repeatedly received fresh accessions of kindred or alien immi- 

 grants, and is receiving them annually, down to the present day. Religious 

 persecution drove thousands of Flemings and Frenchmen to the shores of England, 

 where they founded new industries, and in course of time amalgamated with 

 the people. Palatines settled in the country when driven from their homes 

 by the ruthless hosts of Louis XIV., and political refugees of all nations have 

 at all times found a secure asylum on British soil. The stock of the actual 

 population of the British Isles consists of northern types, viz. Celtic Britons 

 and Teutonic Saxons, Northmen, and kindred tribes. It is not in accordance 

 with facts to comprehend so mixed a people under the general term of Anglo- 

 Saxons, as if it had had no other ancestors than the Germanic invaders who came 

 from the banks of the Elbe and the Cimbrian peninsula. The name of Anglo- 

 Celts, suggested by Huxley and other anthropologists, is the only one by which 

 the people of England, no less than of the British Isles collectively, can be 

 appropriately designated. In ordinary conversation, however, names are indif- 

 ferently made use of which, far from being synonyms, convey contradictory 

 notions as to the origin of the population. We speak of " Great Britain " as 

 distinguished from "Little Britain," or Bretagne, as if that island were still 

 in the sole occupation of Celtic Britons. On the other hand, the name of 

 "England," or "Land of the Angles," is geographically applied to the whole 



