EARLY SETTLEMENT OF THE BRITISH ISLES BY CELTS. 313 



claim that the Indians were at least the earliest occupants of any 

 permanence or strength in Canada, and that whatever alterations 

 may occur in our population owing to the unrest of modern times, 

 the very names of our lakes and livers will continue to remind us of 

 a time when the Indians had supreme, if not undisputed, sway in 

 our Dominion. 



It will frequently be found that the leading names of rivers and 

 mountains are very expressive, enabling us to perceive how very 

 observant those early and untutored tribes were, and how remarka- 

 ble their success was in framing names whereby the characteristics 

 of stream, and hill, and loch, and headland are pourtrayed with 

 faithful accuracy. 



In his article on Gaelic Language and Literature in the Encyclo- 

 pcedia Britannica, Dr. MacLauchlan remarks that " Topography is 

 a remarkable source of evidence and one that will be made to serve 

 . purposes it has never served as yet." Skene asserts Hhat "the oldest 

 names in a country are those which mark its salient physical features 

 — large rivers and mountains— islands and promontories jutting out 

 into the sea. The names of livers and islands are usually root- 

 words, and sometimes so archaic that it is difficult to affix a meaning 

 to them. In countries where the Topography obviously belongs to 

 the same language with that spoken by the people who still possess 

 it, though perhaps in an older stage of the language, it presents 

 little difficulty. It is only necessary to ascertain the correct ortho- 

 graphy of the names and apply the key furnished by the language 

 itself in that stage of its form to which the words belong. This is 

 the case with the greater part of Ireland and with the Highlands of 

 Scotland, where the local names obviously belong to the same Gaelic 

 language which is still the vernacular speech of its population." 



The conjecture is at least pardonable that in the earliest migra- 

 tion of the human race, when the knowledge and ingenuity of men 

 were in the rudest form, and when in the tiny craft that then 

 obtained, even adventuorous races would not care to face the storms 

 of an open sea, the Celts who had their home in Gaul would natur- 

 ally select the narrowest portion of the strait that divides England 

 from Europe for the purpose of entering the British Isles. Calais 

 is a faithful reproduction of Caolas — a Gaelic word which signities 



1 Celtic Scotland, vol I., pp. 212, 213. 



