EARLY SETTLEMENT OF THE BRITISH ISLES BY CELTS. 317 



indelible record behind them in the names of streams, and hills, and 

 valleys, must of necessity have held for a long time undisputed 

 possession of the country. 



It is noteworthy that, though for more than 1,300 years Gaelic 

 has not been spoken in the South of Scotland, Gaelic words con- 

 tinually occur in the Topography of that part of the Kingdom. A 

 brief reference must here be made to a theory which has as its 

 advocates such scholars as Chalmers in his Caledonia, Dr. Mac- 

 Lauchlan and Taylor — the theory that at one time the Cymri occupied 

 the region which was known as Strathclyde; and that the topo- 

 graphical names of that portion of Scotland are Cymric and not 

 Gaelic. Taylor, in his Words and 7'laces, thus writes (pp. 257, 258, 

 259) : " The Cymry held the Lowlands of Scotland as far as the 

 Perthshire hills. The names in the valleys of the Clyde and the 

 Forth are Cymric not Gaelic. . ' . . To establish the point that 

 the Picts, or the nation whatever was its name, that held central 

 Scotland was Cymric not Gaelic, we may refer to the distinction 

 between ben and pen. Ben is confined to the west and north, and 

 pen to the east and south. Inver and Aber are also useful text- 

 words in discriminating between the two branches of the Celts. 

 The difference between the two words is dialectic only, the etymology 

 and the meaning are the same — a confluence of waters either of two 

 rivers, or of a river with the sea. ... In Scotland the invers 

 and abers are distributed in a curious and instructive manner. If 

 we draw a line across the map from a point a little south of Inverary 

 to one a little north of Aberdeen, we shall find that (with very few 

 exceptions) the invers lie to the north of the line, and the abers to 

 the south of it. This line nearly coincides with the present southern 

 limit of the Gaelic tongue, and probably also with the ancient 

 division between the Picts and Scots. The evidence of these names 

 makes it impossible to deny that the Celts of the Scottish Lowlands 

 must have belonged to the Cymric branch of the Celtic stock." By 

 way of refuting the theory which Taylor has thus expounded, in 

 reference to the prevalence of Cymric and not of Gaelic names in the 

 region which was known as Strathclyde, it will be sufficient for my 

 present purpose to cite the conclusions at which Robertson and 

 Skene have arrived after able and mature consideration of the 

 theory in question. 



