588 A ngles and Distribution of Races. 



people from the shores of the Baltic near the mouth of 

 the Elbe (Angles\ and Scandinavia ; and, in the long 

 run, they permanently occupied the greater part of the 

 land. Then the native tribes, absorbed, slain, or dis- 

 possessed of their territories, and slowly driven west- 

 wards, retreated to join their countrymen into the 

 distant and mountainous parts of the country, where 

 the relics of this old Celtic people are still extant in 

 Devon and in Cornwall, while among the mountains of 

 Wales the same Celtic element yet forms a distinct and 

 peculiar people. There, till after the Norman conquest, 

 they still held out against the invader, and maintained 

 their independence in a region barren in the high 

 ground, but traversed by many a broad and pleasant 

 valley. Living, as the relics of the old Britons are apt 

 to do, so much in memories of the past, the slowly 

 dying language, and even the antique cadences of their 

 regretful music, speak of a people whose distinctive 

 characters are gradually waning and merging into a 

 newer phase of intellectual life. 



It appears then that the oldest tribes now inhabit - 

 iug our country, both in Scotland and in the south, are 

 to be found among those most ancient of our geological 

 formations, the Silurian rocks, which, by old palaeozoic 

 disturbance, form the less accessible mountain lands ; 

 while the lower and more fertile hills, the plains and 

 tablelands, and Scotland south of the Grampians, are 

 chiefly inhabited by the descendants of the heathen, who 

 made good their places by the sword after the de- 

 parture of the Eomans. 



On the east of Scotland, also, along the coasts of 

 the Moray Firth, in Caithness, and in the Orkney and 

 Shetland Islands, the people are of Scandinavian origin 

 and speak Scotch, thus standing out in marked contrast 



