194 NATURAL HISTORY CF 



leaving a record of their ancient existence. We may .nstance 

 savages in the British Islands, who had (lint knives, a kind of 

 earthen pottery, and dwelt in caves. They were contempora- 

 neous with hyaenas and lost species, for their bones are found in 

 the same deposits ; consequently, they are older than the 

 Cynetae, who preceded the other Celtic colonies in this island. 



Continental Europe affords instances of several more, whose 

 history is a blank, although there remain scattered families, 

 with peculiar marks of distinction, in evidence of the anterior 

 existence of communities of the same kind. Some, still extant, 

 seem to have been objects of slander and persecution, under 

 several successive social systems, denied the rights of common 

 humanity, without a comprehensible cause, and even in defi- 

 ance of the kindness which Christian pastors evinced for them. 

 Others are still said to be untractable, notwithstanding the gov- 

 ernment endeavors to make them adopt the manners and duties 

 of civilized life. The caves, with human bones, in Quercy, 

 already mentioned, belong to this class. Such are the Cagots 

 of the south-east of France, by some asserted to derive their 

 name from the contraction of Can-goth, because they are a resi- 

 due of the Goths, who, being anciently Arians, were held in de- 

 testation by their neighbors; they were stigmatized as lepers, and 

 refused entrance into church by the common doors, &c. This 

 people, either an ancient residue, or latterly forced to a vagrant 

 life, extended, under many different names, to Guienne, Beam, 

 Bretagne, and la Rochelle, being sometimes confounded with 

 Gypsies, although they were known before the arrival of the 

 latter, and even enjoined not to appear abroad without tha 

 mark of a goat's foot sewed upon the outer garment. King 

 Louis XVI. first ameliorated their condition, and the French 

 revolution finally swept away all the remaining legal dis 

 abilities.* 



In the forests of ancient Dauphiny, there exist also relics of 



* There are recent accounts of this people, written by Baron Ramon, as 

 well as ancient notices by Ochenartus, " Vasconiae notitia.' 1 Bel Forest 

 and Paul Merula. 



