306 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



Garonne from die sea, it evidently spread towards the western 

 Pyrenees ; foJ the ancient frontier fastnesses of these tribes are 

 historically unknown to the north of that river, excepting Cala- 

 gurris, now St. Lizier, on the Salat, an affluent at no great 

 distance from the stream where it is but first emerging from 

 the mountains. The nation extended, on the south of the great 

 ridge, to the Ebro, where a similar fortress, likewise denomi- 

 nated Calagurris, now Calahorra, commanded the upper Ebro. 

 The capital was Pompelo, in the district of the Husia tribe. 



Denominations of places and early superstitions indicate a 

 Finnic western Caucasian origin. In Spain the Cantabrians 

 were always celebrated for valor, and for arresting the con- 

 quests of the Moors, after the overthrow of the Goths ; per- 

 haps evincing, by their support, a community of origin, which 

 they alone possessed beyond the Pyrenees. Aided by these 

 hardy mountaineers, the Goths resisted the southern invaders, 

 and in the Asturian mountains formed the little kingdom of 

 Oviedo, which soon again expanded into that of Leon. It was 

 in the defiles of this region, that the Franks, under Charles 

 Martel, or Charlemagne, are related to have lost their rear 

 guard, with Roland, and nearly all the heroes of the French 

 cycle of romance. They fell at the pass of Roncesvalles — 

 more, it is said, by the swords of the Asturian mountaineers, 

 than by the Arabian cavalry, which are not likely to have been 

 suffered to enter the mountain fastnesses of a small, warlike, 

 and justly distrustful Christian state. On the north of the 

 western Pyrenees, the Vascones, though early overlaid by 

 Celtic tribes, the Tarbelli, and it may be the Venomanni and 

 Aturi, were nevertheless of the same nation.* 



* Consult Surita. Both Quintilian and Prudentius were natives of 

 Iberian Calagurris ; no doubt sprung from Roman colonists. 



