400 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



probably of several ages' duration in tbc peninsula of India, and 

 of others still more remote in date, who appear to have reached 

 the south-east coast of China, and traversed a great portion of 

 the Pacific. There were others whose early presence in 

 Africa is detected by a variety of customs among the Abys- 

 sinian and even Caffre nations, which we have likewise no 

 further occasion to mention. Of the tribes of Shelluhs in 

 Morocco, whose Showiah dialect is asserted to retain many 

 Celtic words, it is not requisite to say more than what has 

 already been stated, excepting that the existence of cromlechs 

 and maen stones along the coast, such as the Romans noticed 

 by the names of Philsenian altars, and the ancients likewise 

 attest to have existed on the island of Cadiz, or Gades, in 

 Spain, are of themselves sufficient proof of a primeval coast- 

 ing progress along the African shore, which, leaving colonies 

 in Mauritania, now, it may be, mixed with Shelluh tribes, 

 turned northward, marking its progress in Portugal by the 

 usual monuments, and by the name of Portugal itself, as well 

 as that of Gallicia (land of the Gallaici), where they came in 

 contact with the Finns or Finno-Celts, from the north, whose 

 progress we have already mentioned. 



We now come to the march of the main body of the Celtoe, 

 from their first departure, divided into two great columns, 

 one directing its course to the northward of west, and the 

 other appearing to have followed the southern flanks of the 

 great mountain chain, through Armenia and Asia Minor, to 

 Europe. It is this movement westward, of successive tribes of 

 the family, which has commonly been designated as the Gome- 

 rian. Josephus first made this application to the race in ques- 

 tion from the tenth chapter of Genesis. We may retain the 

 name, without entering into the truth of the Jewish historian's 

 derivation ; particularly when restricting the meaning to the 

 portion of this great stem which passed through Middle Asia; 

 because the word may be construed to imply mountaineers in 

 one set of cognate languages, and in another it may be derived,' 



