384 



the colonizers of that island were the Yemos of Galicia, finding no other 

 people of the peninsula with corresponding names."'^ 



The same author informs us that " the people who inhabited the ter- 

 ritory in the vicinity of Cape Finisterre were the Celts and [N'erios. The 

 principal towns of the Celts west of the cape were Cea and Corcubion. . . 

 In a parish church in a small town near Cape Einisterre there was a 

 celebrated image of the Blessed Virgin, venerated alike by pilgrims from 

 all nations, who came to visit the shrine of the apostle St. James. The 

 Eomans had erected there a temple which was dedicated to the sun. 

 The ^^'erios inhabited the country north of the cape as far as the town 

 Mungia. The Yemos occupied Mungia, and thence as far as the town 

 of Yimianzo. In Himilcon's record of his navigation in those seas the 

 Yernos are mentioned, as they are likewise by Pomponius Mela and 

 Ptolemy. In that part of Galiicia the Brigantes, so well known to the 

 Romans were settled; and in this region was situated the port and city 

 of Corunna, to which the Romans gaye the name of Plavius Brigantius, 

 or Portus Brigantinus, and which has continued to our times to be a 

 much frequented port. The capital of the Brigantes was called by the 

 Romans Brigantius ; its modern name is Betanzos. 



" In Corunna was situated the famous tower or fanal named the 

 Tower of Hercules, erroneously supposed to be of Phoenician origin, but 

 which was really constructed by Augustus at the termination of the 

 Gallic war, twenty years before Christ. The city is now a quarter of 

 a league distant from the tower, and near it was preserved, in the time 

 of Plavian D'Ocampo, the stone of dedication, with an inscription on it 

 bearing the name of Augustus, of which he has given a transcription in 

 his work."f 



" Some assert (says Huerta y Yega) that the Gauls who peopled 

 Galiicia were of the same race who, after the great dearth in Spain, 

 had flocked into that country and peopled its then deserted lands ; 

 which statement they confirm by the tradition that a portion of the in- 

 habitants of this province, those who were settled in the vicinity of 

 Cape Pinisterre, were called Celticos by the old geographers. 



" Others are of opinion that those Gauls who peopled Galiicia were 

 the Galates, whom Hercules brought over with him from Greece when 

 he passed into Spain 



''Both opinions, however, are without foundation." J . . . 



The same author, entering largely into the origin of Galiicia and ety- 

 mology of its name, informs us : — 



"That this kingdom of Galiicia owed its first inhabitants to the 

 descendants of Japhet, son of JN'oah, and that to the same source the 

 rest of Spain owes its original inhabitants there is no doubt. But that 

 the whole account in the history of the Bishop of Orense, of the com- 

 ing of Hercules into Galiicia, of the existence of the Geriones, and of the 



* Huerta y Vega, " Ann ales cle Galicia," p. 17. f lb., tome i., pp. 8, 9. 

 t lb., p. 12. 



