2 
names of some of the rivers and mountains seem to afford ground for 
suspecting the presence of an earlier Keltic population, yet the evidence is 
insufficient to establish the theory. We learn from Caesar that in his day 
the Rhine formed a tolerably accurate boundary between the Gauls and the 
Germans. During the centuries of their occupation the Romans succeeded 
in almost completely Romanizing the former and extirpating their mother 
tongue, so that nearly all the present inhabitants of France except the 
Bretons employ a Romance language. Near the Rhine are still the 
descendants of the few Germans who in Caesar's time had crossed that 
river and invaded Gaul. Such were the Ubians, in whose territory was 
founded the Roman city which still retains the name of Colonia (Cologne). 
All these may probably have been almost completely Latinized, like the 
Gauls, during the Roman dominion. But towards its close a new and 
greater immigration began to flow westwards across the Rhine, either 
extruding or submerging and re- Germanizing these Latinized communities, 
and carrying the limit of the German blood and language further to the 
west than it had ever extended. This process was carried on on the Lower 
Rhine by Frisians and Saxons, who are both included linguistically under 
the Platt-Deutsch or Low German division; on the Middle Rhine by the 
Franks, and on the Upper Rhine by the Allemanni or Swabians, who 
probably contributed the largest share to the ancestry of the present 
Alsatians. Their presence may be discovered on the map by the names of 
the towns and districts which they occupied, such as Elsass (Alsace), 
Lothringen (Lorraine), Strassburg (Strasbourg), and Mulhausen (Mulhouse). 
The Allemanni (whence l'Allemagne) entered Switzerland and occupied 
the eastern part of that country, driving out, destroying, or subjugating the 
remaining Helvetians. The cantons of this district speak German, except 
Tessin and part of the Grisons where Italian dialects are current. Another 
tribe, the Burgundians, seized the western portion of the same country 
and the adjoining part of France. From some cause or other they came 
more under the influence of their new neighbours, dropped their own 
language and adopted that of Gaul, so that French now prevails in the 
western cantons. Not only westward but southward the Germans pressed 
and though checked by the mountain fences of Bohemia they skirted along 
their base. 
The German tribes also spread to some extent along the Danube and 
into Italy, as well as north-westwards into Sleswick. But while thus 
extending their limits in these directions they were themselves invaded 
from the east by tribes belonging to the great and widely-spread Sclavonic 
