One result, however, was to add greatly to the knowledge the Romans possessed of the island and its inhabitants, and to give them a practical acquaintance with the tribes inhabiting Caledonia, and hitherto known to them only by report, as the ‘Caledonii Britanni.’ The expression of Tacitus in his narrative sufficiently indicates that they were to be distinguished from the other Britons as a different race, at least in some sense or degree as the ‘new nations,’ with whom Agricola first came in contact in his third campaign. This and similar expressions are applied to the tribes he encountered during that and the subsequent years of his government; and the arguments of the historian as to whether the inhabitants of the island were indigenous or an immigrant population show that, while the Romans observed considerable difference in the physical appearance of the different races, they were not aware of any great distinction in their language. Tacitus considers the question of origin as it affects the inhabitants viewed as one nation. He says that the red hair and large limbs of the inhabitants of Caledonia might infer a German descent; the swarthy features and crisp hair of the Silures, as well as their situation, which in the erroneous notion of the position of Britain was supposed to be opposite Spain, an origin from that country; but the other Britons, in all respects, resembled the inhabitants of Gaul. His remarks have generally been viewed as if he considered that the Britons consisted of three distinct races, and that there were traditionary accounts of their respective origins, but this is entirely to misapprehend the bearing of his statements. They are arbitrary inferences merely, drawn by himself from the difference in the physical appearance of different parts of the nation whose origin he is treating of as a whole; and the general conclusion he comes to is, that notwithstanding these appearances, the whole country received its population from Gaul, differing in this respect from the earlier account of Cæsar, who pronounces the inhabitants of the interior to be indigenous. As one ground for this general conclusion, Tacitus adds that their language did not greatly differ from that of Gaul, which implies that there could have been no very marked or striking difference of language among themselves. He says that the Britons possessed the same audacity in provoking danger, and irresolution in facing it when present. The former quality in a greater degree, while the latter imputation in the main, is disproved, so far as the northern tribes are concerned, by the narrative of the historian himself which follows this statement in his Life of Agricola. He observes one of the peculiar customs of the Britons among the Caledonians—the fighting in chariots, which was now apparently confined to the ruder tribes of the north; but it is remarkable that he alludes neither to the practice of their staining their bodies with woad, nor to