This has been the general course of events on all the coasts of the North Sea, and particularly on those of the countries of Sleswigh and Holstein. It is thus that the origin and progress of the _art of dikes_ will supply us with a very interesting _chronometer_ in the history of the continent and of man, particularly exemplified in this part of the globe. A Lutheran clergyman, settled in the island of Nord Strand, having collected all the particulars of this history which the documents of the country could afford, published it in 1668, in a German work, entitled _The North Frisian Chronicle_. It was chiefly from this work, and from the _Chronicle of Dankwerth_, that M. Hartz extracted the information which he gave to me, accompanied by two maps, copied for me, by one of his sons, from those of Johannes Mayerus, a mathematician; they bear the title of _Frisia Cimbrica_; one of them respecting the state of the _islands_ and of the _coast_, in 1240, as it may be traced in the chronicles, and the other, as it was in 1651. According to these documents, the first inhabitants of the _marsches_ were _Frisii_ or _Frisians_, designated also under the names of _Cimbri_ and _Sicambri_: the latter name, M. Hartz conjectures, might come from the ancient German words _Seekampfers_, i. e. _Sea-warriors_; the _Frisians_ being very warlike. These people appear to have had the same origin with those, who, at a rather earlier period, took possession of the _marsches_ of Ost-Frise (East-Friesland), and of that Friesland which forms one of the United Provinces; but this common origin is very obscure. Even at the present day, the inhabitants of the _marsches_, from near Husum to Tondern, or Tunder to the North, though themselves unacquainted with it, speak a language which the other inhabitants of the country do not understand, and which is supposed to be Frisian. It is the same at a village in the peninsula of Bremen, by which I have had occasion to pass. The _Sicambri_ or _North Frisians_, are traced back to some centuries before the Christian era. At the commencement of that era, they were attacked by Frotho, King of Denmark, and lost a battle, under their king Vicho, near the river Hever. Four centuries afterwards they joined the troops of Hengist and Horsa. In the year 692, their king Radebot resided in the island of Heiligeland. Charles Martel subdued them in 732; and some time afterwards they joined Charlemagne against Gottric, King of Denmark. These are some of the circumstances of the history of this Frisian colony, recorded in the chronicles of which I have spoken; but the history here interesting to us is that of the lands whereon they settled.