_Rutilae--asseverant_. Cf. the description of the Germans, G. 4. The inhabitants of Caledonia are of the same stock as the other Britons. The conclusion, to which our author inclines below, viz. that the Britons proceeded from Gaul, is sustained by the authority of modern ethnologists. The original inhabitants of Britain are found, both by philological and historical evidence, to have belonged to the Celtic or Cimmerian stock, which once overspread nearly the whole of central Europe, but were overrun and pushed off the stage by the Gothic or German Tribes, and now have their distinct representatives only in the Welsh, the Irish, the Highland Scotch, and a few similar remnants of a once powerful race in the extreme west of the continent and the islands of the sea. Cf. note on the Cimbri, G. 37. _Silurum_. The people of Wales. _Colorati vultus. Dark complexion_. So with the poets, colorati Indi, Seres, Etrusci, &c. _Hispania_. Nom. subject of _faciunt_, with _crines_, &c. _Iberos_. Properly a people on the Iberus (Ebro), who gave their name to the whole Spanish Peninsula. They belonged to a different race from the Celtic, or the Teutonic, which seems once to have inhabited Italy and Sicily, as well as parts of Gaul and Spain. A dialect is still spoken in the mountainous regions about the Bay of Biscay, and called the Basque or Biscayan, which differs from any other dialect in Europe. Cf. Prichard's Physical Researches, vol. III. chap. 2. _Proximi Gallis_. Cf. Caes. B.G. 5, 14: Ex his omnibus longe sunt humanissimi, qui Cantium (Kent) incolunt, quae regio est maritima omnis, _neque multum a Gallica differunt consuetudine. Et--also: those nearest the Gauls are also like them_. _Durante vi. Either because the influence of a common origin still continues_, etc. _Procurrentibus--terris. Or because their territories running out towards one another_, literally, _in opposite directions_, Britain towards the south and Gaul towards the north, so as to approach each other. See Rit., Död. in loc., and Freund ad _diversus_. _Positio--dedit_. The idea of similarity being already expressed in _similes_, is understood here: their situation in the same climate (_coelo_) has given them the _same_ personal appearance. _Aestimanti_. Indef. dat. after _credibile est_, cf. note, G. 6. _Eorum_ refers to the Gauls. You (indef. subject, cf. quiescas, G. 36) may discover the religion of the Gauls (among the Britons) in their full belief of the same superstitions. So Caes. B.G. 6, 13: disciplina in Britannia reperta atque inde in Galliam translata esse existimatur; and he adds, that those who wished to gain a more perfect knowledge of the Druidical system still went from Gaul to Britain to learn. Sharon Turner thinks, the system must have been introduced into Britain from the East (perhaps India) by the Phenicians, and thence propagated in Gaul. His. Ang. Sax., B. 1, chap. 5.