because the natural drainage of it was better, before the sea had by degrees added so much solid ground upon the coasts. [Sidenote: +Holland+, _its name_.] In this country I have observed abundance of old Welsh words left among us; and I am persuaded that the name of Holland is derived from that language, though now terminated by a later word, as is frequent enough. It signifies no more than salt or marsh land, such as is gained from the sea; and to this day we call the marshes adjoining to, and sometime overflowed by the sea, _salt marshes_. Likewise upon the sea shore they formerly made salt in great abundance. The hills all along upon the sea bank, the remains of such works, are still called salt hills: such are at Fleet, Holbech, Gosberton, Wainflet,[3] &c. Many names of rivers and roads, thence derived, remain still, such as Salters Lode, Salteney Gate, &c. _Hallt_ in the British is _salsus_, salt, as ἅλς in the Greek is _mare_, the sea; and most evidently borrowed from the British, because of its most notorious quality. The adjoining part of this country in Norfolk, is called marsh land, in the very same sense: so is Zeland and Holland at the mouth of the Rhine, where our Cimbric ancestors once lived. In the Cimbric Chersoness, now Denmark, is Halland, a division of the country by the Saxons called _Halgo land_. Vid. Spelman’s Glassary, voce _Sciringes heal_. Holsatia, Holstein, &c. and our Holderness in Yorkshire, must thus be understood. Hence the isle of Ely too is denominated, the very word _heli_ being _salsugo_ in the British. This, in the most antient British times, was as much marsh land as our wapentake of Elho is now, which acknowledges the same original; _hoe_ signifying a parcel of high ground. [Sidenote: _First Inhabitants the_ +Britons+.]