The Turdetanians were a people possessing a considerable degree of civilisation, for they had an alphabet of their own; and many of their inscriptions and coins with characters unknown to us are still extant. Many Spanish coins cannot be explained at all, and of many the meaning is extremely uncertain. I hope that, if the investigations are carried on judiciously, the Libyan alphabet, which is said to be like that of the Spaniards, will be discovered in the course of time, and the Libyan inscriptions will be explained. Men will then rise up like Baron von Humboldt, who will fathom the Libyan language, and then the Spanish inscriptions also will be read. In Cilicia, too, inscriptions have been found, which have not yet been read, and many more may still be discovered; but no one has as yet occupied himself with them. These investigations, however, ought to be undertaken with a sober mind, for otherwise they lead to nothing. In ancient history, we often fancy we see nothing, and yet there is much to be discovered. Lately, e.g., an Englishman travelling in Cilicia from Adana to Tarsus,[65] where a pass is cut along the sea-coast for the purpose of making a road (just as above Coblenz the rocks advance close to the river), found, as he himself told me, a large inscription on the side of the rock in characters which are quite unknown. There still are alphabets to be deciphered and languages to be discovered; in these matters a rich harvest may yet be made. I do not think that the inquiries into eastern languages will ever be carried on with any excess of zeal; but I do believe that we shall arrive at a point where we may regard them as a step gained for further historical investigations. When the Zend language is once discovered, we shall be able to read the inscriptions of Persepolis, and also those of Babylon. These things may be likened to the horizon: the farther you advance, the more the circle widens. Historical knowledge is as capable of extension as physical knowledge, and great discoveries remain yet to be made. Klopstock says: “Many laurels are yet to be gained,” we must only strive to gain them. The Spanish inscriptions have been treated as senselessly as the Etruscan ones, nay, even more so. Without any point to start from, which is not quite wanting in the Etruscan inscriptions, these Spanish records have been explained by means of a barbarous mixture of Greek and Latin, which the decipherers themselves invented for their own convenience. And such nonsense even finds its admirers! It will indeed be difficult to explain those inscriptions with the aid of the Basque language, for the present Basque is certainly not the same as that spoken in the time of the Romans, though it may not be as different as, for example, the modern high German literary language is from that of the earlier ages; but the difference certainly cannot be less than that existing between the present popular dialect of Suabia and that of the thirteenth century.