In other words, the almost uniform race of the Iberian peninsula speaks four separate tongues, the Portuguese, Castilian, Catalan, and Basque languages, and the political boundary of the Pyrenees separates at its eastern end two groups of Mediterranean man, speaking similar languages, Catalan or Provençal, the latter of which is also spoken, or was spoken, in France by the men of another race, the Alpine, found in the uplands of southern and central France, as well as elsewhere. Ripley's explanation of the heterogeneity of language combined with homogeneity of race in Spain and Portugal is interesting. The peninsula was peopled from Africa before the dawn of history, by a division of the Mediterranean race called Iberian, which traversed the Strait of Gibraltar. This race established itself firmly in the peninsula and has persisted there despite infusions of other races from the north and north-east. But the road from Africa remained open, and the region was constantly liable to new invasions from the area of its prime origin. Differences of culture produced fierce warfare between the incoming and the old established race, and led temporarily to the triumph of the invaders, known to history as Saracens and Moors. The original Iberians, like the people of the same stock in Wales and parts of the Scottish Highlands, were pushed back to the mountains of Galicia, to the hill country of Castile, to the hills of Aragon and round and over the Pyrenees to Languedoc and the south of France generally. Ultimately they reasserted themselves, and drove the Moors out of Europe, but the driving force was exerted from three different centres, Galicia, Castile, and Aragon, which, owing to the configuration of the country, were isolated from each other. A political accident united Castile and Aragon, and imposed Castilian Spanish on a united Spain as the official language, but the geographical conditions have led to the long retention of the Catalan speech, though not of a Catalan nation. The Iberians who found a refuge in the mountains of Galicia, at a later date, formed the nucleus of the Portuguese nation. With these preliminary considerations we may pass to the discussion of what is known, or surmised, as to the different races of Europe and their origin.