His silence, long continued into later centuries, does not prevent us from supposing, however, that the Rhine was already at that time the great high-{005}road on which the Germanic races wandered to and fro, and other races came to their native land. It was the Rhine that brought to them commerce and civilization; but on the Rhine came also invasions of a very different kind. We can allude here only to those religious invasions which are connected with our subject. [Illustration: 025] In the earliest ages the South of Europe alone was inhabited, while the Northern part was covered with vast forests, as old as the world, and as yet{006}unbroken by the footsteps of men. Dark, dismal solitudes, consisting of ancient woods or wretched morasses, where trees struggled painfully for existence and only the strongest survived when they reached the light and the sun; densely wooded deserts, in which vast herds of wild beasts pursued each other incessantly, while in the deep shadow of impenetrable foliage flocks of timid, trembling birds sought a refuge against hosts of voracious birds of prey. Thus, even while Man was yet absent, War was already reigning supreme here, and in these vast regions the Great Destroyer seemed to revel in it, as if it had been a feast, a necessity, a glory! Had never human eye yet looked upon these magnificent but unknown regions? Then, one fine day a host of savages appeared here and settled down with their flocks. After them came another host of more warlike and better armed men, who drove out the first comers and took possession of the tilled ground. After them another race, and then still another. Thus it went on for years and for centuries, and all these waves of immigration came down from the extreme North, marking each halting place by a bloody battle, while the conquered people, driven by the sharp edge of the sword to seek new homes, by turns pursued and pursuing, went and peopled those wild unsettled countries which afterwards be{007}came known as Belgium and France, as Bretagne and England. Continuing their march from thence southward, from the Rhine to the Mediterranean, they spread right and left, east and west, and crossed the Pyrenees and the Alps, making themselves masters on one side of Iberia, and on the other side of the plains of Lombardy, thus changing from fugitives into conquerors. [Illustration: 027] These conquered conquerors, driven from their own homes, and now driving other nations from their homes, these first pioneers who laid open one unknown country after another, were all children of one great family and all bore the same name of _Celts_.