The Euskarian language has always been the standing point to those inquirers who have argued backwards, from the existing state of things, towards the reconstruction of the ethnology and philology of antiquity; first and foremost of whom, both in date and importance, is Wilhelm von Humboldt, whose essays on the subject form two of the most classical monographs in comparative philology. The method he employed was much more of a novelty then than now. We may guess what it was beforehand. It was the analysis of local names. In this he was successful. Roots like _ast_-, _ur_-, and others, found in the ancient names of Spanish and Portuguese localities, far beyond the present pale of the Euskarian tongue, he referred to the Basque, and found them significant therein; thus _uria=town_ or _city_, and _ast=rock_ or _mountain_--whereby _Asturias_ means the _mountainous country_, and _Astures_ the _mountaineers_. His inference was (as might be expected) that the Euskarian was as little a modern and local tongue as the Welsh; indeed, that it was so far from anything of the kind, as to be one of the oldest in Europe, and not only old, but widely-spread also. The whole of the peninsula, France as far as the Garonne and the Rhone, and even portions of Italy, were, according to Humboldt, originally Basque; or, as it is more conveniently called, _Iberic_ or _Iberian_, from the ancient name of Spain--_Iberia_. So that now we talk of the ancient Vascones, Varduli, Autrigones and Caristii as particular divisions of the great _Iberic_ stock, under their ancient names, the Euskaldunac being the same under a modern one; whilst the Basques and Navarrese are Euskaldunac, under French and Spanish designations. The present Euskaldunacs must be a population of as pure blood as any in Europe, lineal descendants from the Autrigones, Varduli, and Vascones, and closely related to the Asturians. At any rate they are the purest blood in the Peninsula. This we infer from their language, and the mountaineer character of their area. They are the Welsh of Spain. With the pure Euscaldunac let us now contrast the most mixed portion of the Peninsular population; which is that of the water-system of the Guadalquiver, and the parts immediately south and east of it--Seville, Cordova, Jaen, Grenada, and Murcia, if we take the modern provinces; the country of the Turdetani and Bastitani, if we look to the ancient populations--Bætica, if we adopt the general name of the Romans, Andalusia in modern geography.