Against it lies the evidence of Strabo, who separates the Ligyes from the Kelts as a distinct race; differing, however, but _little from the Kelts in their mode of life_. Now with this qualification, and with the belief that the Kelts whom he contrasted with the Ligyes were, to a great extent, Iberian, I lay but little stress on the evidence of Strabo. Against it, also, in the eyes of more than one good writer, is a very questionable etymology; which I will give in full, as a lesson of caution. Pliny says that the river Po in the Ligurian language was called _Bodencus_, or _bottomless_. Prichard suggests, in a note, that the true reading may have been _Boden_-los, and asks whether anybody will venture hence to conjecture that the Ligurians were Germans? Sir Francis Palgrave, taking Prichard’s suggestion as a _bonâ fide_ reading, does this; and that with a great degree of confidence. Yet the termination -_nc_ is found in the country of the Allobroges, or Dauphiné, _e.g._, Lem-_incum_, Durot-_incum_, Vap-_incum_, and is also Gallic, _e.g._, Aged-_incum_. It is British as well--Habita-_ncum_. The reasons, then, _against_ the Keltic origin of the Ligurians are thus exceptionable. Yet those in favour of it are weak. One thing, however, they must have been: _a._ Kelts; _b._ Iberians; or _c._ members of a wholly new, and now extinct, stock. I incline to the first of these views rather than the second, and the second rather than the third. At the same time, they were a well-marked variety; otherwise the Romans would not so invariably have separated them from the Gauls of both Gaul and Italy. The primary population, then, of Gaul (supposing the Ligurians to have been Keltic) was of a twofold character:-- 1. Iberic, in Aquitania, and 2. Keltic (in the modern sense of the term) elsewhere--the Keltic falling into three divisions:-- α. The Belgic-- β. The proper Gallic-- γ. The Ligurian (?). The history of the displacement and intermixture is complex. Along the Ibero-Gallic frontier, or in the parts north of the Garonne, and west of the Rhone, there must have been small and partial quarrels, sufficient to create intermixture, and a gradual change of the boundaries from the earliest times. Perhaps, too, it may be added that the Gauls encroached on the Iberians rather than the Iberians on the Gauls. Along the valley of the Rhine, or the Germano-Gallic frontier, there was the same mutual encroachment, but to a far greater degree, and the wars, of which the conquest of Ariovistus is a sample, introduced German, and, perhaps Slavonic blood into Gaul in more quarters than one. At present--