So much for the Iberians; of which the Lusitanians of Portugal were a branch; and of which there were several divisions and subdivisions involving considerable varieties both of manners and language. In respect to the latter there is the special evidence of Strabo that their tongues and alphabets differed. And so did their mythologies. The Callaici had the reputation of being _atheists_; whilst the Celtiberi worshipped an anonymous God,[7] at the full of the moon, with feasts and dances. But who were the Celtiberi? I have already said that there were difficulties upon this point. The name makes them a mixed people; half Celt and half Iberic. If so, the French influence in the Spanish Peninsula was as great in the time of Hannibal, as it was wished to be in the time of Louis XIV. With the exception of Niebuhr, the chief authorities have considered the Iberi as the aborigines, and the Celts as emigrants from Gaul. To this, however, Niebuhr took exceptions. He considered the warlike character of the Iberians; and this made him unwilling to think that any invader from the north had displaced them. And he considered the geographical _distribution_ of the Celtiberi. This was not in the fertile plains nor along the banks of fertilizing rivers, nor yet in the districts of the golden corn and the precious wool of Hispania, but in the rougher mountain tracts, in the quarters whereto an aboriginal inhabitant would be more likely to retire, than an invading conqueror to covet, I admit the difficulty implied in his objection; but I admit it only as a _presumption_--against which there is a decided preponderance of material facts. In the first place, there are the oldest names of the geographical localities throughout Spain. These, as shown by the well-known monograph of Humboldt, are _not_ Celtic, and are _Iberic_. In the next place, the Celtic frontier was by no means so near the geographical boundary of the Peninsula as it is often supposed to have been. Instead of the Celtic of Gaul reaching the Pyrenees, the Iberic of Spain reached the Loire--so that the province of Aquitania, although Gallic in politics, was Iberic in ethnology. This, again, is shown by Humboldt.