For my own part, instead of discussing the relation of the Celts of Celtiberia to the other inhabitants of Spain, I would open a new question, and investigate the grounds upon which we believe in an intermixture at all. Whatever respect we may pay to the statements of the classical writers, the _name_ itself is not conclusive; since it would be just as likely to be given from an approach on the part of an Iberic population to the Celtic manners, or from the adoption of any _supposed_ Celtic characteristic, as from absolute ethnological intermixture. Like modern observers, the ancient writers were too fond of gratuitously assuming an intermixture of blood for the explanation of the results of common physical or social conditions. Hence--without pressing my opinion on the reader--I confine myself to an expression of doubt as to the existence of Celts amongst the Celtiberi _at all_. But this only simplifies the question as to the ethnological position of the Iberic variety of the human species. It does not even suggest an answer. They were the aborigines of Spain. They are the ancestors of the present Biscayans. Their tongue survives in the north-west provinces of Spain, and in the north-east corner of France. It _has no recognized affinity with any known tongue; and it has undeniable points of contrast with all the languages of the countries around._ Yet it is only by means of the Basque language that the problem can be attempted. The physical conformation of the still extant Iberians, has nothing definitely characteristic about it. The ancient mythology has died away. The tribes most immediately allied have ceased to be other than unmixed. So the language alone remains--and that has yet to find its interpreter. An Iberic basis--Greek, Phœnician, and Mauritanian intermixtures--possibly a Celtic element--Roman sufficient to change the language through four-fifths of the Peninsula--Gothic blood introduced by the followers of Euric--Arabian influences, second in importance to those of Rome only--such is the analysis of ethnological elements of the Spanish stock. The proportions, of course, differ in different parts of the Peninsula, and, although they are nowhere ascertained, it is reasonable to suppose that the Arab blood increases as we go southwards, and the Gothic and Iberic as we approach the Pyrenees. This makes Gibraltar the most Moorish part of Europe; and such I believe it to be. _Malta._--When we have subtracted the English, Italians, Greeks, and other nations of the Levant from the population of Malta, there still remain the primitive islanders, with their peculiar language. Now this language is a form of the Arabic; and, with the exception of some of the dialects of Syria, it is the only instance of that language in the mouth of a Christian population. So thoroughly are the language and the religion of the Koran co-extensive.