Time, however, made them all equally Hellenic, a result which was, probably, completed before the decline of Greek independence; since which epoch there have been the following elements of intermixture:-- 1. Albanian blood, from the opposite coast. 2. Slavonic, from Dalmatia. 3. Italian, from Italy. 4. Turk--I have no pretence to the minute ethnological knowledge which would enable me even to guess at the proportions. Upon the whole, however, I believe the Ionian islanders to be what their language represents them--Greek. At the same time they are Greeks of an exceedingly mixed blood.[9] Again--of the foreign elements I imagine the Italian to be the chief. This, however, is an impression rather than a matured opinion. The Slavonic element, too, is likely to be considerable. The Byzantine historians speak of numerous and permanent settlements, during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, both in Thessaly, and in the Morea; statements which the frequency of Slavonic names for Greek geographical localities confirms.[10] Neither, however, outweighs the undoubted Hellenic character of the language, which is still the representative of the great medium of the fathers of literature and philosophy. _The Channel Islands._--As Guernsey, Jersey, Alderney, and Sark, are no parts of Great Britain, and are, nevertheless, European, I make a brief mention of them; although they are neither colonies nor dependencies: indeed, in strict history, Great Britain is a dependency of theirs. They are _Norman_ rather than _French_, and the illustration of this distinction, which will re-appear when we come to the Canadas--concludes the chapter. The _earliest_ population of France was twofold--Celtic for the north, Iberic for the south. Its _second_ population was Roman. Its language is Roman--all that remains of the old tongues of the tribes which Cæsar conquered being (1) certain words in the present French, (2) the Breton of Brittany, which is closely akin to the Welsh Celtic, and (3) the Basque dialects of Gascony, which is Iberic. Now whether the old Gallic blood be as fully displaced by that of the Roman conquerors, as the old Gallic language has been displaced by the Latin is uncertain. It is only certain that the old and indigenous elements of the French nation, however indeterminate in amount--were not of a uniform character, _i.e._, neither wholly Celtic, nor wholly Iberic; but Celtic for one part of the country, and Iberic for another. The ancient tribes of Normandy were _Celtic_. Hence, when the third element of the present Norman population was introduced, all that was not Italian was Welsh--just as it was in Picardy and Orleans, and just as it was _not_ in Gascony and Poitou. _There_ the old element was Iberic. The _third element_--just alluded to--was Germanic; Germanic of different kinds, but chiefly Frank or Burgundian.