From the beginning of the Historical period, the first-hand information--for it is almost superfluous to remark that none of the Greek authors speak from personal observation--flows from two sources; from the inhabitants of western and southern Gaul, and from the Phœnicians. The text of Herodotus suggests this. In the passage which has been quoted, he speaks of the _Kassiterides_; and _Kassiterides_ is a term which a Phœnician only would have used. No Gaul would have understood the meaning of the word. It was the Asiatic name for either tin itself, or for some tin-like alloy; and the passage wherein it occurs is one which follows a notice of _Africa_. In two other passages, however, the consideration of the populations and geography of Western Europe is approached from another quarter. The course of the Danube is under notice, and this is what is said:-- "The river Ister, beginning with the Kelts, and the city of Pyrene, flows so as to cut Europe in half. But the Kelts are beyond the Pillars of Hercules; and they join the _Kynesii_, who are the furthest inhabitants of Europe towards the setting-sun."--ii. 33. "The Ister flows through the whole of Europe, beginning with the Kelts who, next to the _Kynetæ_, dwell furthest west in Europe."--iv. 49. The _Kynetæ_ have reasonably been identified with the _Veneti_ of Cæsar, whose native name is _Gwynedd_, and whose locality, in Western Brittany, exactly coincides with the notice of Herodotus. If so, the name is Gallic, and (as such) in all probability transmitted to Herodotus from Gallic informants. So that there were two routes for the earliest information about Britain--the overland line (so to say), whereon the intelligence was of Gallic origin; and the way of the Mediterranean, wherein the facts were due to the merchants of Tyre, Carthage, or Gades. Direct information, too, may have been derived from the Greeks of Marseilles, though the evidence for this is wanting.