The beginning of the story of Brussels, like the beginning of the stories of most of the mediæval towns of Northern Europe, is shrouded in mystery. Set at the time of its origin in a land of marsh and wood, it probably takes its name, like so many German cities, from the natural configuration of its site and the nature of the settlement from which it was gradually evolved--_Bruk Sel_, the manor in the marsh. So, too, the neighbouring towns:--Antwerp, at wharf; Tervueren, by the river Vuer; Schaerbeek, by the heath stream; Aerschot, the home by the water; and the sister city, the city whose history is so intricately woven with the history of the capital of Belgium that it is impossible to disentangle them, Looven, the wooded hill alongside the fen; and the province in which all these places are situated: Brabant, from _Brac_, uncultivated, barren, wild, and _Bant_, the frontier land. The fierce tribes whom Cæsar found in this part of Gaul gloried in the tradition of their German origin, but it is not to them that the towns and villages and hamlets of Brabant owe their German names. The Nervii and the Treveri, like the despised and hated Celts who surrounded them, were compelled at last to submit to Rome's legions and to learn the Roman tongue; they learnt it so well that when later on a whirlwind of barbarism swept Latin civilisation from Northern Europe they had altogether forgotten their own. Driven for the most part south into those provinces which we now call Liége and Hainault and Namur, to this day their descendants speak the time-honoured language of Rome, and to this day German is the tongue of the offspring of the men who ousted them. It was the Salic Franks, then, who, for the most part, were the builders of the cities of Brabant, and they it was who gave them their rough German names.