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.

At what period this tongue found its way to Malta is undetermined. As
compared with any of the present languages of the island it is
_ancient_. But it is not certain that, though old, it is the earliest.
Carthaginians may have preceded the Arabs; Greeks the Carthaginians;
and, possibly, Sicanians, or the earliest occupants of Sicily, the
Greeks. I am unable, however, to carry my reader beyond the simple fact
of the _language being Arabic_.

The only other Arabic dependency of Great Britain is Aden.[8]

_The Ionian Islands._--The reader may have remarked the peculiar
character of European ethnology. It consists chiefly in the _analysis_
of the component parts of particular populations; and this it
investigates so exclusively as to leave no room for the description of
manners, customs, physiognomy, and the like--paramount in importance as
these matters are when we come to the other quarters of the world. There
are two reasons for this difference. First--the peculiarities of the
European nations are by no means of the same extent and character with
those of the ruder families of mankind. A similar civilization, and a
similar religion, have effected a remarkable amount of uniformity; and,
hence, the differences are those that the historian deals with more
appropriately than the ethnologist. Secondly--such external and palpable