Islands, France, and Spain, had been long settled in Belgic Gaul,
and constituted the bulk of its population. Checked in its westward
movement by the Atlantic, its current began to flow backwards towards its
fountains, so that the Gallic portion of the Netherland population was
derived from the original race in its earlier wanderings and from the
later and refluent tide coming out of Celtic Gaul. The modern appellation
of the Walloons points to the affinity of their ancestors with the
Gallic, Welsh, and Gaelic family. The Belgae were in many respects a
superior race to most of their blood-allies. They were, according to
Caesar's testimony, the bravest of all the Celts. This may be in part
attributed to the presence of several German tribes, who, at this period
had already forced their way across the Rhine, mingled their qualities
with the Belgic material, and lent an additional mettle to the Celtic
blood. The heart of the country was thus inhabited by a Gallic race, but
the frontiers had been taken possession of by Teutonic tribes.

When the Cimbri and their associates, about a century before our era,
made their memorable onslaught upon Rome, the early inhabitants of the
Rhine island of Batavia, who were probably Celts, joined in the
expedition. A recent and tremendous inundation had swept away their
miserable homes, and even the trees of the forests, and had thus rendered
them still more dissatisfied with their gloomy abodes. The island was
deserted of its population. At about the same period a civil dissension
among the Chatti--a powerful German race within the Hercynian
forest--resulted in the expatriation of a portion of the people. The
exiles sought a new home in the empty Rhine island, called it "Bet-auw,"
or "good-meadow," and were themselves called, thenceforward, Batavi, or
Batavians.

These Batavians, according to Tacitus, were the bravest of all the
Germans. The Chatti, of whom they formed a portion, were a pre-eminently
warlike race. "Others go to battle," says the historian, "these go to
war." Their bodies were more hardy, their minds more vigorous, than those
of other tribes. Their young men cut neither hair nor beard till they had
slain an enemy. On the field of battle, in the midst of carnage and
plunder, they, for the first time, bared their faces. The cowardly and
sluggish, only, remained unshorn. They wore an iron ring, too, or shackle
upon their necks until they had performed the same achievement, a