a large part of Leon and the whole of Spanish
Estremadura.

In the time of the Visigoths, a Suevic kingdom occupied most of Portugal
to the north of the Tagus, but included also all Galicia and part of
Leon; and during the Moorish occupation there was nothing which at all
corresponded with the modern divisions.

It was, indeed, only by the gradual Christian re-conquest of the country
from the Moors that Portugal came into existence, and only owing to the
repeated failure of the attempt to unite the two crowns of Portugal and
Castile by marriage that they have remained separated to the present
day.

Of the original inhabitants of what is now Portugal little is known, but
that they were more Celtic than Iberian seems probable from a few Celtic
words which have survived, such as _Mor_ meaning _great_ as applied to
the _Capella Mor_ of a church or to the title of a court official. The
name too of the Douro has probably nothing to do with gold but is
connected with a Celtic word for water. The Tua may mean the 'gushing'
river, and the Ave recalls the many Avons. _Ebora_, now Evora, is very
like the Roman name of York, Eboracum. _Briga_, too, the common
termination of town names in Roman times as in Conimbriga--Condeixa a
Velha--or Cetobriga, near Setubal--in Celtic means _height_ or
_fortification_. All over the country great rude stone monuments are to
be found, like those erected by primitive peoples in almost every part
of Europe, and the most interesting, the curious buildings found at
various places near Guimaraes, seem to belong to a purely Celtic
civilisation.

The best-known of these places, now called Citania--from a name of a
native town mentioned by ancient writers--occupies the summit of a hill
about nine hundred feet above the road and nearly half-way between
Guimaraes and Braga. The top of this hill is covered with a number of
structures, some round from fifteen to twenty feet across, and some
square, carefully built of well-cut blocks of granite. The only opening
is a door which is often surrounded by an architrave adorned with rough
carving; the roofs seem to have been of wood and tiles.

Some, not noticing the three encircling walls and the well-cut
water-channels, and thinking that the round buildings far exceeded the
rectangular in number, have thought that they might have been intended
for granaries where corn might be stored against a time of war. But it
seems far more likely that Citania was a to