n, we can tell within a few thousand years
when they arrived. But what if there were an occupation of Britain
anterior to theirs?

The civilization of the earliest occupants is a question inextricably
interwoven with the other two; since the rate at which it advanced--if
it advanced at all--must depend upon the duration of the occupancy, and
the extent to which it was the occupancy of one, or more than one,
section of mankind. But foreign intercourse may have accelerated this
rate, or a foreign civilization may have altogether replaced that of the
_indigenae_. The evidence of this is a fourth question.

So interwoven with each other are all these questions, that, although
the facts of the first three chapters will be arranged with the special
view to their elucidation, no statement of the results will be given
until the invasion of the Anglo-Saxons, or the introduction of the great
Germanic elements of the British nation, leads us from the field of
early Keltic to that of early Teutonic research; and that will not be
until the details of the Britons as opposed to the Gaels, of the Gaels
as opposed to the Britons, and of the Picts (as far as they can be made
out) have been disposed of.

One of the populations of the British Isles, at the present moment,
speaks a language belonging to the Keltic, the other one belonging to
the Teutonic class of tongues. However, it is by no means certain that
the blood, pedigree, race, descent, or extraction coincides with the
form of speech: indeed it is certain that it does so but partially.
Though few individuals of Teutonic extraction speak any of the Keltic
dialects as their mother-tongue, the converse is exceedingly common; and
numerous Kelts know no other language but the English. Speech, then, is
only _prima facie_ evidence of descent; nevertheless, it is the most
convenient criterion we have.

The Keltic class falls into divisions and subdivisions. The oldest and
purest portion of the Gaelic Kelts is to be found in Ireland, especially
on the western coast. Situated as Connaught is on the Atlantic, it lies
beyond the influx of any new blood, except from the east and north; yet
from the east and north the introduction of fresh populations has been
but slight. Here, then, we find the Irish Gael in his most typical form.

Scotland, like Ireland, is _Gaelic_ in respect to its Keltic
population, but the stock is less pure. However slight may be the
admixture of English blood in th