Historic Sketches.

Otago Witness, Issue 1500, 14 August 1880, Page 26

Historic Sketches.

THE ANCIENT BRITONS.

(Written for the Otago Witness,) By R. N. Adams,

No. XI. We are accustomed to histories of "England" more than to histories of "Britain." This is peculiar, andhas always seemed to me to be a want. There is a kind of satisfactory completeness about a history which supplies the earliest records of a people, even if they be mere heroic or traditionary gleanings. In reading a biography it is always more agreeable to find a statement of the parentage, locality and date of birth, the early proclivities and training of the hero of the story, than to become acquainted with him as he emerges from his school or university, or as he makes hia first impression as a public man. In like manner we profit by an acquaintance with the earliest efforts of a people to assert their national life and independence, as well as with a tracing of their primative wanderings from the parent Btem to new spheres of action, British historians can scarcely be charged with a chronic weakness to gratify this particular desire. They have never been guilty of extolliog the meritß of ancient inhabitants of the

"Right little, tight little island."

There^does not seem to have ever been an overweening tendency to pride ourselves on the fact that we art) descendants of the icen who have been represented as a rude, bar> barous, and almott savage race, who had their arms, breasts, and faces tattooed after the fashion of the wild and uncivilised. In our modern pride of culture and refinement the very thought of fcuch people having transmitted their blood to our veins is unwelcome. And we endeavour to find a more noble strain to attach ourselves to in the far distance. Hence we almost repudiate the Gaels and Soots.; and pretend that the progenitors of onr stock were the invading Saxone. T)ie frequently expressed sentiment being that the i noble, intelligent, devastating, subjugating Saxon, aimpst completely exterminated the less powerful, \w fiivllfpsd Tritons,

This notion of course led to the conviction thai only a very small portion of the present people of Britain have the blood of the old barbarians trickling through their systems ; and that these are confined to a corner of Cornwall, a part of Wales, and the Highlands of Scotland. This is all the fruit of misrepresentation and misconception. Written history is about as little worthy of Implicit confidence being placed in it, as are those annals which we regard with an amount of artificial contempts when we pronounce the word " Traditions." History has been written too much in the same spirit ia which party politics are conducted— one phase of an event being negleoted or ignored, while another is pushed into prominence. Readers of history have on the other hand acted quite as unwisely, by accepting these histories as complete records, of the events which go to make up a people's history, when their authors probably never pretended them to be such^ That averslon to personal examination is apparent in relation to our knowledge of history as well as to the teachings of religion and philosophy. The fact is, each historian has only been particularly inter, ested in tracing oat a certain line of events with a few connected and immediate surroundings, while each one has of necessity left unnoticed thousands of most interesting events, national and domestic, which are required to complete the records of a nation's life and progress. Such a state of things requires, that any person desirous of^ obtaining a thorough knowledge of our nations riae and development should arrange and. classify in a careful manner, after a laborious and persistent research, every fragment culled from the most diverse sources, a> d from this industrious collection and classification construct with skill and caution his succession of events into a complete whole. To suppose that the Saxons either effected or attempted the complete extermination of the elder Britons seems to be neither com- , plimentary to the oharaoter and intelligence of the invaders, nor in harmony with the facts and analogies of history. A prudent invader does not seek to kill and slaughter the inhabitants of a country whom he has compelled to submit to his rule, simply to secure bhe land for the occupation of his own people. The people of the country are of far greater value to him than the broad acres of land, the numerous cities and villages. To him the tenantless houße is of 1 little value, the untilled field a loss, and the disused market-place a grief. The people are the wealth and glory of a oountry. It was not a course of ruthless carnage and extermination which followed the landing of the Saxons on the British shores. There were battles of a severe nature fought between the two peoples, in whioh, no doubt, the Saxons proved more powerful, and thus obtained the allegiance of a large part of the Britons. But still the large centres of population retained a considerable percentage of the original inhabitants. To this succeeded a mutual interchange in political, commercial, and domestic matters, which led to a blending of races, and a consequent disappearance of their distinctive peculiarities : and in this manner the Briton, the Saxon, and the Norman have become the British of this modern age. The Saxon did not extirpate the Britons, nor did the Normans destroy the Saxons ; but all three have coalesced in the upbuilding of the mightiest nation of this century. But who were these Britons ? Were they Gauls from the adjacerit shores of the continent, or were they a distinct race which we can trace to some higher and more honoured source ? Our key has already been produced. To those authors who are usually consulted for material for the compilation of ancient history, and for notices of the origin of nations, Britain was unknown, except to those of them who wrote subsequently to the invasion by Julius Ceeaar. To the writings of this Emperor, soldier, and historian, history-makers have ever been indebted for a great part of what they have related regarding the tattooed inhabitants of ancient Britain. The enterprising research of ethnological students has, however, supplied many facts of which the Koman general was ignorant. The soldier could only describe the state of the country and the customs of the people as he Baw them : in doing this he may have been tolerably accurate. As to their origin he could only give a hazardous guess, from a seeming probability of correctness. This guess has been repeated until we almost began to believe it a demonstrated fact. The illusion has at last-received a complete dissipation. It is not by an effort of abstruse reasoning, nor by postulating problematical hypotheses that we are able to Bhow who the ancient Britons were. The key has been produced by aid of which we can gaze, as it were, directly upon the panorama of events which led to their occupation of that " Island of the West." Upon a previous occasion we observed the extent and nature of the maritime intercourse which was conducted between theeasternohore of the Mediterranean and the Kaasiterides, or "Tin Islands." We saw also that as early as the reign of Solomon a Hebrew colony had been settled in the South of Spain. And so intimate was their connection with, and relatipn to, the " Mother Country," that it appears that Solomon had despatched his chief revenue officer, Adoniram, to that co'ony to arrange matters in regard to his official duties. If, then, Solomon found it necessary and advantageous to establish a settlement of merchants and agents in the emporium not far distant from the "Pillars of Hercules," how much more important and beneficial would it b9 to have Hebrew officers and workmen at the real scene of tin- mining and exportation? There are several matterß worthy of consideration in connection with the proposition. We cannoi; suppose that the seamen were also the miners. There must hs»vo been local and practical companies of men in charge of the mines and smelting furnaces. To have carried on this industry, experts were necessary to economy and expedition. And since we find such wisdom displayed by that monarch in the arrArigement of his workmen in the building of the Temple at Jerusalem, we c&iinot think of him neglecting to make similar provision for a useful and economic division of labour at his distant tin-mines. The working of the mines, if left to the. seamen, must nave led

to confusion, waste, and to f requont disputes between the various ships' companies. The necessary existence of resident practical miners and smelters of the ore, further demonstrates the necessity for imperial agents and marts of exchange, for the trade was extensive. Hence we find, the existence of a considerable colony necessary to carry on the enterprise ; but besides there being merchants, miners, and refiners of ore, there must also have been others devoted to agricultural and pastoral pursuits, aa the colonists would require to produce their own food, Of course we mußt remember that the Hebrews were generally a people devoted to agriculture, and herdkeeping, and that there is nothing unreasonable in arguing that people of this class belong to the tribe Dan should migrate with their brethren, to pursue their calling in the new world, for it was such as these who felt most the cramped position of the tribe in Palestine, and in whose mind the desire to obtain room to expand and increase would most strongly operate. The first occupation of Britain is generally believed to have taken place .about 1000 years 80. This exactly synchronises with, the great expansion of Dan's maritime traffic, and Solomon's interest in the trade with Tarshish. The ships of Dan gradually supplanted those of Tyre, and as the latter sank into oblivion, the former— still bearing the names of "Ships of Syria" and "Ships of Tarßhish, " became the ' ' rulers of the wave. " But as Tyre and Israel sank in importance, the trade between the east and west declined, and these ships are almost lost sight of in the eastern seas. The first colonisation of Britain was there- ( fore about 300 years before the great captivity of Israel by the King of Assyria, and over 400 years before the Babylonish captivity of the kingdom of Judah. If, therefore, only a small number had immigrated to Britain at the time of Solomon's reign,. there was time for that small cumber to have increased to a considerable population in these three or four centuries, Bimply by the natural course of events, independent of frequent accesiona by ships from the war-racked home oountry. But it is a fact + »hat at the time of the Assyrian invasion of Israel, the people of the tribe of Dan had almosb completely abandoned their inheritance in Palestine. Some, as we have seeD, having taken up their quarters in Greece, where they became an important part of that empire, but afterwards finding the country a scene of war and constant disturbance in the days when " Greek met Greek" they forsook it and made their way to Ireland. Others whose line of trade had led them more particularly into connection with Britain had gone thither, having induced many of their friends to accompany them in their great scheme of founding a new empire in the *' isles of the west;" so that we may regard the South of Britain as being a possession of the people of Israel, before the kingdom of Israel had been overthrown by the Assyrians. Must not these three or four hundred years' intercourse with Britain have caused a very extensive knowledge of, and interest in, that country to exist throughout Palestine ? It would be absurd to imagine that those who had settled in the new country were altogether indifferent to the welfare of their kindred still in Palestine, more especially when their ships were constantly communicating with the coast of the " old oountry." Nor could we suppose that those still cling, ing to the dear old land of the '' vine and the olive" could be so far destitute of natural affection, as to ceaae [inquiring of these oftreturning seamen how their brethren in the "isles afar off" were faring. Did the " Pilgrim Fathers" lose their interest in the events taking place in England while they were laying the foundation of a new empire in America? Or did those in England cease to look forward with anxious expectation to the arrival of news from the refugees in the trans-atlantic west? The oases are almost parallel. In the case of the Pilgrim Fathers there was not that extensive trade connection between England and America which existed between Britain and Palestine. Trade with .America has, however, increased both in extent and facility to a most marvelous degree ; while that referred to in the ancient world declined and ultimately died away, leaving but little record of it 3 existence and activity.