A history of the Highlands and of the Highland clans : with an ...

iv
PBELIMINABY DISSERTATION.
3Tr Pmkertoii, toUowing the autliority of Tacitus and tlie common
ti-adition, is of opinion that as tiie soutliern part of Britain was lir»l
peopled from Gaul by Gael, who were afterwards expelled by Cuinri
from German}-, so there is reason to infer, that the northern part of Bri-
tain was first peopled by Cumri from Jutland, the passage from the Cim-
bric Chersouesus to North Britain through open sea being more easy than
that from the south of Britain to the north through vast forests. The
sea, so far from hindering, promotes even savage colonization ; and late
navigators have found islands in the Pacific Ocean, five or six hundred
miles distant from each other, all peopled by one race of men. Where
men and sea exist, canoes are always found, even in the earliest state of
society, and the savage Finns and Greeulanders perform far longer navi-
gations tlian that from Jutland to Scotland. The length of Britain is so
great from south to north, that to people the latter from the former, must
have been a work of many ages ; whereas, the passage from Germany was
open and easy. The Picts, he continues, came from Norway to Scotland,
and we may infer from analogy, that the first Celtic inhaljitants of the
latter country proceeded from the north of Germany ;
for the Cimbri or
Cumri possessed the coast of Germany opposite to North Britain, or the
Cimbric Chersonesus, even down to a late period. As it is improbable
ihiit the north of Britain remained without Celtic inhabitants, whilst all
the opposite country of Germany was held by them, it is reasonable to
infer, that the Cimbri were the first inhabitants of Scotland. But when
we find Cimbric names of mountains and rivers remaining in the most
remote parts of Scotland, the inference acquires as much certainty as the
case will admit of. These Cimbri, the supposed first inhabitants of Scot-
land, were of one and the same great stock with the Cumri or Welsli
the Welsh, however, are not their descendants, but only remains of the
Cimbri of South Britain, who passed from the opposite coast of Germany,
and drove the Gael or Gauls, the first inhabitants, into Ireland. In the
opinion of Tacitus,* the aboriginal population of Scotland came out oi
Germany, and, according to a tradition in tlie time of the Venerable
Bede,f the Picts or Caledonians, who were probably the first inhabitants
of North Britain, were said to have originally proceeded from Scythia ;
a generic term used by Strabo,:j: Diodorus,§ and Pliny, || to denote the
northern division of the European continent, in which sense it is adopt-
ed by Bede.^
Father Innes, a more sound and dispassionate inquirer than Pinker-
ton, supposes, however, that as the Caledonian Britons or Picts were of
the same origin as the Britons of the south ; and that as the latter un-
questionably came into Britain from the nearest coasts of the Gauls, they
advanced by degrees, as they multiplied in the island, and peopled the
• Tacit, in Vit. Agric. No. 11. t Bode, 1. i. c. I.
\ Strabo, p. 507. S Diodor. 1. vi. c. 7. || I'lin. U vL o. 13.