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NOTES. 381oars were disposed in no regular and judicious manner, to facilitateeither the celerity, or proper management of the vessel.4to,The oars, as in boats employed on rivers, were not fastenedto the vessel, and apt, in the least storm, to be washen overboardand lost. This was the state of the Scandinavian navy whenTacitus wrote in the beginning of the second century. Fourcenturies earlier, the date assigned for the migration of the Pictsfrom Scandinavia to Scotland, this navy must have been still in aworse state. Yet these wretched boats, with a double prow,•without sails, without a regular disposition of the oars, managedin the most unskilful manner, and in all probability without ahelm, have been magnified by the writers of the middle ages intohuge^ laf^ge ships, longae naves.But the true point of inquiry is,how these late writers knewan event of which no tradition existed in the time of CjEsar andTacitus, who wrote seven or eight centuries before them.Hadany tradition of this migration existed, Tacitus would not haverested the Pictish or Caledonian claim to a Germanic origin, ontheir red hair.Caesar and Tacitus are the fathers of British history.It is astonishing to consider with what avidity the slightesthintdropt by them has been grasped at, and improved on.6aesar mentions Vergohretus as the name of the chief magistrateof the iEdui. The hint is instantly taken, and Cas'wellaunus isdubbed Vergobret of the South Britons, Galgacus of the Caledonians,and, which is still more ridiculous, Mr. Pinkarton hasput in his claim to Vergobret in behalf of his favourite Goths»Human folly is always the same. But the truth is, that there isno evidence whatever of a Pictish migration from Scythia, Ger^many, or Scandinavia.The conjecture of Tacitus, that the Caledoniansmight be Overmans from the size of their limbs, andtheir red hair, is the origin of the whole fable. Here it originated;and after having been twisted about and about in everydirection, from the time of Bede down to the present day, it alwaysrevertsto the same point, and remains exactly as Tacitusleft it. The red hair of the Caledonians, on which Pinkartonlav? so much stress, is a criterion extremely equivocal. The3 c