APPENDICES.

APPENDIX I.

THE BASQUES.

THE modern Basques, who call themselves Escualdunac, a word which is usually taken to signify either "eaters of acorns" (cf. Don Quixote, Part I., chap. xi.), or "dwellers in oak forests," number at the present day, in the French and Spanish Basque Provinces, some 630,000 souls; in Guipizcoa, 180,000; in Biscaya, 150,000; in Alava, 10,000; in Navarre, 150,000; and in various parts of south-western France nearly 150,000. In addition to these, no less than 200,000 Basques are said to have emigrated during the last fifty years to South America, more especially to the Argentine Republic, where, from their great bodily strength, good conduct, and industry, they are ever highly appreciated as colonists.

Among the many curious books that have been published about the Basques may be mentioned L'Histoire des Cantabres, par l'Abbé 'd' Iharce de Bidassouet (Paris, 1825). The Abbé, whose sense of humour is on a par with his critical faculty, proves, quite to his own satisfaction, that the Basque was the language of Noah, if not of Adam; that Europe was entirely colonized by Basques, whose language-" la première langue de toute l'Europe "-has influenced the geographical nomenclature of every European country; but whose descendants, are now only to be found in the Basque Provinces of France and Spain. "Je serais tenté de croire," says the Abbé, " que les Pheniciens seraient une Colonie basque." After such temptations, it is impossible to attach very much importance to the Abbé's etymologies, though he is evidently a good Basque scholar, and appends an elaborate Escualdunac Grammar to his work.

"Escualdunac" signifies, according to him, not "acorneating," but "ambi-dextrous." The word "Celts," says this author, is but a corruption of the Basque Zelaites, the people of the plain. "Iberians," is from Ibayens, the people of the

rivers (as to which see Lafuente, i., Introduction, p. 15); and the Celtiberians, as M. d'Iharce would have it, have nothing to do with either the Celts or the Iberians, but are the Zaldiberians, "the people of the fine horses." At one time I thought that the entire book was an elaborate jeu d'esprit, a satire upon the extravagance of etymologists, as for instance, when Noah is said to be the Basque for wine, and is connected with the patriarch's unhappy inebriety; but the dedication to the king of France renders such a theory untenable.

Yet, among the vast number of books about the Basques which have come into my hands, some, it must be admitted, are very nearly as absurd as that of M. de Bidassouet.

A work of a very different character is L'Histoire des Basques, par A. Baudrimont (Paris, 1867)—a methodical treatise, dealing chiefly with matters linguistic. But even M. Baudrimont is not free from extravagance. La langue Basque, says he, est, à n'en plus douter, la langue la plus ancienne qui soit parlée sur le globe, p. 179; and he further maintains that the Basques are the common stock whence the Semitic and Indo-European families of language have their origin (p. 157) -and finds distinct traces of Basque influence in the language of the Polar regions! (164), and in the ancient languages of South America (pp. 154 and 176).

As to the etymology and signification of the word Basque belonging to the forest? and Escualdunac, see a very learned disquisition in Marrast's edition of W. von Humboldt's Recherches sur les habitants primitifs de l'Espagne (51-55). In the same work (pp. 148-155) may be read an examination of the near relationship of the Basque language with the languages of America, a subject of much interest, but obviously beyond the limits of this work. Humboldt and Marrast may, however, be taken to have established the following propositions: (1) The ancient Iberian names of places are derived from the Basque; (2) the Basque was the language spoken by the primitive inhabitants of the entire Peninsula of Spain; (3) the Iberians, a great people, spoke Basque, or some language akin to it.

There is no such thing as a (special) Basque alphabet. Basque is written in ordinary Roman characters. The special Iberian or Keltiberian alphabet is akin to the Phoenician and other Levant alphabets; it is evidently derived from them, but still awaits an interpreter. See Professor E. Hübner's Monumenta Lingua Iberica (Berolini, 1893). For a short notice see The Classical Review, Oct. 1894, p. 357; and ante, p. 2.

The word Escualdun, says Mr. Wentworth Webster, is evidently connected with the name of the language, Estuara, Euscara, which may mean "way of speaking," so that

Escualdun would mean something like "men of the Escuara, men who use the Escuara;" other peoples would be to them like the "Barbari" to Greeks or Romans. The oak and acorn-eating etymologies are absurd.

There are very few Celtic roots surviving, according to Humboldt, in Spanish names of places. What is far more remarkable is that no certain traces of Celtic are to be found in Basque. But the word Galicia is Celtic; and so are the two rivers Deva on the N. coast with the same root as the English Dee; and the Tambre on the N.W. akin to our English Tamar; and Brigantium, or Finisterre, embodies the Celtic Briga, so common in Gaul. But the equally common Celtic forms Dunum, Magus, Vices are not found in Spain. As to Ebro and its possible derivation from some such Celtic root as Aber, see ante, chapter i., p. 17.

The following purely Iberian or Basque roots in Spanish local names are given by Humboldt :—

(1) Uria, a town; e.g., Beturia, Vitoria; Graccuris, town of Gracchus.

(2) Ili, a town, seen in composition with berri, new, in Iliberis or Elvira; also in Bilbilis, the town at the foot of the mountain, and Bilbao?

(3) Mendi, a mountain; in Monda, Mendiculeia and Mendigorri.

(4) Navarra, Navarre; Nava=plain near a mountain (as las navas de Tolosa); Arra is a very common Basque termination; Nav-arra is thus, the plain near the mountains. Humboldt,op. cit. pp. 17, 27, 29, 41, 47, and W. Webster, Spain, p. 72.

As to the area inhabited now or in historic times by a Basque-speaking people, and the difference between French and Spanish Basques, see Revue d'Anthropologie, iv. 29 (Paris, 1875), where there is also a valuable map by M. Broca. See also the excellent map of Prince L. L. Bonaparte; and A. Hovelacque, La Linguistique (Paris, 1876), pp. 87-89. Some very interesting notes on the origin of the Basques and their language will be found in La Navarre Française, par M. Bascle de la Grèze (Paris, 1881), vol. i., chaps. ii. and iii.

It may be mentioned in passing that many great Spaniards have been undoubted Basques, as for instance, Ignatius Loyola and St. Francis Xavier; and among the moderns, Señor Sarasate.

On the Basques, their country, their language, and their origin an immense number of books have been published. In addition to those already cited the following may be consulted with advantage:

Historia de las Naciones Bascas, J. A. de Zamacola, 3 vols. 8vo (Auch, 1818); Humboldt, Prüfung der Untersuchungen

über die Urbewohner Hispaniens (Berlin, 1821), and the French translation, with notes by A. Marrast (Paris, 1866); Le pays Basque, sa population, sa langue, par M. Francisque Michel (Paris, 1857); Dissertation sur les Chants Heroiques des Basques, J. F. Bladé (1866); The Alphabet, Antiquity, and Civilization of the Basques, by Erro y Aspiroz, translated by E. Erving (Boston, 1829); Basque Legends, by Rev. W. Webster (London, 1877); Chants Populaires du pays Basque, Salaberry (Bayonne, 1870); Cénac-Moncaut, Histoire des peuples Pyrenéens (Paris, 1874); La Langue Ibérienne et la Langue Basque, W. J. Van Eys, in the Revue de Linguistique, (vii., 1874); José Manterola, Cancionero Vasco (3 vols., San Sebastian, 1877-80); Vinson, Les Basques et le pays Basque (Paris, 1882); and Campion, Grammatica, &c.,

1886.

Larramendi, El Imposible Vencido (1729); De la Antiguedad y Universalidad del Bazcuence en España (1728), and Diccionario trilingue del Castellano, Bazcuence y Latin (1745).

A very interesting chapter on Basque Proverbs, referring to various collections, will be found in Francisque Michel's Pays Basque (Paris, 1857); M. Michel being himself the editor of the most ancient and most remarkable collection, that of Oihenart (1657). See also Notice sur les Proverbes Basques receuillis par Arnauld d'Oihenart, et sur quelques autres travaux rélatifs dans la langue euskarienne, par M. G. Brunet (Paris, 1859).

See in fine, the excellent articles sub tit. BASQUE, in Chambers' Encyclopædia, and in the Grande Encyclopédie recently published in Paris by L'Amirault.

My best thanks are due to the Reverend Wentworth Webster for most kindly looking over the proofs of this little Appendix, and thus giving to it a value which it would not otherwise have possessed.