were spears, bows, and arrows, with shields, breast-plates, and helmets.* To the east of Colchis was Iberia, comprehending the present kingdom of Imoretia. It was well inhabited, had many villages and towns, with brick houses, regularly built, and public edifices. The Iberians of the vallies were peaceable and fond of agriculture; the mountaineers subsisted by pasturage, and were warlike and ferocious. Georgia comprehends the ancient Iberia, Colchis, and perhaps a part of Albania. It is subject to Heraclius. This whole country is so extremely beautiful, that some fanciful travellers have imagined they had here found the situation of the original Garden of Eden. The hills are covered with forests of oaks, ash, beech, chesnuts, walnuts, and elms; incircled with vines, growing perfectly wild, but producing vast quantities of grapes. Cotton grows spontaneously, as well as the finest European fruits. Rice, wheat, millet, hemp, and flax, are raised on the plains, almost without culture. The vallies afford the finest pasturage in the world; the rivers are full of fish; the mountains abound in minerals, and the climate is delicious; so that nature seems to have lavished on this favoured country, * Caucasian Nations. country, every production that can contribute to the happiness of its inhabitants. A few squalid wretches, half naked, half starved, and driven to despair by the merciless oppression of their lords, are, however, the only people who are now thinly dispersed over the most beautiful provinces of Georgia.* These Georgians, Albanians, Iberians, Bactrians, Persians, and others of the vast Scythiac dominions, spread themselves abroad in all quarters of the eastern world, and found their way into Europe by a variety of channels. The tide of emigration rolled impetuously from the spacious highlands, which are situated between China, Siberia, and the Caspian Sea. Hence descended those irresistible torrents, which rushed over all the soil, now the Land of Christians. But, what motives, say you, could have suggested migration to inhospitable regions? Southern Europe, you can easily suppose visited by armies even before she possessed the means of recording events. But, what could induce men to quit the genial climate of Scythia, for the then rude and boisterous shores of the Baltic ? LET VOL. IV. Z3 Caucasian Nations. LETTER LXXI. AT the time when the Roman commonwealth was arrived at the highest pitch of power, and saw all the then known world subject to its laws, an extraordinary exertion of Pompey, in the Mithridatic war, caused the leader of a Scythiac nation, situated between the Pontus Euxinus, and the Caspian Sea, to seek, with his followers, a settlement in a more distant country. The name of this man was Sigge, but, he assumed, or had bestowed upon him, that of Odin, who was the supreme Divinity of the Caucasians. His people were called Asæ. His march he directed towards the north and west of Europe; and at length, with his multitudes, he settled in Denmark, Norway, and other districts of the Scandinavian territory. Nor is this, as it has been stiled, an allegory. We read distinctly, that, "cum Pompeius dux quidam Romanorum orientem bellis infestaret, Odinus ex Asia huc in * Bartholin. septen septentrionem fugiebat." The apotheosis of Odin, or Wodin, was effected shortly before the death of Cæsar. And, therefore, we may consider Odin, not only as the legislator, and the father of the arts among these northern tribes, but as their adopted god of war also. When they went to battle, they offered vows and sacrifices to him, as the Romans did to Mars. The fourth day of the week, they consecrated to him, under the denomination of Wodens-dach, or Wednesday. There were in ancient Europe, we are told, four grand races of men. The northern and western parts, however, were chiefly Celta; for Ephorus, who lived before the reign of Alexander the Great, says, Celtica was of a prodigious extent; and that the most ancient Greeks comprehended two thirds of Europe under the name of Celto-Scythæ. The four grand races were, first, the Celts, the most ancient inhabitants that can be traced; and who were to the other races what the Aborigines of America are to the European settlers there. Secondly, the Iberi of Spain and Aquitania, who were Mauri, and had passed from Africa. Thirdly, the Sarmatæ, who were, in all appearance, originally pos sessors of South West Tartary. Fourthly, the Scy thians, who originated from present Persia; and spread thence to the Euxine, and almost over all Europe. In ancient authors, these grand races of men are marked and clear; the chief distinction of the four languages still remains to certify them. The Celtic is spoken by the Welsh. The Iberian still partly survives in the Basque and Mauritanic. The Sarmatian is the vast Slavonic tongue. The Scythian comprehends the other nations, but especially the Germans and Scandinavians, whose speech is less mixed.* Cæsar's description of Gaul every one knows. "Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres. Quarum unam incolunt Belga; aliam Aquitani; tertiam qui ipsorum lingua Celtæ, nostra Galli appellantur. Hi omnes lingua, institutis, legibus, inter se differunt." † In the opinion of other learned men, however, Europe received its first colonies from three distinct bodies of emigrants; that is, the inhabitants of the west and south from one; those of the east from another; and those of the north and midland parts from a third. They considered the universal inhabitants of the seve ral countries of uncultivated Europe, as of these three |