features of nature as the rivers, long before the wandering tribes, who were the earliest immigrants, had settled down into fixed habitations and given their names to their dwellingplaces and their lands. The names thus given at the outset therefore contain some of the most ancient forms of the Aryan or Indo-European speech. And, when once given, they have in many if not most cases, remained to the present day. The original names were of the utmost simplicity, rarely, if ever, containing a compound idea. These primitive names may be divided into two classes, appellative and descriptive; or, in other words, into those which describe a river simply as the 'water' or the like, and those which refer to some special quality or property of its own. In the case of a descriptive name, it may be taken for granted that its origin is not far-fetched, but that its name is derived from something which, as the French say, 'Saute aux yeux,' or that we can see at a single glance. If a river be very rapid and impetuous, if its course be winding and tortuous, if its waters be very clear or very turbid, these are all marked features which would naturally give it a name. The startingpoint of these primitive river-names may be ultimately traced back to a few primary roots belonging to the Sanscrit or ancient language of Hindoostan. Thus the streams which wander among the pleasant meadows of England, the calm waters which flow by the quaint dwellings of the thrifty Dutch, the noble rivers of 'La Belle France,' the great Loire sweeping with its eddies the district between Brittany and La Vendée, the Rhone fed by Alpine snows, the rushing torrents that roll down the classic plains of Italy, and even the mighty floods which pour into the Bay of Bengal, objects of religious veneration to the Hindoos now just as they were in the time of the Vedas three thousand years ago, all contain a few widespread and forgotten words, at the meaning of which we can but darkly guess.

The river-names of the Isle of Wight illustrate the principle upon which Mr. Ferguson has based his learned investigations. First, let us take the name Yar. It would seem at first to argue a strange poverty in the vocabulary of our river-names that in so small a territory as that of the Isle of Wight two small rivulets on opposite sides of the Island should bear the

same name.

IN THE ISLAND.

669

The fact that there is another river called Yar in Norfolk would indeed lead the inquirer to suppose that there must be some one common parentage for this rivername. The Yar calls up on further reflection the Yarrow of Selkirkshire, so dear and familiar to all students of the poetry of William Wordsworth. But we should scarcely imagine to ourselves a relationship between our twin trickling streams of Yar and the great mass of the waters of the Garonne moving along with impetuous velocity after it has been reinforced by the streams which issue from the Pyrennees until it opens to the sea itself like a sea beyond Bordeaux. Such an affinity does however exist between these dwarf streams of Wight and their giant brother, which at Bordeaux, long the capital of English France, is twice the width of the Thames at London. This affinity was pointed out in an article in the Edinburgh Review for April, 1860, and quoted by Canon Venables in his Guide to the Isle of Wight. The name of this river, the Yar, is an old Celtic root found in the Garumna or Garonne of a kindred race across the Channel.' In reality, the Yar may boast of still higher antiquity for its designation than a Celtic origin. The Sanscrit car and the Latin curro, like many other words of the same sort, branch out into two different meaningsthat of going fast, and that of going round. Hence the rivernames from this root have, in some cases the sense of rapidity, and in others of tortuousness. Mr. Ferguson appends a list of rivers derived from this root, which prove it to have spread far and wide.

2. The little brook of the Lugley, or Lukely, lights up the vale of Bowcombe, and forms with its sparkling waters an eye to the landscape. It may interest the good people of Carisbrooke, who delight in their clattering stream with silver threading, where the valleys teem with herbage fresh as dew, or fragrant hay new-mown,' to learn that the Lightpaven Lukely' bears a name of remote pedigree. The Sanscrit li, to wet, moisten, spreads into many forms through the Indo-European languages. These forms for convenience' sake may be divided into two groups, the first of which is represented by the Latin liqueo, old Norse leka, Ang.-Sax. lecan, and the Welsh llyn, a lake, pool, or pond,

and the modern Scotch linn.' The second group is represented by the Latin lavo, luo, Ang.-Sax. lagu. Mr. Ferguson gives a long list of European river-names belonging to this second group. Out of these need only to be mentioned here the Lug in Herefordshire and the Lugar in Ayrshire, which makes a junction with the river of Ayr at a spot where Burns wandered forth when chill November's surly blast made fields and forests bare,' and composed the dirge of 'Man is made to mourn,' while his heart flowed forth in sympathy with its bleak scenery. A still more dignified member of this family than even stately Lugar's mossy fountain' is the lake of Lugano in the Swiss canton of Ticino on the Italian slope of the Alps. Lustre is added to the modest unobtrusive brooklet of the Lugley or Lukely from its claim of kindred, even although only on the footing of a poor relation, with the expanse of the dazzling waters of Lugano, bounded on one side with an extent of 'sea-like plain fading into the sky,' and on the other with an 'horizon of the loftiest and boldest Alps.' Let no one speak contemptuously of the little rill which playfully runs among the meadows of the fair valley rightly named Bowcombe till it enlivens in its lower course the valley of Carisbrooke. Like many an obscure Christian life, it has its useful occupation. It helps to turn more than one mill, resting not till it mingles with the sea, nor indeed has its activity been extinguished when its tiny waters mingle with the vast ocean. So after the playfulness of youth comes labouring, toiling. manhood, to pass eventually into new stages of being, when it falls into the mighty encircling world-stream of everlasting life.

3. The Medina, or Mede as it is written in ancient documents. From the fact that this river divides the Isle of Wight into two equal parts it at once suggests the thought that it must be connected with the root of the common English words-mid, middle, midst. Seen in this light the Medina explains the related form of the Kentish river, the Medway, with the old English town, originally called Medwegston, shortened into Medston, and now, according to the spelling of modern scribes, Maidstone, or the town on the Medway. Probably enough the Jutish settlers in Kent and

in the Isle of Wight found in both these districts rivers bearing the name of Med, Mad, or Mede, which was still older than the vocabulary of these Teutonic invaders, and in which the Roman soldiers in Britain could trace a resemblance to their own word medius. This same root appears in the ancient Mediana, now the Mayenne, of France, and the Italian river, the Medoacus, now the Venetian Brenta. Thus in Gibson's Etymological Geography Medway is explained by 'medium flumen,' the river flowing through the middle of the county of Kent. This explanation is accepted by Mr. Ferguson, who also mentions the derivation of the famous German philologer, Grimm. This learned scholar, in his History of the German Language, suggests a mythological reference to the mead cup.' As the rivers of the Greeks and Romans streamed from the horn or the urn of the rivergod, so may also the rivers and brooks of our ancestors in a similar mythic fashion have sprung from the over-turned mead-cup.' Mr. Ferguson with his English common-sense has fully disposed of this far-fetched interpretation of the distinguished German, whose well-known formula, bearing the title of Grimm's law, has been exposed to some severe criticism by Mr. Ferguson's brother-in-law, the late Dr. Guest, in his valuable work Origines Celticae (vol. i. p. 344).

The study of river-names is not, as some dull-minded people suppose, a piece of dry-as-dust antiquarianism or fanciful guessing at words; rather does it awaken many thoughts to quicken what a writer of the present day has aptly called the 'Friendship of rivers and men.' Most rivernames in English are older than Stonehenge, or the most ancient cromlechs.' The Medina, Yar, and Lukely refer to a more distant past than the solitary long stone 'on the green hill of mote,' or the Roman villas at Carisbrooke and Brading. Some of our river-names, such as Palmer's Brook, no doubt are modern. The smaller streams readily yielded up their ancient names at the bidding of new masters. But the river that flowed onwards to the sea, and whose banks belonged to more than one owner, was allowed to retain its primaeval appellation. Each river-name carries us back to times when as yet there were no coins, no written memorials, not even bronze weapons, or iron tools, but only stone

hammers or flint heads. They point to a time when in the youth of the world the flowing water seemed to have a living soul. It carried a divine, heaven-sprung energy with it. One of the most vivid pictures in the Iliad represents how the river Scamander, incensed with Achilles, curled its waters and called aloud on its brother stream Simois to check with united force the enemy of heroic Hector and Troy. The Psalmist of Israel, when worshipping, meditated on the beneficent workings of God's created messenger as it ran among the hills and gave drink to every beast of the field. The honour thus paid to rivers was only a due return of human gratitude for what they have done or are doing for man. Along the banks of rivers the earliest human races made their way. Their waters provided fish for the primitive settlers, their thickets sheltered. the prey of the primaeval huntsmen, and their names are the workmanship of intelligent beings in their first efforts to describe the features of the natural objects with which they had to deal.

July 31, 1886.

CANINE REMAINS AT THE ROMAN VILLA

AT BRADING.

In the interesting extracts relating to the discovery of certain bones of dogs during the course of the excavation of the Roman Villa near Brading (I. W. County Press, January 24, 1891), the writer of the articles in the Canine World, Mr. Hugh Dalziel, says that 'the Romans imported greyhounds from the Celts.' In confirmation of this statement it may be mentioned that the Latin word for a 'greyhound' is 'vertragus,' or 'vertagus,' which Dr. Smith in his Latin Dictionary pronounces to be Celtic. The 'vertragus' is mentioned by the Latin epigrammatist, Martial, 14, 200— 'Non sibi, sed domino, venatur vertragus_acer, Illaesum leporem qui tibi dente feret.'

On these lines of the poet my friend Mr. Ferguson observes,