THE BONDS OF SPEECH.
P. 63, c. 1.—“Basques,” bask. The inhabitants of three Spanish provinces on the slopes of the Pyrenees. The government, customs and language of these people are peculiar and interesting. In government they are nearly republican. “Each province is governed by a parliament composed of representatives selected partly by election, partly by lot, among the householders of each county parish or town. A deputation, named by the parliament, insures the strict observance of the special laws and customs of the province, and negotiates with the representative of the Spanish crown. Delegates from the three parliaments meet annually to consider the common interests of the provinces; they employ a seal representing three interlaced hands, with the motto, ‘The three are one,’ but no written federal pact exists.” In their habits the people are very simple; agriculture is the principal occupation. They live on very equal terms, the class of nobles being small. The language was not written earlier than the fifteenth century. It is said to present some grammatical resemblance to the North American and certain East African languages.
P. 64, c. 1.—“Frisian,” frishˈe-ans. A Germanic people inhabiting at present the eastern coast of Holland, the fens of Saterland, the western shore of Schleswig, and a few adjacent islands. There exists now but a remnant of the ancient Frisians.
P. 66, c. 1.—“Cimmerian,” cim-mēˈri-an. An adjective derived from the Cimmerii, a mythical people represented by Homer as inhabiting a remote region of mist and darkness. Later writers locate this country near Lake Avernus, a lake of Italy about eight miles from Naples, or in the Crimea, or in Spain. “Their country was fabled to be so gloomy that the expression ‘Cimmerian darkness’ became proverbial; and Homer, according to Plutarch, drew his images of hell and Pluto from the dismal region they inhabited.”
“Comanches,” co-manˈches; “Piutes,” pi-utesˈ. Tribes of American Indians belonging to the Shoshone family. Only remnants of them now remain. The Piutes are one of the numerous divisions of the Utahs or Utes.
P. 67, c. 1.—“Primum Mobile.” The prime mover; first power; the beginning.
“Eddic.” Found in the Edda, the sacred books of the old Scandinavian tribes. These books contain almost all that we know of the mythology of the Northmen.
The original signification of “Edda” is “great-grandmother.” It is properly applied to but one collection, the other being a misnomer. The true Edda, or Younger Edda, is a prose collection, giving a history of the world and the gods. The Elder Edda is a collection of poems, dating from the eighth or ninth centuries. Many of them are only fragments. They treat of mythical and religious legends of an early Scandinavian civilization, and are composed in the simplest and most archaic form of Icelandic verse.