In stature, the Flemish Belgians are larger men than the French, and, in the country districts, more frequently fair-complexioned. In certain families, too, there is a mixture of Spanish blood.
The Walloons are less bulky than the Flemings, dark-eyed and black-haired.
The particular Germans who reduced the Flemish parts of Belgium, as well as the north-western parts of France, were the Salii of Saal-land on the Ysel in the parts about Zutphen and Deventer. But not alone. The Chamavi of Hamaland were with them; and, probably tribes of Holland and the Lower Rhine besides. Even there they were not altogether indigenous, as will be seen when the ethnology of Holland comes under notice.
In the foregoing account Luxembourg, and Limburg, although politically belonging to Holland, have been considered Belgian.
* * * *
Switzerland, from having a Keltic basis, comes next in order. The ancient Helvetia is at the present moment partly German, partly French, partly Italian, and partly Romance; that is, if we look to its languages and dialects only. Now as the last three tongues are derived from the Roman, we may express the character of the Swiss tongues in more general language, and reduce them to two great classes, the Gothic and the Latin. This, however, will not give us the ethnology of the country, since the blood is far more mixed than the speech. The analysis of this is complex.
In the time of Cæsar the term Helvetia coincided with the modern country of Switzerland sufficiently closely for all practical purposes of general, perhaps for those of minute, ethnology also.
The Helvetii, also, of Cæsar were Kelts; so that the basis of the population is Keltic—although the variety of that stock was probably a very marked one.
The famous Helvetian migration is one of the earliest and greatest facts in the Swiss history. Orgetorix, a Keltic name, is the king. The boundaries, on three sides, are well marked, but not on the fourth. The Jura range separates them from the Sequani of Franche-Comté, the Rhine from the populations of Baden and Wurtemburg (which Cæsar calls German), and the Rhone and the Lake of Geneva from Savoy, which was part of the Roman Provincia. The boundaries in the direction of the Tyrol are undescribed, probably because they were unascertained. An excess of population is the motive for their emigration. It is undertaken with due foresight. Two years beforehand, they buy up all kinds of vehicles and beasts of burden, and sow as much corn as the ground will allow them. Alliances are sought with the neighbouring powers. The Rauraci, Tulingi, Latobriges, and Boii, are asked to burn their towns and join the expedition. The parts about Thoulouse are their object. It is abortive. Cæsar defeats them and breaks it up; the numbers of its component members being afterwards found to be as follows:—
| Helvetians, from Switzerland | 263,000 |
| Tulingians, from Savoy | 36,000 |
| Latobrigians | 14,000 |
| Rauraci, from Baden | 23,000 |
| Boii, from Bavaria | 33,000 |
| Total | 369,000 |