On Friday, September 13th, Mr. Paul Du Chaillu tried to
persuade the British Association that our ancestors were not Saxons but Scandinavians, and that we have, therefore, no right to regard ourselves as one of the Teutonic races. His arguments are too hazy to summarise easily, but the chief one seems to run something like this :—Britain could only have been conquered by a maritime people. The Vikings were a maritime people, therefore the Vikings conquered our island and are our ancestors. This line of reasoning was further sup- ported by the statement that the inhabitants of the districts from which the conquerors of Britain are usually supposed to have come are described by Roman writers as not being a sea- faring race. Of course, Mr. Du Chaillu's theory, though a pleasant one—the Vikings are a more romantic stock than those whom Carlyle delighted to call the " pot-bellied " Anglo- Saxons—is utterly untenable. Our language and place-names alone afford a complete refutation of his theories. In Yorkshire, and, indeed, all over England, there is doubtless plenty of Danish blood to be found, but that the bulk of our population is Teutonic in origin is beyond all question.
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