WALLOONS, the name given to a population belonging to the great Romanic family' more especially to the French stock, and occupying the tract along the frontiers of the German-speaking territory in the South Netherlands, from Dunkirk to Malmedy. They are located more particularly in the Ardennes, in parts of the departments of ras-de Calais, Nord, Aisne, and Ardennes in France, but chiefly in South Brabant, as well as in the provinces of Hainault, Namur, Liege in Belgium, and in the greater part of Luxemburg, and finally in some towns and villages in the neighborhood of Malmedy in Rhenish Prussia. The Walloons, whose numbers in Belgium, where they are princi pally established, are stated at 2 millions, are the descendants of the old Gallic Belgm, who held their ground among the Ardennes mountains when the rest of Gaul was over run by the German conquerors, but became eventually Romanized, especially in their language, which appears now as a patois or popular dialect of Prench; of all the French dialects, however, the greatest number of Gallic words have been preserved in it. See the unfinished work by Grandgagnagc, Dietionnaire Etpnologique de la Langue Wallow (Liege, 1845). The name Walloon, in Dutch, Walen, shows their Gallo Romanic origin. and their relationship, partly by race and partly by language, with the Galli, Gaels, Walese, Welsh, Walachians, etc. The Walloons of the present day re
semble their French mOre than they do their German neighbors. They are squat and middle-sized, with powerful limbs, dark hair, deep sunk, fiery, dark-brown or blue eyes. They surpass their Flemish neighbors in adroitness, activity, and skill; and their French in earnestness, perseverance, and diligence. In impulsiveness, they resemble the latter more than the former, but their anger sooner cools than that of the more deeply feeling Fleming. It is worthy of notice that the Belgian revolution was pre-eminently the work of the 'Walloon districts, and the most eminent statesmen of modern Belgium are. of Walloon descent. It was against the Walloon spirit and tendencies that the Flemish movement (see FLEMISH LANGUAGE. AND LITERATURE) was Chiefly directed.
a small cannon (or, in ancient times, an arquebus) mounted on a swivel, on the wall of a fortress, for the purpose of being fired at short-range on assail ants in the ditch or on the covert-way. There are distinct evidences that the great wall of China was originally constructed for the reception of wall-pieces.