The Caledonians, according to the account of Tacitus, resembled the Germans in their large limbs, red hair, and blue eyes, differing remarkably in all these respect., from the Silo res, or inhabitants of Wales, who were of a darker complexion. They are represented by the wri ters of the second and third centuries, as having neither walls, towns, nor cultivated lands ; subsisting by pastu rage, hunting, and rapine, and on the wild fruits of their barren country. Hardy beyond belief, they are said to have gone naked, at least in battle, plunging, when pur sued, up to the neck into their morasses, where they continued for several (lays without tasting food. In win ter especially, and perhaps on all ordinary occasions, they must have used, like the southern Britons of Cxsar, the skins of beasts to protect them from the cold. They had a custom, in common with all the other natives of the island, of staining their bodies of a blue colour. This was done, at least in after times, with some degree of art, as the skin was punctured with a sharp instrument, and the colouring matter rubbed into it, so as to exhibit per manent lines and figures, in the manner of sonic of the South Sca islanders. The arms of the Caledonians were, a very long pointless sword, a small buckler or target, a short spear, having a knob of metal on one end, and a dagger. As far as we have read on the subject, they are not remarked as using bows and arrows. The covinus, or war chariot, used by the Caledonians, was probably armed with scythes and hooks, to cut down the ranks of the enemy. Upon the whole, the military apparatus of the Caledonians evinces a greater proficiency in the arts, than the writers of that period allow them. Their hor
ses were small, but extremely active ; and their infantry famous for their quick movements. The bravery and unsubdued spirit of our ancestors, whom the Romans could never bend to their yoke, and who, on that account, form a splendid contrast to the other nations of the world, arc such as to give its just reason to glory in being their descendants, all barbarous and uncultivated as they were. Their manners seem to have been much of the same description as those of the southern Britons, before their subjugation by the Romans. Cxsar says of these, that every ten yr twelve men had their wives in common, and that the children were accounted to belong to him who had first married the mother. Nearly the same thing is said of the Caledonians, only that in this case the children were brought up by the community, as being claimed by no particular man as their father. It has been ignorantly asserted, that the Caledei.ians had Lo houses, because they had no walls nor towns : Tacitus expressly tells us, that after the great battle, they set fire to their houses. We suspect that if there exist any cf those circular fortifications, called by Mr Chalmers Pict ish forts, within the proper limits of Caledonia, they must be accounted the work of a later period.* Both Dio and Herodian, as well as Tacitus, allow that Caledonia was inhabited by several distinct tribes. Of the Caledonian government, we know nothing more than that it was de mocratic, being probably a sort of federal union. Gal gacus does not appear to have been a king ; but merely a chief selected from many others, for his birth and ta lents, to conduct the operations of the campaign. (E)