[22] According to Burton, however, these are by some geologists set down as a geological phenomenon.--_Hist. of Scot._ i. 75.
[23] For more minute descriptions of this camp, as well as for further details concerning the Roman transactions in Scotland, consult Roy’s _Military Antiquities_, Gough’s _Camden_ (under Strathearn), Stuart’s _Caledonia Romana_, Burton’s _History of Scotland_.
Early Inhabitants--Roman Writers--Aristotle--Tacitus--Dion Cassius--Caledonians and Mæatæ--Eumenius--Picts--Dicaledones and Vecturiones--Claudian--Inferences--Ecclesiastical Chroniclers--Their value--Gildas--Adamnan--Northern and Southern Picts--Columba’s “Interpreter”--Bede’s Account of Picts--Pictish Language--Peanfahel--Northern and Southern Picts--Welsh Triads--Irish Annals--Evidence from Language--Cymric and Gaelic Theories--_Inver_ and _Aber_--Innes’s Theory--Conclusion.
The preceding chapter has been occupied almost entirely with an account of the transactions of the Romans in the north of Scotland, and it is now our duty to go back and narrate what is known of the internal history of the Highlands during the time of the Romans. In doing so we are brought face to face with certain much agitated questions which have for centuries engaged the attention of antiquaries, and in the discussion of which many bulky tomes have been written and incredible acrimony displayed. To enter with anything like minuteness into this discussion would occupy more space than can be devoted to the entire history, and, moreover, would be out of place in a popular work like the present, and distasteful to most of its readers. The following are some of the much-discussed questions referred to:--Who were the original inhabitants of Caledonia? To what race did they belong--were they Gothic or Celtic? and if Celtic, were they Cymric or Gaelic? When did they enter Scotland, and whence did they come--from the opposite continent, or from the south of Britain? Was the whole of Scotland, in the time of Agricola, occupied by one people, or by a mixed race, or by various races? Were the Picts and Caledonians the same people? What is the meaning and origin of Pict, and was Caledonia a native appellation? What were the localities of the Northern and Southern Picts? Who were the Scots? What was the nature of the union of the Scots and Picts under Kenneth Macalpin?