Note 142 — Chapter IV · —The Movements Of Peoples In Their Geographical Significance

Nor is this all. A torrent that issues from its source in the mountains is not the river which reaches the sea. On its long journey from highland to lowland it receives now the milky waters of a glacier-fed stream, now a muddy tributary from agricultural lands, now the clear waters from a limestone plateau, while all the time its racing current bears a burden of soil torn from its own banks. Now it rests in a lake, where it lays down its weight of silt, then goes on, perhaps across an arid stretch where its water is sucked up by the thirsty air or diverted to irrigate fields of grain. So with those rivers of men which we call migrations. The ethnic stream may start comparatively pure, but it becomes mixed on the way. From time to time it leaves behind laggard elements which in turn make a new racial blend where they stop. Such were the six thousand Aduatici whom Cæsar found in Belgian Gaul. These were a detachment of the migrating Cimbri, left there in charge of surplus cattle and baggage while the main body went on to Italy.142