We can have no doubt that Saxons of some tribe or tribes were largely included among the settlers of a district afterwards known to its neighbours as Wessex, or the kingdom of the West Saxons. Among these, in a country with good harbours, there can be little doubt that Frisians, who were the people among the so-called Saxons most given to maritime pursuits, were represented. Such names as Emsworth and the river Ems in the south-east of the county remind us of Emden and the river Ems, close to Eastern Friesland. It is among the present Frisians that traditions of Hengist survive, and it is only in connection with the Jutes and Frisians that this name occurs. It is of interest, therefore, to note that the name is mentioned in the West Saxon charters—Hengestes-geat in Hants,[1] and Hengestesrig[2] in Dorset.
The harbours of these counties were their ports of debarkation, and it was up the river valleys and along the old Roman highways that the country was settled. The valleys of the Itchen, Test, Avon, Stour, and others, afforded a passage into the interior and higher parts of the country, and there is evidence to show, more especially in Dorsetshire, that settlements by people of the same tribe were made in the same or in adjacent valleys. In Berkshire the lines of colonization appear to have been varied. The natural way into that county is not by Southampton Water, but up the valley of the Thames. Berkshire did not come under the rule of the Gewissas at such an early period as Hampshire, part of Dorset, and the south part of Wiltshire. It was separated from early Wessex by a wide forest, of which traces still remain in the nomenclature of the district. Many of the settlers in Berkshire probably came by way of the Thames, but after the extension of the West Saxon State they appear to have been known as Gewissas equally with the people of the original settlement.
That some of the Berkshire settlers followed the same
