Blair Collection > Popular tales of the West Highlands > Volume 4

364 A PLEA FOR GAELIC.
came, can now shew any superiority over the countries
where Celt and Saxon, and good feeding, have pro-
duced a good cross. In Norway, Iceland, France, Ger-
many, and Italy, a man of five feet ten inches feels
himself above the average size. He is below the
average size of West Highland gentlemen. Whole
families of men above six feet high could be named.
I know a Highlander, who is a little over six feet, and
measures fifty-six inches round the chest, and who in
his youth was " as strong as a bull." A London draw-
ing-room is the only place in Europe where a race of
men better grown than West Highland gentlemen is
to be met. Having associated with peasants in every
country which I have visited, mixing with all classes
on equal terms, so far as I could, I have arrived at
the conclusion that a Celt is an average human animal,
equal mentally and physically to any other species of
the genus homo similarly placed. Much the same can
be said of Lapps, though they are a small race, and
I am no behever in the natural superiority of any one
race over another. It seems to be in the nature of
races to dislike and despise each other, and I would
willingly " speak up" for the miaority, who cannot
speak for themselves, "having no English," and who
are apt quietly to despise the Saxon fully as much
as he despises them. Both are wrong, as much and
as surely as the members and the stomach erred when
they fell out. The one cannot suffer but the other
must ache.