"WHEN THE SLEEPER WAKES" 387

strange that, considered as savages, they should not have
been objects of interest and curiosity. The English were
then abundantly inquisitive about the manners of rude na-
tions separated from our island by great continents and
oceans. (Numerous books were printed describing the laws,
the superstitions, the cabins, the repasts, the dresses, the
marriages, the funerals of Laplanders and Hottentots, Mo-
hawks and Malays. The plays and poems of that age are
full of allusions to the usages of the black men of Africa
and the red men of America. )The only barbarian about
whom there was no wish to have any information was the
Highlander. . . .
  "XWhile the old Gaelic institutions were in full vigor,
no account of them was given by any observer qualified to
judge of them fairly. (Had such an observer studied the
character of the Highlanders, he would doubtless have
found in it closely intermingled the good and the bad qual-
ities of an uncivilized nation. He would have found that
the people had no love for their country or for their king,
that they had no attachment to any commonwealth larger
than the clan, or to any magistrate superior to the chief.
He would have found that life was governed by a code of
morality and honor widely different from that which is
established in peaceful and prosperous societies. He would
have learned that a stab in the back, or a shot from behind
a fragment of rock, were approved modes of taking satis-
faction for insults. He would have heard men relate boast-
fully how they or their fathers had wracked on hereditary
enemies in a neighboring valley such vengeance as would
have made old soldiers of the Thirty Years' War shudder.
  "He would have found that robbery was held to be a