1 6 The Winning of the West 



a single white inhabitant ; the race which, when they 

 were in their prime, was hemmed in between the 

 North and the Irish seas, to-day holds sway over 

 worlds, whose endless coasts are washed by the 

 waves of the three great oceans. 



There have been many other races that at one 

 time or another had their great periods of race 

 expansion as distinguished from mere conquest, 

 but there has never been another whose expan- 

 sion has been either so broad or so rapid. 



At one time, many centuries ago, it seemed as 

 if the Germanic peoples, like their Celtic foes and 

 neighbors, would be absorbed into the all-conquer- 

 ing Roman power, and, merging their identity in 

 that of the victors, would accept their law, their 

 speech, and their habits of thought. But this dan- 

 ger vanished forever on the day of the slaughter 

 by the Teutoburger Wald, when the legions of 

 Varus were broken by the rush of Hermann's wild 

 warriors. 



Two or three hundred years later the Germans, 

 no longer on the defensive, themselves went forth 

 from their marshy forests conquering and to con- 

 quer. For century after century they swarmed out 

 of the dark woodland east of the Rhine, and north 

 of the Danube; and as their force spent itself, the 

 movement was taken up by their brethren who dwelt 

 along the coasts of the Baltic and the North At- 

 lantic. From the Volga to the Pillars of Hercules, 

 from Sicily to Britain, every land in turn bowed 

 to the warlike prowess of the stalwart sons of Odin. 



