THE DUTCH SUPREMACY 103 



imported Dutch cattle in the seventeenth century 

 — it must have been before 1671, for he died 

 then — indicate that Dutch cattle may have been 

 brought to the west coast almost as early as to the 

 east. It may be doubted, however, whether the 

 eastern and the western conquests were exactly 

 alike. On the east coast the Dutch invaders 

 seized the land almost for themselves alone, while 

 in the midlands and in the west it was rather 

 an amalgamation of the invader and the invaded. 

 The cattle on the east retained the characteristics 

 they had brought with them from Holland, and 

 acquired no others, while the cattle in the 

 midlands and west eventually acquired cha- 

 racteristics drawn from both Dutch and British 

 sources. The cattle of Hereford and some 

 neighbouring districts acquired their red colour 

 from their Anglo-Saxon ancestors, and their size 

 and their white faces and underlines from 

 Holland ; while the midland and Lancashire 

 cattle — the Longhorns — acquired their size and 

 white back-stripe from Holland, and their various 

 colours — red, yellow, mulberry, plum, dun, the 

 brindles, and so on — from the red cattle in the 

 south of their territory and the Celtic and other 

 cattle in the north. It is also highly probable 

 that the long and peculiarly shaped horns of the 

 Longhorns are a direct or indirect — perhaps both 

 — legacy from the cattle brought to Britain by 

 the Romans. 



