IBERIAN AND SAXON 261 



cannot become intimately acquainted with the cot- 

 tagers. I judge partly from the few I know well, and 

 partly from a very much larger number of individuals 

 I have met casually or have known slightly. What I 

 am certain of is that the men of this type, as a rule, 

 differ mentally as widely as they do physically from 

 persons of other commoner types. The Iberian, as I 

 know him in southern and south-western England, is, 

 as I have said, more intelligent, or at all events, quicker ; 

 his brains are nimbler although perhaps not so reten- 

 tive or so practical as the slower Saxon's. Apart from 

 that point, he has more imagination, detachment, sym- 

 pathy the qualities which attract and make you glad 

 to know a man and to form a friendship with him in 

 whatever class he may be. Why is it, one is sometimes 

 asked, that one can often know and talk with a 

 Spaniard or Frenchman without any feeling of class 

 distinction, any consciousness of a barrier, although the 

 man may be nothing but a workman, while with English 

 peasants this freedom and ease between man and man 

 is impossible ? It is possible in the case of the man we 

 are considering simply because of those qualities I have 

 named, which he shares with those of his own race on 

 the continent. 



I have found that when one member of a family of 

 mixed light and dark blood is of the distinctly Iberian 

 type, this one will almost invariably take a peculiar 

 and in some ways a superior position in the circle. 

 The woman especially exhibits a liveliness, humour, 



