THE HUMAN SPECIES. 137 



of the Celtic and Teutonic nations. Such, finally, the 

 Goths still figured on the brazen bas reliefs of the 

 cathedral gates at Augsburg, * and others lately dis- 

 covered during some excavations in the Tyrol. Naked 

 championship was a custom preserved by Greeks, Gauls, 

 Britons, and Franks. So late as the year 1578, the 

 Scottish Highlanders still fought naked against the 

 Spaniards, at the action of Rymenant, near Mechlin. 

 The Baresarks were true Giants in their manners, in 

 their liability to fits of phrensy, paroxysms already 

 characterized in the deeds of Hercules, and like the 

 Malay muck. In Moslem Asia were the Chagis, naked 

 fanatics of giant stature, in the wars of the Crusades ; 

 and there still remain Shumshurbas, Pehlwan, Kawasses, 

 prize-fighters and wrestlers, often possessed of immense 

 muscular strength, kept in the pay of grandees, like 

 the ancient Blaumen of the north, or like Orson in 

 romance;! beside these, a nation of primeval invaders 

 of India, denominated Cattie, even now contains many 

 warriors above six feet high, with a powerful muscular 

 structure ; and revealing the origin whence it came, by 

 the occasional presence of light coloured hair and grey 

 eyes. 



* These gates are certainly older than the eleventh cen- 

 tury ; the male costume renders it likely, that they really 

 belonged to the palace of Theodoric, at Ravenna, and the 

 workmanship, that it is Byzantine. 



t The chained giant Widolt with the gavelock, and 

 Wade with the hammer, of the " Heldenbuch and Niebe- 

 lungen" romances; and the wrestler Charles, in " As you 

 like it," belong to this clas 



