184 NATURAL BIST0B1 0] 



are the mere subjects of the other, and perhaps little inferior 

 in stature, bu, certainly nol bo well supplied with food, and its 



consequent physical results. Hence, in the early a 

 party sees Giants among the leaders of the enemy, and only 

 heroes in its own. Here, again, tin- rapid decline from con- 

 quering tribes to single families, sinking still to individuals in 

 a tribe of casual birth, who on some occasion- \ 1 to 



he Roman emperors and Gothic chiefs. At a later period, they 

 pass into a kind of brutal champions, kept lor the sport or for 

 the wars of chieftains in the middle and feudal ages, or for 

 show, as certain men are still retained in Asia. Such Giants, 

 in remote times, were the leaders and princes of idolatrous 

 Egypt and Canaan, Apoplieis, Og, Goliath, &c. Such the first 

 horsemen conquerors of the Bcdoueen or Ethiopian Arabs, s till 

 obscurely designated in the national lore as fair and blue- 

 till the Almighty turned them red, and then black, in punish- 

 ment for their iniquity.* And in mythological dualism, the 

 red-haired Typhon, Baby, or Anteus, types drawn, equally with 

 the Nephilim, from the red and fair-haired nations of Northern 

 Asia, Gog and Magog (Haiguge and Magiuge, or the lofty and 

 kindred lofty) Scythian tribes ; the Cyclopians and Lestrigons, 

 the Thyrsen or Tyrheni, and Raseni. Such the deified heroes 

 of Greece and of Etruria, always represented naked, like the 

 Baresarks and Blaumans of the north, and Gaurs and Hunen 

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

 still figured on the brazen bas-reliefs of the cathedral gates at 

 Augsburg,t and others lately discovered during some excava- 

 tions in the Tyrol. Naked championship was a custom pre- 

 served by Greeks, Gauls, Britons and Franks. So late as the 

 year 157S, the Scottish Highlanders still fought naked against 

 the Spaniards, at the action of Rymenant, near Mechlin. 



* See Tarikh Tebry. 



t These gates are certainly older than the eleventh century ; the male 

 costume renders it likely that they really belonged to the palace of Theo- 

 doric, at Ravenna, and the workmanship, that it is Byzantine. 



