WEST HIGHLAND BREEDS OF CATTLE. 
543 
Highland breed of cattle. Their absolute identity I doubted; but, 
on being informed that occasionally a pure white or cream- 
coloured calf appeared amongst the black and red West Highland, 
I solicited several of my friends to secure for me the first speci- 
men they met with, that it might, when arrived at maturity, be 
compared with the white ox of Hamilton and of Tankerville. 
Again ; throughout this inquiry I could not overlook the sin- 
gular fact, that, wherever I had seen the Celtic race of men, as 
in the Scottish Highlands and in Wales, their cattle were 
almost uniformly black, or red, or striped dun. The circumstance 
that a race of white or cream-coloured cattle exists even now in 
Pembrokeshire, and in a part at least of South Wales, I first 
learned from Mr. Low’s excellent work on British Domestic Ani- 
mals. But this circumstance, instead of clearing up, rather 
added to the existing difficulties; for, on the hypothesis that 
these white cattle of Pembrokeshire are identical with the 
Hamilton and Tankerville breeds, and, secondly, that these same 
cattle are the original breed, the progenitors, unmixed, of the 
present black and red Celtic cattle, how has it happened that the 
Celt of Scotland and of Ireland, as little prone to change or to im- 
provement as any of their race, should have declined breeding 
their white cattle, and adopted the black and red varieties in pre- 
ference? Some may, perhaps, be disposed to find, in the exist- 
ence of the white race of cattle in South Wales, a proof of the 
accuracy with which the late Dr. MacCallagh viewed the Welsh 
Celt, whom he considered as the most pure of all the Celtic tribes, 
the most strongly possessed of all the good and bad qualities of 
his race*. 
I admit that it is singular to find among this race of men these 
very cattle — I mean the white cattle, to which tradition lias 
always assigned a high antiquity. Another hypothesis, how- 
ever, may be offered, and it is the one I feel disposed still to ad- 
here to, — it is this: The southern parts of Britain and Ireland 
shew unquestionable traces of strong Phoenician colonies having 
once settled in them. Many gentlemen have attended my 
lectures from Cornwall, South Wales, and from the South of 
Ireland, who evidently belonged to a race of men absolutely dif- 
ferent from the Saxon, and equally so from the Celt ; these, from 
* The inhabitants of Central Wales appeared to me to be strictly Irish ; 
and if any one doubts this, let him walk, as I did, from Chepstow to Ruthin, 
taking Builth, Lhanidlow, Dinas, Monthy, and Bala, in his road. Above all, 
let him not forget to visit the hovels of the fine peasantry occupying the 
farms (! !) of Sir W W. Wynne, and others, and the appearance of Rebecca 
and her daughters in Wales will not in the least surprise him ; if it docs, then 
1 must be wholly ignorant of human nature. 
