the Romans with entire respect.  They conquered the Belgians, they forced the free Frisians to pay tribute, but they called the Batavians their friends.  The tax-gatherer never invaded their island.  Honorable alliance united them with the Romans.  It was, however, the alliance of the giant and the dwarf.  The Roman gained glory and empire, the Batavian gained nothing but the hardest blows.  The Batavian cavalry became famous throughout the Republic and the Empire.  They were the favorite troops of Caesar, and with reason, for it was their valor which turned the tide of battle at Pharsalia.  From the death of Julius down to the times of Vespasian, the Batavian legion was the imperial body guard, the Batavian island the basis of operations in the Roman wars with Gaul, Germany, and Britain.

Beyond the Batavians, upon the north, dwelt the great Frisian family, occupying the regions between the Rhine and Ems, The Zuyder Zee and the Dollart, both caused by the terrific inundations of the thirteenth century and not existing at this period, did not then interpose boundaries between kindred tribes.  All formed a homogeneous nation of pure German origin.

Thus, the population of the country was partly Celtic, partly German.  Of these two elements, dissimilar in their tendencies and always difficult to blend, the Netherland people has ever been compounded.  A certain fatality of history has perpetually helped to separate still more widely these constituents, instead of detecting and stimulating the elective affinities which existed.  Religion, too, upon all great historical occasions, has acted as the most powerful of dissolvents.  Otherwise, had so many valuable and contrasted characteristics been early fused into a whole, it would be difficult to show a race more richly endowed by Nature for dominion and progress than the Belgo-Germanic people.

Physically the two races resembled each other.  Both were of vast stature.  The gigantic Gaul derided the Roman soldiers as a band of pigmies.  The German excited astonishment by his huge body and muscular limbs.  Both were fair, with fierce blue eyes, but the Celt had yellow hair floating over his shoulders, and the German long locks of fiery red, which he even dyed with woad to heighten the favorite color, and wore twisted into a war-knot upon the top of his head.  Here the German’s love of finery ceased.  A simple tunic fastened at his throat with a thorn, while his other garments defined and gave full play to his limbs, completed his costume.  The Gaul, on the contrary, was so fond of dress that the Romans divided his race respectively into long-haired, breeched, and gowned Gaul; (Gallia comata, braccata, togata).  He was fond of brilliant and parti-colored clothes, a taste which survives in the Highlander’s costume.  He covered his neck and arms with golden chains.  The simple and ferocious German wore no decoration save his iron ring, from which his first homicide relieved him.  The Gaul was irascible,