race is from the other races with which we have compared them. Among
these branches, we, Anglo-Saxons ourselves, claim for the Anglo-Saxons
the superiority over all the others.

The Anglo-Saxons commenced their career as pirates and robbers, and as
pirates and robbers of the most desperate and dangerous description.
In fact, the character which the Anglo-Saxons have obtained in modern
times for energy and enterprise, and for desperate daring in their
conflicts with foes, is no recent fame. The progenitors of the present
race were celebrated every where, and every where feared and dreaded,
not only in the days of Alfred, but several centuries before. All the
historians of those days that speak of them at all, describe them as
universally distinguished above their neighbors for their energy and
vehemence of character, their mental and physical superiority, and for
the wild and daring expeditions to which their spirit of enterprise
and activity were continually impelling them. They built vessels, in
which they boldly put forth on the waters of the German Ocean or of
the Baltic Sea on excursions for conquest or plunder. Like their
present posterity on the British isles and on the shores of the
Atlantic, they cared not, in these voyages, whether it was summer or
winter, calm or storm. In fact, they sailed often in tempests
and storms by choice, so as to come upon their enemies the more
unexpectedly.

[Illustration: SAXON MILITARY CHIEF]

They would build small vessels, or rather boats, of osiers, covering
them with skins, and in fleets of these frail floats they would sally
forth among the howling winds and foaming surges of the German Ocean.
On these expeditions, they all embarked as in a common cause, and felt