quote the Hebrews. I answer that the life of Palestine always kept
to the comparatively low lands to the west of Jordan, while the
barbarous mountaineers of the eastern range never did anything,--had
but one Elijah to show among them. Shakspeare never saw a hill
higher than Malvern Beacon; and yet I suppose you will call him a
poet? Mountaineers look well enough at a distance; seen close at
hand you find their chief distinctions to be starvation and
ignorance, fleas and goitre, with an utter unconsciousness--unless
travellers put it into their heads--of the "soul-elevating glories"
by which they have been surrounded all their lives.'

He was gently reminded of the existence of the Tyrolese.

'You may just as wisely remind me of the Circassians. What can prove
my theory more completely than the fact that in them you have the two
finest races of the world, utterly unable to do anything for
humanity, utterly unable to develop themselves, because, to their
eternal misfortune, they have got caged among those abominable
stoneheaps, and have not yet been able to escape?'

It was suggested that if mountain races were generally inferior ones,
it was because they were the remnants of conquered tribes driven up
into the highlands by invaders.

'And what does that prove but that the stronger and cunninger races
instinctively seize the lowlands, because they half know (and
Providence knows altogether) that there alone they can become
nations, and fulfil the primaeval mission--to replenish the earth and
subdue it? No, no, my good sir. Mountains are very well when they
are doing their only duty--that of making rain and soil for the