who was himself half Dane
and half German, "are from Foehr. They have been to Flensburg to see one
of their relations. He is a sailor. They are all sailors in Foehr. Some
of them, perhaps, smugglers--they all dress so--I can't speak to
them--my brother can--he has been in England, and an Englishman can talk
to them--they talk half Danish and half Platt-Deutsch, and half
English--more than half. They were Englishmen once--a good sort of
people--took no part in the war--did not much care for the Danes, though
the Danes took pains to persuade them--so did the Germans, but they did
not much care for the Germans either--strong men--good soldiers--good
sailors--Englishmen, but not like the Englishmen I've seen myself. My
brother's been in London and America, and can talk with them."

What is thus said about their English-hood is commonly believed by the
Danes and Germans of the Frisian localities. They are English in some
way or other, though how no one knows exactly. And many learned men hold
the same view. It is a half-truth. They are more English, and, at the
same time, more Dutch, than any of their neighbours; more so than either
Dane or German, but for all that they are something that is neither
English nor Dutch. They are _Frisians_ of the same stock as the
Frisians of Friesland, whom they resemble in form, and dress, and
manners, and speech, and temper, and history. But from the Frisians of
the south they have been cut off for many centuries, partly by the hand
of man, partly by the powers of Nature, partly by invasions from
Germans, and partly by overwhelming inbreaks of the Ocean. There is a
Frisian country in the south (the present Province of Friesland), and
there is a Frisian country in the north (the tract which we are speaking
of); and these are parts of the _terra firma_. But the Friesland that
lay between the two is lost--lost, though we know where it is. It is at
the bottom of the sea: forfeited, like the lava-stricken plains of
Sicily, of Campania, and of Iceland, in the great game of Man against
Nature--for it is not everywhere that Man has been the winner. The war
of the Frisians against the sea has been the war not of the Titans
against Jove, but of the Amphibii against Neptune.

Every Frisian--_Friese_ as he calls himself--is an agriculturist, and it
is only in the villages that the Frisian tongue is spoken. In the towns
of Ripe, Bredsted, and Husum, small as they are, there is nothing but
Danish and Ge