It is only, however, in the more inaccessible parts of their country that the _differentiæ_ of dress rise to the dignity of a separate and independent _costume_. They do so, however, in some of those small islands which lie off the coast of Sleswick; three of which are supposed to have been the _three islands of the Saxons_, in the second and third centuries. A party, which the writer fell in with, from _Föhr_, were all dressed alike, all in black, all in woollen, with capes over the heads instead of bonnets. "Those," says the driver, who was himself half Dane and half German, "are from Föhr. They have been to Flensburg to see one of their relations. He is a sailor. They are all sailors in Föhr. 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.