forest, such as the unicorn of heraldry, which here first appears; the elk, which has no joints to its legs, and cannot lie down, whose bulk he depreciates as much as he exaggerates that of the urus or wild bull, which he describes as hardly inferior to the elephant in size. To have slain one of these gigantic animals, and carried off its horns as a trophy, was almost as great a glory as the possession of the grizzly bear's claws among the Indians of the Rocky Mountains. Some of his remarks on the temper of the Gauls might be applied almost without change to their modern representatives. The French _élan_ is done ample justice to, as well as the instability and self-esteem of that great people. "_Ut ad bella suscipienda Gallorum alacer et promptus est animus, sic mollis ac minime resistens ad calamitates perferendas mens eorum est_." [20] And again, "_quod sunt in capessendis consiliis mobiles et novis plerumque rebus student_." [21] He notices the tall stature of both Gauls and Germans, which was at first the cause of some terror to his soldiers, and some contemptuousness on their part. [22] "_Plerisque hominibus Gallis prae magnitudine corporum suorum brevitas nostra contemptui est_." Caesar himself was of commanding presence, great bodily endurance, and heroic personal daring. These were qualities which his enemies knew how to respect. On one occasion, when his legions were blockaded in Germany, he penetrated at night to his camp disguised as a Gaul; and in more than one battle he turned the fortune of the day by his extraordinary personal courage, fighting on foot before his wavering troops, or snatching the standard from the centurion's timid grasp. He took the greatest pains to collect accurate information, and frequently he tells us who his informants were. [23] Where there was no reason for the suppression or misrepresentation of truth, Caesar's statements may be implicitly relied on. No man knew human nature better, or how to decide between conflicting assertions. He rarely indulges in conjecture, but in investigating the motives of his adversaries he is penetrating and unmerciful. At the commencement of the treatise on the civil war he gives his opinion as to the considerations that weighed with Lentulus, Cato, Scipio, and Pompey; and it is characteristic of the man that of all he deals most hardly with Cato, whose pretensions annoyed him, and in whose virtue he did not believe. To the bravest of his Gallic enemies he is not unjust. The Nervii in particular, by their courage and self-devotion, excite his warm admiration, [24] and while he felt it necessary to exterminate them, they seem to have been among the very few that moved his pity.