Gibbon on Scotland and New Zealand

A grotesque and witty passage from the author of the Decline and Fall describes uncorroborated rumors of a tribe of Scottish cannibals in the 360’s A.D.:

“When they hunted the woods for prey it is said that they attacked the shepherd rather than his flock; and that they curiously selected the most delicate and brawny parts, both of males and females, which they prepared for their horrid repasts. If, in the neighbourhood of the commercial and literary town of Glasgow, a race of cannibals has really existed, we may contemplate, in the period of the Scottish history, the opposite extremes of savage and civilized life. Such reflections tend to enlarge the circle of our ideas: and to encourage the pleasing hope that New Zealand may produce, in some future age, the Hume of the Southern Hemisphere.”