ruin the beleaguered reapers, and to carry them safely back to camp. The Britons followed him to his trenches; but this was a great mistake. Foiled and broken, they were forced to flee into the woods; and from these leafy fortresses they sent out again their petitions for peace. Cæsar was very glad to grant their prayer. He had had seventeen or eighteen days of British warfare, and thought it quite enough for that time. Not to imperil, however, his assumed dignity as a conqueror, he insisted on receiving from the suppliant chiefs double the number of hostages before agreed on. The demand was merely an empty form, for in his hurried return to Gaul he found it convenient to forget that he had ever made it, and sailed away from the island without having received a single man.

What Cæsar thought of British soldiers may be judged from the preparations of the following summer. Eight hundred transports rode at anchor to receive five legions and two thousand horse-an army of at least 22,000 men. Landing on the Kentish shore, at a place selected the year before, and probably not far from the scene of his first struggle with the natives, he found the tactics of the Britons completely changed. No one opposed his landing; there was no foe in sight. But from some peasants or fishermen, brought that evening to his camp, he learned that about twelve Roman miles away, upon a river no doubt the Stour-the British forces awaited his approach. Leaving a guard in the camp, he moved at once to the spot, where huge heaps of felled trees blocked up every approach to the stronghold. The Romans succeeded in forcing the rude defences, but not until they had cast up a mound against the barricade, and climbed it under cover of their shields, which they lapped together in the form called testudo, from its resemblance to the shell of a tortoise.

54

B.C.

At this critical time came news of a terrible storm which had wrecked many of the Roman ships and crippled all the rest. Again the elements were fighting on the British side.

Cæsar must go back to camp. All thoughts of following up the blow just given must yield to this pressing danger; for the fleet was all-important, as the only base of operations on which the Romans could rely. Ten days were, therefore, spent in patching the ships, hauling them up on the beach, and drawing round them a line of defence that joined them to the camp.

These ten days were precious to the Britons. Taught by their reverses, they saw that internal quarrels must be forgotten in the presence of the Romans; and that, unless all were to perish, all must unite in fighting the battles of the island. Thickest woods and widest marshes could not save scattered and disunited tribes, which would be easily defeated in turn by the advancing legions. There must be a single army and a single chief. All eyes turned to Casswallon (Cassivelaunus), whose territory lay in modern Herts, and who was well known as the terror and the scourge of those neighbours who resisted his will.

The confederate British army had mustered south of the Thames under the command of Casswallon, during the ten days spent by Cæsar in repairing and fortifying his fleet. At first moving bands appeared on the hills around the Roman camp, but no attack was made, until a foraging party, consisting of three legions and all the cavalry (nearly two-thirds of the whole army !), moved out into the open country. Then on came the Britons; but in their haste they overshot the mark, and dashed in upon the solid legions. It was a hopeless thing to try to break the brazen wall. Back they fell in huddled groups, shivered by the force of their own attack; and a Roman charge swept the fragments of their lines from the field. severe was the check that it led to the disbanding of the confederate army, and the retirement of Casswallon across the Thames.

So

To this river Cæsar then forced a way, bent upon following the active foe into the heart of his own territory. The passage is thought to have been made at a place called Cowey Stakes,

near Chertsey,* where, so far back as the time of Bede, tradition showed the spot. And no easy task it was to wade neckdeep through a great stream, the bed of which bristled with thick lead-wrapped stakes of oak-wood, while the opposite bank, lined with a like palisading, was yet more terribly lined with a fierce and resolute foe. Roman valour made light of the danger. Following the horse, the legions plunged in; and though for a time nothing but a swarm of helmeted heads appeared above the water, they struggled through, while the Britons retired in dismay at their daring.

Cæsar then moved upon the town of Casswallon, which was a stockade in the Hertford woods, surrounded with a rampart of earth, and barricaded with felled trees, wherever woods or marshes left a weak point. The Roman town of Verulamium, not far from where St. Albans stands, is thought to have been built on the site of Casswallon's encampment; but this is doubtful. Wherever it may have stood, Casar, guided to the stronghold by the envoys of the submissive Trinobantes and other tribes, broke through the outworks, drove the defenders from their post, slaying many, and took possession of the great herds of cattle collected there-a most welcome prize for his half-starved soldiery, who had been marching for days through a desolated land.

His town thus lost, the last hope of Casswallon lay in the four kings of Kent, to whom he sent an urgent message, directing them to make a sudden attack on the Roman camp. It was made, but failed; and nothing then remained but to sue for peace. Cæsar was extremely ready to grant the petition. He knew that he was spending his strength to little purpose, and that to hold even the slight footing he had so hardly won

In the British Museum is a corroded stake, taken from the Thames at this place, and supposed to be one of those planted by Casswallon. Many still remain in the bed of the river. The distinguished antiquary Wright doubts the connection of these claborate stakes with the Roman passage of the Thames, believing them to be rather the relics of some later Roman work, connected with the fishing or navigation of the river.

would cost endless vigilance and toil. Filled, therefore, with a wholesome fear of the equinoctial gales, not unmingled, probably, with a slight dread of the ancient Britons, he went through the form of asking hostages, and settling the amount of yearly tribute (never paid, be it marked); packed his soldiers into the ships, lately rescued from the threatening torch; and crossed to Gaul, leaving nothing but the earthworks of his deserted camps to mark his so-called conquest of the island.

No history of his two expeditions has reached us except that from his own pen, and this must be received with caution, if not with actual suspicion. Writing from his own point of view, he knew as well how to gloss a failure as to cover a retreat. In fact, he admits that his usual good fortune, in this instance, deserted the eagles. It has been well said that "a few hostages, a girdle of British pearls for Venus, and a splendid triumph were the only fruits which Cæsar reaped from his victory."

A village scene

WE

CHAPTER III.

HOW THE ANCIENT BRITONS LIVED.

Male employments-Blue limbs-Ring money DruidismGods of the Druids-What the Druids knew.

E must now go back nearly two thousand years. A village, nestling under the shadowy skirts of a great wood in Kent, lies encircled by its wooden paling or stockade. As we approach the collection of pointed roofs, from which thin lines of blue wood-smoke rise lazily into the summer air, we catch the low notes of a woman's voice, singing an old Celtic air, akin to those which live still in the noble harp music of Ireland and Wales. Dressed in a tunic of dark-blue woollen cloth, over which a scarf of red-striped plaid, fastened on the breast with a pin of bronze, is loosely thrown, she sits at the door of her cabin, grinding corn in a little quern.* At her sudden call, from the low archway which serves as both door and window to the hut, there comes a child, yellow-haired and blue-eyed like her mother. The girl runs quickly to the well for water, which she carries in a clumsy pot of coarse sun-dried clay. When the meal is mixed with water, the wet dough is set on a heated stone to bake. Let us take a peep through the The floor, dug below the

smoke at the interior of the hut.

* The quern, or hand-mill, was made of two round stones, the upper one revolving in the cup-shaped hollow of the lower and larger, as a ball revolves in its socket. One or two upright wooden handles, projecting from the upper stone, served to work the mill.