tion leaves us unsatisfied. May be, he learned somewhat of the works, but that he visited them is not in evidence. Strabo, who repeats Pytheas, helps us to understand more fully the position and belief when he describes Britain as having its longest side parallel to Gaul, its length being about the same. The length, he tells us, --beginning at Kent, its most eastern point, opposite the mouths of the Rhine-extends to the western extremity, which lies over against (i.e., opposite) Aquitaine and the Pyrenées. In another passage he says: "The Pyrenées terminate at the ocean; opposite this are the western coasts of Britain." Britain, he adds, produces corn, cattle, gold, silver and iron. Again, there is no mention. of either tin or lead.

The plain assertion here of the extension of the western extremity of Britain downwards to opposite the Pyrenées accounts for the idea that the Cassiterides-as being off the Spanish coast-must also, as a matter of course, be between that coast and the coast of Britain. This shows the same belief as in the time of Herodotus and Pytheas. It shows, too, that the coast of Britain was still unknown.

66

We now come to another time-an historic time-the time of the Romans. Cæsar, having determined to go to Britain, on arriving in the neighbourhood of Boulogne, made special inquiries of travelling traders, to learn all he could of the country, the people, the localities, harbours, and landing-places; "all which," he says, were unknown even to the Gauls, as none except merchants generally go thither unadvisedly; nor even to them was any portion known except the sea-coasts and those parts opposite Gaul." As might be expected, then, after calling these merchants from all parts, he gained from them little or nothing, either of the size of the island, the inhabitants, the system of war, or the harbours. He learned, like other writers, and describes Britain as triangular, one side being opposite Gaul, with Kent looking towards the east, and another side towards Spain and the west. "The most civilized people," he adds, are they who inhabit Kent, which is a maritime district; 1 Cæsar: De Bello Gallico, Bk. iv, c. 20.

they do not differ much from Gallic customs." He heard that plumbum album-translated tin-was produced inland, and in the maritime district there was iron but the quantity was small. To him and his narrators, the indefinite "inland" would be any place, or somewhere unknown. His narrative generally and his last words show the unimportance of his information, and at once contradict all idea, any knowledge of any known trade or export. Moreover, it happens that on his march through Gaul he came by the road supposed to be the route mentioned for the horse traffic going from Britain. Had there been any such trade, he must have met it. But he did not meet it.

Cæsar's stay in Britain was short, and must have been for him a busy time. He came, he saw somewhat of Kent and the people of the coast, and he went away. His position, not quite that of a conqueror, was more than that of an explorer or discoverer. His report made the country known, and, it is always supposed, brought it more into contact with the Roman power.

Much

knowledge, it would be imagined, must have been gained before the conquest actually occurred; yet Eutropius tells us that when Claudius made war on Britain, no Roman since Julius Cæsar had been there.

The

If we examine and consider Cæsar's account, there is really nothing new-nothing more than the oft-repeated story. The side towards Spain is still there. question of tin-produce is still a question of hearsay. The tin trade is nowhere met with. Moreover, he tells us that the natives used bronze, "which is imported," so that they had no knowledge of tin and copper.

He

The next writer gives an extended text, and thus at the same time enlarges and adds to the confusion. has been, in fact, the cause of the greater trouble associated with this subject.

Diodorus, writing far away in Sicily say about B.C. 30-repeats or copies the old description of Britain as being triangular. Then he says: "the promontory nearest the Continent or mainland is called Cantium, and is distant, they say, about a hundred furlongs. The other point is called Bolerium, and is distant four days'

sail from the Continent. The extremity which runs out far into the sea is named Orca."

Starting with the promontory of Kent as the eastern point, Orca has been supposed or placed as about our Orkney, in the north; and Bolerium, as the other point wanted, is then left to become the western extremity, thus completing the triangle.

Such a reading seems to suit the text, as Diodorus gives the supposed distances of each side from point to point. But, as no one seems ever to have seen either point, Kent excepted, all else must have been imaginary. Then the distance of Kent from the mainland of Gaul is a question of " they say." He did not know even this as a fact. Further, the expression "four days' sail" from the Continent-presumably the coast opposite Kentconveys no exact meaning, the possible or impossible sailing or rowing power of a boat of that day having to be well considered, and the question of any sailing or rowing by night not forgotten. What was exactly in the mind's eye of the writer cannot be realised. Pytheas says that Kent was "some days' sail" from Gaul; but, again, the starting-point is not given.

Continuing, Diodorus writes: "The inhabitants of the promontory of Bolerium are hospitable; and on account of their intercourse with strangers, more civilised and courteous in their habits than the rest are. These are the people who make the tin, which they dig and melt and refine, and cast in ingots in the form of astragali, and carry it to an island near at hand called Iktis.1 At low tide, the land being dry between them and the island, they convey over in carts abundance of tin; hence the merchants transport the tin they buy of the inhabitants to Gaul, the opposite Continent, and then, by a thirty days' journey on horses' backs, to the mouth of the Rhone, to Marseilles and Narbonne, a great mart in those parts."

So far he writes of one island; but why the metal should have been carted across to it to be sold, to be then transported by the buyers and shipped to the coast of Gaul opposite, when all could seemingly have been done 1 Lib. v, c. 22.

as easily from the place of origin, is not clear. Then the narrative suddenly, even in the same sentence, without hesitation or division, changes the sense from one island -near at hand-to a plural of several at a distance, a plural not previously indicated, and continues: "There is one thing peculiar to these islands which lie between Britain and Europe-little islands lying in the ocean over against Iberia. At full sea they look like islands, but at low water for a long way they look like peninsulas." This is the old story, but the unconscious manner in which he glides away from the one island "near at hand" to "these islands"-a plural of several-not adjacent to Britain, but over against Iberia, shows a very mixed and indefinite state of mind.

As

For the first time, too, and the only time throughout these histories, we have the direct statement that tin was produced in Britain, and that the place of production was called Bolerium. The place-name Bolerium was given, but only once mentioned, by Posidonius. already noted, by the reading given to Diodorus's description of Britain, Bolerium became the western extremity in the triangular shape; and being thus associated in the mind's eye with our Cornwall, our own known tin district, has helped to perpetuate the idea of an early tin trade. But by the reading of Posidonius, who saw only part of Kent, it might be that his Bolerium was there, in Kent; and it would seem that the Bolerium of Diodorus's mind must have been there also, opposite the coast of Gaul. In the first paragraph of his description, the "promontory" is Cantium, and Bolerium is a "point;" but in the continuation, Bolerium not only becomes the promontory, but is in the region of the hospitable, civilised, and courteous people, and so could only be in Kent. This description of the inhabitants, first especially and plainly made by Cæsarmade, too, from his own personal observation-is acceptable enough for Gallicised Kent, but could not apply at this prehistoric date to our western extremity, then, presumably, enjoying the wildest state of aboriginal freedom. Cæsar has also told us plainly that no portion 1 Lib. IV, c. 2.

of Britain was known even to merchants, except the Kentish coast opposite Gaul. Diodorus had the advantage of Cæsar's report, the one piece of hearsay extra which previous writers had not. But writing without personal knowledge, in utter ignorance of the locality, and having no topographical acquaintance with the country, from sheer geographical ignorance he muddles Kent and Bolerium with the older story of the islands over against Iberia. Further on, he repeats and confirms his confusion, when he says: "Over against the shore of Gaul, opposite the Hircinian mountains, there lye in the ocean many islands, the greatest of which is called Britain." And, again, when describing Gaul, he writes : "Its northern side is washed by the entire length of the British Channel, for this island lies opposite and parallel to it throughout."

The last writer on this subject puts the position clearly, goes one better, and shows not a current belief, but a fact. He writes: "The coast of Spain has two angles : the second forms a cape, where, in Brigantia, a city of Gallicia, is erected a most lofty pharos of the very best construction-ad speculam Britannia-in full view of Britain.""

There is no evidence to be gathered from these accounts of any shipment or trade, or any connection whatever with any part of Britain. The Kent and Bolerium story goes off without any British island, without any definite connection with Britain.

The western extremity of Britain, entirely unknown and unvisited, was not our Cornwall-our Land's Endbut was always off the coast of Spain, always over against Aquitaine and the Pyrenées, and, like the Cassiterides, was opposite the Artabri and Gallicia. Had the western extremity of Britain been known in any waymore especially for its commerce and the courtesy of its inhabitants-it would have been known in history, and known not to be off the coast of Spain.

Curiously, when Scipio was at Marseilles, in the course of some general inquiries he asked the natives what they knew about Britain, but they "had nothing to tell him Orosius: Hist., Lib. 1, c. ii.