field which saw the birth of civilisation in our
island. Lying there in the early morning sunshine I considered it all
over again.

Caesar's first landing in Britain in B.C. 55 had been, as he himself
tells us, merely a reconnaissance. In the following summer, however,
he returned in force, indeed with a very considerable army, and with
the intention of bringing us, too, within that great administration
which he and his adoptive son Augustus were to do so much to make a
final and in many ways an indestructible thing.

It might seem that in spite of the lack of the means of rapid
communication we possess, the admirable system of Roman roads enabled
Caesar to administer his huge government--he was then in control of
the two Gauls--with a thoroughness we might envy. After his first
return from Britain in the early autumn of B.C. 55 he crossed the
Alps, completed much business in Cisalpine Gaul, journeyed into
Illyricum to see what damage the Pirustae had done, dealt with them
effectively, returned to Cisalpine Gaul, held conventions, crossed the
Alps again, rejoined his army, went round all their winter quarters,
inspected all the many ships he was building at Portus Itius and other
places, marched with four Legions and some cavalry against a tribe of
Belgae known as the Treviri, settled matters with them, and before the
summer of B.C. 54 was back at Portus Itius, making final preparations
for the invasion of Britain.

This invasion, glorious as it was to be, and full of the greatest
results for us, was accompanied all through by a series of petty
disasters. Caesar had purposed to set out certainly early in July, but
delay followed upon delay, and when he was ready at last, the wind
settled into the north-west and blew steadily from that quarter for
twenty-five days. It had been a dry summer and all Gaul was suffering
from drought. The great preparations which Caesar had been making for
at least a year were at last complete, the specially built ships, wide
and of shallow draft, of an intermediate size between his own swift-
sailing vessels and those of burthen which he had gathered locally,
were all ready to the number of six hundred, with twenty-eight _naves
longae_ or war vessels, and some two hundred of the older boats. But
the wind made a start impossible for twenty-five days.

It was not till August that the south-west came to his assistance. As
soon as might be he embarked five Legions, say twenty-thousand men,