ISCOVERY OF TIN AND CONSEQUENT ENLIGHTENMENT OF
BRITAIN.

[Illustration: BUST OF CAESAR.]

From the glad whinny of the first unicorn down to the tip end of the
nineteenth century, the history of Great Britain has been dear to her
descendants in every land, 'neath every sky.

But to write a truthful and honest history of any country the historian
should, that he may avoid overpraise and silly and mawkish sentiment,
reside in a foreign country, or be so situated that he may put on a
false moustache and get away as soon as the advance copies have been
sent to the printers.

The writer of these pages, though of British descent, will, in what he
may say, guard carefully against permitting that fact to swerve him for
one swift moment from the right.

England even before Christ, as now, was a sort of money centre, and
thither came the Phoenicians and the Carthaginians for their tin.

[Illustration: THE DISCOVERY OF TIN IN BRITAIN.]

[Illustration: CAESAR CROSSING THE CHANNEL.]

These early Britons were suitable only to act as ancestors. Aside from
that, they had no good points. They dwelt in mud huts thatched with
straw. They had no currency and no ventilation,--no drafts, in other
words. Their boats were made of wicker-work plastered with clay. Their
swords were made of tin alloyed with copper, and after a brief skirmish,
the entire army had to fall back and straighten its blades.

They also had short spears made with a rawhide string attached, so that
the deadly weapon could be jerked back again. To spear an enemy with
one of these harpoons, and then, after playing him for half an hour or
so, to land him and finish him up with a tin sword, constituted one of
the most reliable boons peculiar to that strange people.

[Illustration: CAESAR TREATING WITH THE BRITONS.]

Caesar first came to Great Britain on account of a bilious attack. On
the way across the channel a violent storm came up. The great emperor
and pantata believed he was drowning, so that in an instant's time
everything throughout his whole lifetime recurred to him as he went
down,--especially his breakfast.

Purchasing a four-in-hand of docked unicorns, and much improved in
health, he returned to Rome.

Agriculture had a pretty hard start among these people, and where now
the glorious fields of splendid pale and billowy oatmeal may be seen
interspersed with every kind of domestic and imported fertilizer in
cunning little hillocks just bursting for