wind served
and he set sail. A vision of the great Roman--determined,
resolute--rises before us as, standing on the deck of the galley, he
looks out on to the dark waters of the unknown sea bound for the coast
of England. After a slow passage the little fleet arrived under the
steep white cliffs of the southern coast about nine o'clock next
morning. Armed forces of barbarians stood on the heights above Dover,
and, finding it impossible to land, Caesar gave orders to sail some
seven miles farther along the coast, where they ran the ships aground
not far from Deal.

But the visit of the Romans to Britain on this occasion lasted but
three days, for a violent storm scattered the ships with the horses
on board.

"The same night," says Caesar, "it happened to be full moon, which
generally causes very high tides in the ocean, a fact of which our
men were not aware."

Indeed, we may well believe that a night of full moon and an unusually
high tide would be a mystery to those children of the Mediterranean.
Their ships had been beached and were lying high and dry when the
rapidly rising tide overwhelmed them. Cables were broken, anchors lost,
panic ensued.

But Caesar's glory lay in overcoming obstacles, and it is well known
how he got his troops and ships safely back across the Channel, and
how preparations were hurried on in Gaul for a second invasion of
Britain. This is not the place for the story of his campaign. He was
the first to raise the curtain on the mysterious islands discovered
by Pytheas.

"Far to the west, in the ocean wide,
Beyond the realm of Gaul, a land there lies,
Sea-girt it lies, where giants dwelt of old."

Caesar's remarks on this new-found land are interesting for us to-day.
He tells us of "a river called the Thames, about eight miles from the
sea." "The interior of Britain," he says, "is inhabited by a people
who, according to tradition, are aboriginal. The population is
immense; homesteads closely resembling those of the Gauls are met with
at every turn, and cattle are very numerous. Gold coins are in use,
or iron bars of fixed weight. Hares, fowls, and geese they think it
wrong to taste; but they keep them for pastime or amusement. The climate
is more equable than in Gaul, the cold being less severe. The island
is triangular in shape, one side being opposite Gaul. One corner of
this side, by Kent--the landing-place for almost all ships from
Gaul--has an easterly, and the lower one