n, with its great and always
navigable river, could not have been long overlooked.

[Illustration: ANCIENT ROMAN PAVEMENT FOUND IN THREADNEEDLE STREET, 1841
(_see page 21_).]

In Caesar's second and longer invasion in the next year (54 B.C.), when
his 28 many-oared triremes and 560 transports, &c., in all 800, poured
on the same Kentish coast 21,000 legionaries and 2,000 cavalry, there is
little doubt that his strong foot left its imprint near that cluster of
stockaded huts (more resembling a New Zealand pah than a modern English
town) perhaps already called London--Llyn-don, the "town on the lake."
After a battle at Challock Wood, Caesar and his men crossed the Thames,
as is supposed, at Coway Stakes, an ancient ford a little above Walton
and below Weybridge. Cassivellaunus, King of Hertfordshire and
Middlesex, had just slain in war Immanuent, King of Essex, and had
driven out his son Mandubert. The Trinobantes, Mandubert's subjects,
joined the Roman spearmen against the 4,000 scythed chariots of
Cassivellaunus and the Catyeuchlani. Straight as the flight of an arrow
was Caesar's march upon the capital of Cassivellaunus, a city the
barbaric name of which he either forgot or disregarded, but which he
merely says was "protected by woods and marshes." This place north of
the Thames has usually been thought to be Verulamium (St. Alban's); but
it was far more likely London, as the Cassi, whose capital Verulamium
was, were among the traitorous tribes who joined Caesar against their
oppressor Cassivellaunus. Moreover, Caesar's brief description of the
spot perfectly applies to Roman London, for ages protected on the north
by a vast forest, full of deer and wild boars, and which, even as late
as the reign of Henry II., covered a great region, and has now shrunk
into the not very wild districts of St. John's Wood and Caen Wood. On
the north the town found a natural moat in the broad fens of Moorfields,
Finsbury, and Houndsditch, while on the south ran the Fleet and the Old
Bourne. Indeed, according to that credulous old enthusiast Stukeley,
Caesar, marching from Staines to London, encamped on the site of Old St.
Pancras Church, round which edifice Stukeley found evident traces of a
great Praetorian camp. However, whether Cassivellaunus, the King of
Middlesex and Hertfordshire, had his capital at London or St. Alban's,
this much at least is certain, that the legionaries carried their
eagles swiftly over his stockades of earth a