nd fallen trees, drove off
the blue-stained warriors, and swept off the half-wild cattle stored up
by the Britons. Shortly after, Caesar returned to Gaul, having heard
while in Britain of the death of his favourite daughter Julia, the wife
of Pompey, his great rival. His camp at Richborough or Sandwich was far
distant, the dreaded equinoctial gales were at hand, and Gaul, he knew,
might at any moment of his absence start into a flame. His inglorious
campaign had lasted just four months and a half--his first had been far
shorter. As Caesar himself wrote to Cicero, our rude island was defended
by stupendous rocks, there was not a scrap of the gold that had been
reported, and the only prospect of booty was in slaves, from whom there
could be expected neither "skill in letters nor in music." In sober
truth, all Caesar had won from the people of Kent and Hertfordshire had
been blows and buffets, for there were _men_ in Britain even then. The
prowess of the British charioteers became a standing joke in Rome
against the soldiers of Caesar. Horace and Tibullus both speak of the
Briton as unconquered. The steel bow the strong Roman hand had for a
moment bent, quickly relapsed to its old shape the moment Caesar,
mounting his tall galley, turned his eyes towards Gaul.

[Illustration: PART OF OLD LONDON WALL, NEAR FALCON SQUARE (_see page
21_).]

The Mandubert who sought Caesar's help is by some thought to be the son
of the semi-fabulous King Lud (King _Brown_), the mythical founder of
London, and, according to Milton, who, as we have said, follows the old
historians, a descendant of Brute of Troy. The successor of the warlike
Cassivellaunus had his capital at St. Alban's; his son Cunobelin
(Shakespeare's Cymbeline)--a name which seems to glow with perpetual
sunshine as we write it--had a palace at Colchester; and the son of
Cunobelin was the famed Caradoc, or Caractacus, that hero of the
Silures, who struggled bravely for nine long years against the generals
of Rome.

Celtic etymologists differ, as etymologists usually do, about the
derivation of the name of London. Lon, or Long, meant, they say, either
a lake, a wood, a populous place, a plain, or a ship-town. This last
conjecture is, however, now the most generally received, as it at once
gives the modern pronunciation, to which Llyn-don would never have
assimilated. The first British town was indeed a simple Celtic hill
fortress, formed first on Tower Hill, and afterwards co