more than an unbroken country which P. Mela has supposed to be the dwelling places of savages. If there were not good roads the difficulty must have been greater in using these chariots, and the mechanical skill alone in building them must have been extraordinary. Taking for granted that the account is correct of Cassivelaunus having had 4000 men fighting in chariots, if we allow 4 men to each chariot he must have had 1000 chariots. If we double it and suppose 8 men to each chariot, still he must have had 500 chariots, and here again we have extraordinary results to which these conclusions lead us.
If the Britons had such ædificia or superior classes of buildings as Cæsar says, they must have been well supplied with architects and builders. If they had 1000 or even 500 war chariots capable of being used in the adroit manner described, they must have been well supplied with carpenters and wheelwrights. The workmanship of a mere wheel betokens great mechanical skill, what then must we think of the perfect construction which the whole story conveys to the reflecting mind. Not only the chariot and harness necessarily combined with it for the management of the horses, but the providing the horses and practising them to the work. Not only the carpentry but also the iron work that must have been necessary, and also for the manufacture of the arms. The horses must have been defended with armour, or the Roman soldiers could not have been put to rout by unarmed beasts and unarmed savages, when they might by killing the horses have so easily rendered the chariots unavailable. The discipline of the men must have been as perfect also, and we cannot therefore be surprised that even so great a commander as Cæsar should have thought it advisable to return ingloriously so soon, though he professes to have compelled Cassibelaunus to sue for peace and submit to the terms he imposed on him.
Whether the arts betokening a certain attainment of civilization were of native growth among the ancient Britons or acquired from some foreign source, I shall not now stop to enquire. It is clear however that they were not acquired from Gaul, for as we have seen the most remarkable of their practices in war was new to the Romans who had just conquered Gaul. Neither was the high state of learning that existed in Britain among the Druids dirived from Gaul, for Cæsar says the Gaul had their religious institutions from Britain, and further that the sons of the Gaulish nobles used to be sent to Britain for their education. This fact implies that the state of learning was in higher repute in Britain than on the Continent. That learning must have been of a
