earlier and later period than was the chief who owned this curious shield. The traveller, in the lonely wilderness of Exmoor, comes upon the circular foundations of the huts of the ancient Britons, of a very remote period, and the marks of their hearths are yet observable stained with smoke. Perhaps there is no period of the history of our aboriginal islanders—at least within the historic limit—that is so dark as the time which immediately succeeded the withdrawal of the Roman Legions, and the brief attempt of the Romanised Britons to stand alone. History confines itself to a few lines in which they are described as attempting to repel the savage Picts, who finally overwhelmed them.
The future historian who dwells upon this stage of history, must dig his facts, not out of these threadbare and untrustworthy records, but out of the ground. Not far from Shrewsbury, on the banks of the Severn, underneath some fields of turnips and wheat, the very facts of which the historian was in search lay hidden. Within these last few years a perfect Roman city (as far at least as its ground plan was concerned), has been disinterred, streets, halls, market-places, baths, houses,—a perfect British Pompeii—in fact, has been laid open to the public eye. Among these ruins vast numbers of articles of daily use were found; half-finished stag-horn work, such as the Germans and Swiss are so fond of making, was discovered in an old workshop; a supply of charcoal, in the shop of a baker, the stoke-hole still covered with the soot of a sweating-bath, and tesselated pavements without number. But relics such as these are plentiful enough in the world. The ruins of Uriconium[1] have an interest far surpassing the possession of even these curiosities; it was evidently the scene of one of those terrible conflicts between the half emasculated Briton and the Pict who destroyed him. It is pretty evident that the fair and beautiful Uriconium was destroyed by fire, and that its inhabitants were put to the sword. In one of the hypocausts the skeleton of a man, hiding in the corner, was discovered, and a little heap of money, together with the fragments of a money-box, lay immediately beneath his hand. He had evidently crept into the place for security, in the moment of peril, and the conflagration must have prevented his egress. The coins bear the effigies of the Constantines, thus marking the period of the city, as about the end of the fourth century. Immediately outside the walls, upon some irregular ground being examined, it was found to contain numerous skeletons lying in all directions, and entombed, possibly as they lay on a field of battle. There had evidently been a great struggle at this spot, which was immediately beneath a water-tower guarding a ford across the Severn. Here there is every reason to believe Mother Earth has preserved to us, together with many implements of battle, the veritable invading Picts themselves, as the configuration of the skulls was entirely different from those found within the city itself.
Here is a culminating point in the past history of Britain. Sealed and preserved to the present time—put away, as it were, under the verdant turf, and the feet of beasts, and the golden crops to be exhumed by the chance stroke of the labourer’s pick. There are countless such treasure troves as these, however, yet to be discovered. The Danes have left innumerable marks of their invasion of the island; not so very long ago, the skin of one of these sea-kings was to be seen nailed to the door of the Jerusalem Chamber, Westminster Abbey; and on some of the doors of the old Lincolnshire parish churches may yet be witnessed the epidermis of captured and flayed Vikings of old. But may we not go back ages and ages, and yet find Mother Earth preserving for us the story of the past? was she not busy in making the moulds, and taking off the delicate impressions of a chain of life that was not destined to reach to the period of man’s appearance on this globe? The many pages of the great stone book preserved in the geological department of the Museum come to our recollection as we write. What texture so delicate or perishable, the impression of which she has not preserved to us by means of the soft mud which afterwards gradually hardened into stone? The scales of fishes, the forms of the softest insects, as well as the skeletons of the most tremendous creatures that crawled, and swam, and walked the splashy earth, ere yet it was fit for the foot of man, are to be found in this museum, and may be dug out any day from the lias of the Weald of Kent. Nay, the earth and the waters are yielding up the relics of man himself of the stone period, which it is estimated must have been at least ten or twelve thousand years ago. On the banks of many of the existing Swiss lakes, have been found the indications of the pile-built habitations of this ancient people. Like many of the South American races at the present day, they built over the water, and the soft mud of the lakes has preserved to us their skulls and skeletons, the remnants of their food, including even their bread, the stone implements of the chace, and others of domestic life. The further that science examines, however, into the secrets of our great mother, the more quaint are the records she brings forth from her bosom. In the limestone caves of Belgium, the bones of man have been discovered, together with those of the larger carnivora and pachydermata that roamed this earth, possibly a hundred thousand years ago. Who shall say what a depository, thus faithful through such long ages to its trust, may not yet bring forth to elucidate the history of the past? Madame de Stael used to say that if you scratched the Russian, the Tartar appeared;—it may be said, with still greater truth;—You have but to scratch the earth, and there you will find the records of man.
THE BRAZILIANS OF THE INTERIOR.
Thanks to Senhor Bento Soares and Mr. W. D. Christie, our acquaintance with the coast population and the governing classes of Brazil has quickly ripened of late into intimacy. Haughty as were their Portuguese ancestors, the civic Brazilians are also similarly quick in their resentments—indeed, a people not to be reckoned amongst the most placable races of mankind. In addition to
- ↑ See Vol. ii. p. 39.
