themselves, though it is on the whole probable. They were not all savages; on the contrary, the inhabitants to the south of the Thames appear to have been civilised, and to have made considerable progress in the arts. It is, of course, possible that these various imports were conveyed to them in the ships of Venetan or German traders. This is the supposition of those who doubt whether the early Britons had ships at all, or anything more than the coracle.[1] But some coracles, as we shall see, were capable of long voyages.
The Latin writers never explicitly state that the Britons had ships; on the other hand, they constantly mention the Britons as using coracles. Cæsar, when he had to cross a river in Spain, remembered the coracles he had seen in Britain, and ordered his soldiers to make them.[2] Lucan[3] and Pliny[4], and the later Festus Avienus[5] are as positive. That the British had ships of stout construction may, as hinted in a previous chapter, be inferred from the passage in Cæsar, where he says "the Veneti obtained help from Britan,"[6] as well as from a mention in the Welsh Triads of "roving British fleets," and from the fact of the building of a ship with sail and oar by one Ceri. Surer testimony is afforded by the two boats discovered at Glasgow, both of which are built of planks, apparently clinker fashion, and fastened together with
- ↑ For descriptions of the coracle, see page 3 and 60, n.
- ↑ 'Bell. Civil.' i. 54.
- ↑ 'Pharsal.' iv. 131, thus translated in Nedhalm's 'Selden':
"Of twigs and willow boord
They made small boats, covered with bullock's hide,
In which they reached the river's further side.
So sail the Veneti if Padus flow,
The Britons sail on their calm ocean so." - ↑ iv. 30, uitilibus nauigiis.
- ↑ 'Oræ Marit.' v. 103:
"Non hi carinas quippe pina texere
Acereve norunt, non abiete ut usus est
Curvant phaselos, sed rei ad miraculum
Navigia junctis semper aptant pellibus." - ↑ 'Bell. Gall.' iii. 9. The word for "help" is "auxilia," which might perfectly well mean "troops," not ships. The ships of the Veneti are described by Cesar as flat-keeled, of light draught, built of strong oak with high foc'sles and poops. The banks for the oars had beams a foot square, bolted at each end with iron pins as thick as a man's thumb. Elton, 'Origins,' 231; Burton, 'Scotland,' i. 308; Cæsar, 'Bell Gall.' iii. 9-13. Cæsar asserts that Great Britain was almost unknown to the Gauls—only merchants went here. The Gauls may, however, have concealed their intercourse with Britain from him.
