NDON.

PART II.

On these low hillocks marked on the map London was first founded. The
site had many advantages: it was raised above the malarious marsh, it
overlooked the river, which here was at its narrowest, it was protected
by two other streams and by the steepness of the cliff, and it was over
the little port formed by the fall of one stream into the river. Here,
on the western hill, the Britons formed their first settlement; there
were as yet no ships on the silent river where they fished; there was no
ferry, no bridge, no communication with the outer world; the woods
provided the first Londoners with game and skins; the river gave them
fish; they lived in round huts formed of clay and branches with thatched
roofs. If you desire to understand how the Britons fortified themselves,
you may see an excellent example not very far from London. It is the
place called St. George's Hill, near Weybridge. They wanted a hill--the
steeper the side the better: they made it steeper by entrenching it;
they sometimes surrounded it with a high earthwork and sometimes with a
stockade: the great thing being to put the assailing force under the
disadvantage of having to climb. The three river sides of the London
fort presented a perpendicular cliff surmounted by a stockade, the other
side, on which lay the forest, probably had an earthwork also surmounted
by a stockade. There were no buildings and there was no trade; the
people belonged to a tribe and had to go out and fight when war was
carried on with another tribe.

The fort was called Llyn-din--the Lake Fort. When the Romans came they
could not pronounce the word Llyn--Thlin in the British way--and called
it Lon--hence their word Londinium. Presently adventurous merchants from
Gaul pushed across to Dover, and sailed along the coast of Kent past
Sandwich and through the open channel which then separated the island of
Thanet from the main land, into the broad Thames, and, sailing up with
the tide, dropped anchor off the fishing villages which lay along the
river and began to trade. What did they offer? What Captain Cook offered
the Polynesians: weapons, clothes, adornments. What did they take away?
Skins and slaves at first; skins and slaves, and tin and iron, after the
country became better known and its resources were understood. The taste
for trading once acquired rapidly grows; it is a delightful thing to
exchange what you do not want for what you do want, and it is so very