easy to extend one's wants. So that when the Romans first saw London it
was already a flourishing town with a great concourse of merchants.

How long a period elapsed between the foundation of London and the
arrival of the Romans? How long between the foundation and the
beginnings of trade? It is quite impossible even to guess. When Caesar
landed Gauls and Belgians were already here before him. As for the
Britons themselves they were Celts, as were the Gauls and the Belgians,
but of what is called the Brythonic branch, represented in speech by the
Welsh, Breton and Cornish languages (the last is now extinct). There
were also lingering among them the surviving families of an earlier and
a conquered race, perhaps Basques or Finns. When the country was
conquered by the Celts we do not know. Nor is there any record at all of
the people they found here unless the caves, full of the bones which
they gnawed and cut in two for the marrow, were the homes of these
earlier occupants.

When the Romans came they found the town prosperous. That is all we
know. What the town was like we do not know. It is, however, probable
that the requirements of trade had already necessitated some form of
embankment and some kind of quay; also, if trade were of long standing,
some improvement in the huts, the manner of living, the wants, and the
dress of the people would certainly have been introduced.

Such was the beginning of London. Let us repeat.

It was a small fortress defended on three sides by earthworks, by
stockades, by a cliff or steeply sloping bank, and by streams; on the
fourth side by an earthwork, stockade, and trench. The ground was
slightly irregular, rising from 30 to 60 feet. An open moor full of
quagmires and ponds also protected it on the north. On the east on the
other side of the stream rose another low hill. The extent of this
British fort of Llyn-din may be easily estimated. The distance from
Walbrook to the Fleet is very nearly 900 yards; supposing the fort was
500 yards in depth from south to north we have an area of 450,000 square
yards, i.e. about 100 acres was occupied by the first London, the
Fortress on the Lake. What this town was like in its later days when the
Romans found it; what buildings stood upon it; how the people lived, we
know very little indeed. They went out to fight, we know so much; and if
you visit Hampstead Heath you may look at a barrow on the top of a hill
which probably contains the bones