of the rude
inhabitants of Britain. The arrival of a ship in port was an event of
absorbing interest; soon the women of the coast settlements would be
seen busily traversing the narrow, winding paths by which the houses
of a village were connected, to gossip with their neighbors about
the latest bit of wonderful narrative picked up from the oddly garbed
foreign sailors concerning the mighty nations of the remote parts of
the earth, or to display some purchase--a piece of cloth of fine web
or of bright colors, a chased fibula, a string of beads, or articles
of like nature. It would be difficult to exaggerate the effect upon
the mentality and the life interest of the simple-minded yet keenly
inquiring British women of the commerce which, at first occasional,
gradually became regular and expanding, and by which Britain was
brought out of its insular separateness into the broad current of the
world's progress.

The population of Britain was large--as the Romans found when they
came into the country. The people were collected into villages and
towns which were ruled by chieftains who were frequently at war with
one another. During such strife their women were hidden in caves or
pits covered with brush; this was a necessary protective measure for
the loss of its women was the severest blow a people could suffer.
This division of the tribes into little warring factions was the cause
of the country falling readily a prey to the Romans.

When we consider that the writers of the time had in view different
elements of the population, it is less difficult to harmonize their
conflicting statements. While there are contrary statements made as
to the agriculture of the Romans, it seems to be a satisfactory
reconciliation of these statements to regard the less progressive
northern tribes as purely pastoral and the inhabitants of the other
parts of the island as agriculturalists as well as herdsmen. After the
Romans became established, wheat came to be one of the chief articles
of export. The producers harvested this grain by cutting off the heads
and storing them in pits under the ground. These pits were protected
against frost. Each day the farmers took out the wheat longest stored,
and ground it into meal. The process of removing the grain from the
cob was, according to what we know of it, similar to the method still
in use down to the seventeenth century in some parts of Britain. This
consisted of twirling in the fire several hea