narrative of Caesar,
when carefully examined, admits of no other construction than that
which Mueller has put upon it; and if there were any doubt, it is
removed by Caesar himself in another passage (_Gallic War_, vi. 9)
where he speaks of his second bridge, which gave him a passage from
the territory of the Treviri into that of the Ubii, and he adds that
the site of the second bridge was near that of the first.

In the Gallic War (iv. 15) Caesar speaks of the junction (ad
confluentem Mosae et Rheni) of the Mosa and the Rhine, where Mueller
assumes that he means the Moselle, as he undoubtedly does. Either the
reading Mosa is wrong, or, what is not improbable, both the Moselle
and the Maas had the same name, Mosa. Mosella or Mosula is merely the
diminution of Mosa. At this confluence of the Moselle and Rhine the
town of Coblenz was afterwards built, which retains the ancient name.
Caesar indicates which Mosa he means clearly enough by the words 'ad
confluentem.' There was no 'confluens' of the Great Mosa and the
Rhenus.]

[Footnote 498: The first expedition of Caesar to Britain was in the
autumn of B.C. 55, and is described in his fourth book of the Gallic
War, c. 20, &c. He landed on the coast of Kent, either at Deal or
between Sandgate and Hythe. His second expedition was in the following
year B.C. 54, which is described in the fifth book, c. 8 &c. He
crossed the Thamesis (Thames) in face of the forces of Cassivelaunus,
whose territories were bounded on the south by the Thames.

There has been some discussion on the place where Caesar crossed the
Thames. Camden (p. 882, ed. Gibson) fixes the place at Cowey Stakes
near Oatlands on the Thames, opposite to the place where the Wey joins
the Thames. Bede, who wrote at the beginning of the eighth century,
speaks of stakes in the bed of the river at that place, which so far
corresponds to Caesar's description, who says that the enemy had
protected the ford with stakes on the banks and across the bed of the
river. Certain stakes still exist there, which are the subject of a
paper in the Archaeologia, 1735, by Mr. Samuel Gale. The stakes are as
hard as ebony; and it is evident from the exterior grain that the
stakes were the entire bodies of young oak trees. Caesar places the
ford eighty miles from the coast of Kent where he landed, which
distance agrees very well with the position of Oatlands, as Camden
remarks.

Cassivelaunus had been appointed Commander-in-chief of all