ular if the work had been
attributed to the devil. In the autumn of 1879 General Pitt Rivers dug
several trenches in the rampart just north of the point where the road
from Bempton passes through the Dyke. The position was chosen in order
that the excavations might be close to the small stream which runs
inside the Dyke at this point, the likelihood of utensils or weapons
being dropped close to the water-supply of the defenders being
considered important. The results of the excavations proved
conclusively that the people who dug the ditch and threw up the rampart
were users of flint. The most remarkable discovery was that the ground
on the inner slope of the rampart, at a short distance below the
surface, contained innumerable artificial flint flakes, all lying in a
horizontal position, but none were found on the outer slope. From this
fact General Pitt Rivers concluded that within the stockade running
along the top of the _vallum_ the defenders were in the habit of
chipping their weapons, the flakes falling on the inside. The great
entrenchment of Flamborough is consequently the work of flint-using
people, and 'is not later than the Bronze Period.'

And the strangest fact concerning the promontory is the isolation of
its inhabitants from the rest of the county, a traditional hatred for
strangers having kept the fisherfolk of the peninsula aloof from
outside influences. They have married among themselves for so long,
that it is quite possible that their ancestral characteristics have
been reproduced, with only a very slight intermixture of other stocks,
for an exceptionally long period. On taking minute particulars of
ninety Flamborough men and women, General Pitt Rivers discovered that
they were above the average stature of the neighbourhood, and were,
with only one or two exceptions, dark-haired. They showed little or no
trace of the fair-haired element usually found in the people of this
part of Yorkshire. It is also stated that almost within living memory,
when the headland was still further isolated by a belt of uncultivated
wolds, the village could not be approached by a stranger without some
danger.

We find no one to object to our intrusion, and go on towards the
village. It is a straggling collection of low, red houses, lacking,
unfortunately, anything which can honestly be termed picturesque; for
the church stands alone, a little to the south, and the small ruin of
what is called 'The Danish Tower' is too in