th into fragrance by the
roadside, then the vast island was a quaking swamp or covered by
impervious forests of gigantic trees, up which with coarse and shameless
glee would scamper the nobility.

(Excuse the rhythm into which I may now and then drop as the plot
develops.--AUTHOR.)

Caesar later on made more invasions: one of them for the purpose of
returning his team and flogging a Druid with whom he had disagreed
religiously on a former trip. (He had also bought his team of the
Druid.)

The Druids were the sheriffs, priests, judges, chiefs of police,
plumbers, and justices of the peace.

[Illustration: PLOUGHING 51 B.C.]

They practically ran the place, and no one could be a Druid who could
not pass a civil service examination.

[Illustration: DRUID SACRIFICES.]

They believed in human sacrifice, and often of a bright spring morning
could have been seen going out behind the bush to sacrifice some one who
disagreed with them on some religious point or other.

The Druids largely lived in the woods in summer and in debt during the
winter. They worshipped almost everything that had been left out
overnight, and their motto was, "Never do anything unless you feel like
it very much indeed."

Caesar was a broad man from a religious point of view, and favored
bringing the Druids before the grand jury. For uttering such sentiments
as these the Druids declared his life to be forfeit, and set one of
their number to settle also with him after morning services the question
as to the matter of immersion and sound money.

Religious questions were even then as hotly discussed as in later times,
and Caesar could not enjoy society very much for five or six days.

[Illustration: MONUMENT OF AGRICULTURE, OR ANCIENT SCARECROW.]

At Stonehenge there are still relics of a stone temple which the Druids
used as a place of idolatrous worship and assassination. On Giblet Day
people came for many miles to see the exercises and carry home a few
cutlets of intimate friends.

After this Rome sent over various great Federal appointees to soften and
refine the people. Among them came General Agricola with a new kind of
seed-corn and kindness in his heart.

[Illustration: AGRICOLA ENCOURAGES AGRICULTURE.]

He taught the barefooted Briton to go out to the pump every evening and
bathe his chapped and soil-kissed feet and wipe them on the grass before
retiring, thus introducing one of the refinements of Rome in this cold
and barbaric c