me the Great Wall (all
that's left of it) would be one of the best things. Parnesius, the young
centurion, told Una and Dan that "old men who have followed the Eagles
since boyhood say nothing is more wonderful than the first sight of the
Wall." And also that there were no real adventures south of it. It was
disappointing to think that nowadays, on our way there, we couldn't
expect to meet "hunters and trappers for the circuses, prodding along
chained bears and muzzled wolves" for the amusement of the soldiers in
the far northern camps; or that when we should come to the Wall, we'd
find no helmeted men with glittering shields walking three abreast on
the narrowest part, screened from Picts by a little curtain-wall at the
top, as high as their necks; no roaring, gambling, cock-fighting,
wolf-baiting, horse-racing soldier town on one side, and heather wastes
full of hiding, arrow-shooting Picts on the other; yet I heard Sir
Lionel say we could still trace the guard-houses and small towers, and
see how the great camp of Cilurnum was laid out.

We had left the mountains before we came into Carlisle, but not the
hills; and after one of grandiose size, which an old Northumbrian we met
called "a fair stiff bank," we were on the Roman road; the long, long,
straight road forging uncompromisingly, grimly up and down, ever on,
scorning to turn aside for difficulties; the road where the Legions
paced with the brave Roman step--"Rome's race, Rome's pace," twenty-four
miles in eight hours.

Kipling illuminated the way through Haltwhistle and Chollerford to the
Chesters, a private park which is a big out-of-doors museum, for it has
in its midst the remains of old Cilurnum. We got out at the gates, and
wandered among the ruins that have been reverently excavated; a gray and
faded scene, like a kind of skeleton Pompeii with dead bones rattling;
entrance gateways; ghost-haunted guard-houses; stone rings which were
towers; many short, straight streets whose half-buried pavements once
rang under soldiers' heels; the Forum; all the camp-city plan; a map
with outlines roughly sketched in stone on faded grass. We had had our
first sight of the Wall of which centurions in Britain bragged when they
went back to Rome. Then it was a Living Wall; but it is very wonderful
still, where its skeleton lies in state.

We had started so early from Keswick, that it wasn't two o'clock when we
left the Chesters; and I was surprised when, instead of drawin