Dashing down their masters'enemies beneath their hoofs,and cutting them to pieces with the blades of swords,or scythes,which were fastened to the wheels,and stretched out beyond the car on each side,for that cruel purpose.In a moment,while at full speed,the horses would stop,at the driver's command.The men within would leap out,deal blows about them with their swords like hail,leap on the horses,on the pole,spring back into the chariots anyhow;and,as soon as they were safe,the horses tore away again.
The Britons had a strange and terrible religion,called the Religion of the Druids.It seems to have been brought over,in very early times indeed,from the opposite country of France,anciently called Gaul,and to have mixed up the worship of the Serpent,and of the Sun and Moon,with the worship of some of the Heathen Gods and Goddesses.Most of its ceremonies were kept secret by the priests,the Druids,who pretended to be enchanters,and who carried magicians'wands,and wore,each of them,about his neck,what he told the ignorant people was a Serpent's egg in a golden case.But it is certain that the Druidical ceremonies included the sacrifice of human victims,the torture of some suspected criminals,and,on particular occasions,even the burning alive,in immense wicker cages,of a number of men and animals together.The Druid Priests had some kind of veneration for the Oak,and for the mistletoe-the same plant that we hang up in houses at Christmas Time now-when its white berries grew upon the Oak.They met together in dark woods,which they called Sacred Groves;and there they instructed,in their mysterious arts,young men who came to them as pupils,and who sometimes stayed with them as long as twenty years.
These Druids built great Temples and altars,open to the sky,fragments of some of which are yet remaining.Stonehenge,on Salisbury Plain,in Wiltshire,is the most extraordinary of these.
Three curious stones,called Kits Coty House,on Bluebell Hill,near Maidstone,in Kent,form another.We know,from examination of the great blocks of which such buildings are made,that they could not have been raised without the aid of some ingenious machines,which are common now,but which the ancient Britons certainly did not use in making their own uncomfortable houses.I should not wonder if the Druids,and their pupils who stayed with them twenty years,knowing more than the rest of the Britons,kept the people out of sight while they made these buildings,and then pretended that they built them by magic.Perhaps they had a hand in the fortresses too;at all events,as they were very powerful,and very much believed in,and as they made and executed the laws,and paid no taxes,I don't wonder that they liked their trade.
And,as they persuaded the people the more Druids there were,the better off the people would be,I don't wonder that there were a good many of them.But it is pleasant to think that there are no Druids,NOW,who go on in that way,and pretend to carry Enchanters'Wands and Serpents'Eggs-and of course there is nothing of the kind,anywhere.
Such was the improved condition of the ancient Britons,fifty-five years before the birth of Our Saviour,when the Romans,under their great General,Julius Caesar,were masters of all the rest of the known world.Julius Caesar had then just conquered Gaul;and hearing,in Gaul,a good deal about the opposite Island with the white cliffs,and about the bravery of the Britons who inhabited it-some of whom had been fetched over to help the Gauls in the war against him-he resolved,as he was so near,to come and conquer Britain next.
So,Julius Caesar came sailing over to this Island of ours,with eighty vessels and twelve thousand men.And he came from the French coast between Calais and Boulogne,'because thence was the shortest passage into Britain;'just for the same reason as our steam-boats now take the same track,every day.He expected to conquer Britain easily:but it was not such easy work as he supposed-for the bold Britons fought most bravely;and,what with not having his horse-soldiers with him (for they had been driven back by a storm),and what with having some of his vessels dashed to pieces by a high tide after they were drawn ashore,he ran great risk of being totally defeated.However,for once that the bold Britons beat him,he beat them twice;though not so soundly but that he was very glad to accept their proposals of peace,and go away.
But,in the spring of the next year,he came back;this time,with eight hundred vessels and thirty thousand men.The British tribes chose,as their general-in-chief,a Briton,whom the Romans in their Latin language called CASSIVELLAUNUS,but whose British name is supposed to have been CASWALLON.A brave general he was,and well he and his soldiers fought the Roman army!So well,that whenever in that war the Roman soldiers saw a great cloud of dust,and heard the rattle of the rapid British chariots,they trembled in their hearts.Besides a number of smaller battles,there was a battle fought near Canterbury,in Kent;there was a battle fought near Chertsey,in Surrey;there was a battle fought near a marshy little town in a wood,the capital of that part of Britain which belonged to CASSIVELLAUNUS,and which was probably near what is now Saint Albans,in Hertfordshire.However,brave CASSIVELLAUNUS had the worst of it,on the whole;though he and his men always fought like lions.As the other British chiefs were jealous of him,and were always quarrelling with him,and with one another,he gave up,and proposed peace.Julius Caesar was very glad to grant peace easily,and to go away again with all his remaining ships and men.