The Holbrook news., 1911-12-15

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 London a few days ago, and now lies in back yard of the palace of Kensington. It was the wreck of an old boat, with timbers blackened and routed in the deep mud where so many secrets of the past lie buried beneath this modern London of ours. Other relics of the past have been found there, including a skull and some bones, and in the illustration the modern civil engineer is thus shown as grave digger.
 Digging down for the foundations of the new county hall at WestInin- ster, workmen had struck their spades against the ribs of that old boat skeI- eton. and then had revealed its shape and size. It was a Roman galley. built of oak that grew in Gaul when Pan was worshiped in the woods. two thousand years ago. The timbers were hoisted on to a trolley, and working men who had escaped, or recovered, from the strike fever drove their load through the streets of London, and then through Kensington Gardens. What have you got there. mates?" was shouted by a soldier encamped in the gardens after strike duty, and the answer came back, "A Roman barge. Bill. Friends, Romans, countrymen- what's that we used to Iearn?"
 A Roman boatl queer kinc of craft to be dragged through London so queer that if we may believe the reporters, a soldier of the Army Ser vice corps had a strange thrill down his spine as though the ghost of some old general were passing. Perhaps he had read something about the Roman legions. He pulled himself up and saIuted the old timbers as they were drawn past.
 That is a good story. I should like to have seen that British soldier salut- ing the wreck of the Roman galley It was a salute across the ages, from i'm perial London to imperial Rome, from a soldier of King George to Caesars legions. It would not have been rtdicu- lous if the last voyage of that boat had been made into pageant, with soldiers guarding the line of route, presenting arms, and playing solemn march music, as the relic went by, for uGI6 III luOSG DldChGuCu IS the cradle of English history, and each plank of them Is a bridge across which we may pass from London of this twentieth century to Londinium which was built upon the Thames bank by the men who came in this old craft, not only with swords to kill, but with the wisdom and the virtues of an imperial race, and with the law which they gave to their conquered peoples
 Who shall sing the song of that boat? Who shall tell her tale? Our imagination only may go voyaging in her upon the sea of adventure since that day when strong brown hands ran her down upon the beach below a clin of Gaul, and Roman soldiers. leaping in, rowed her across the dancing waves or through the thick gray mist to this island, almost all the world away" as Virgil wrote. Who shall say that these very timbers did not form part of that fleet of eighty gal leys in which Julius Caesar came to Britain forty-fve years before the birth of Christ? Perhaps Caesar him. self sat in the stern of his boat, star ing in his grim. silent way, with hawks eyes, at the unknown land whose white cliffs rose up before him as the long oars swept the water. Upon the shore that day the British chieftains stood with their warriors and priests, ready to defend their land against these strange invaders who raised their flashing swords The Roman soldiers rested on their oars afraid to land in the face of such a strong foe. In one of the boats-was this the boat?-a standard bearer