Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1912-05-30
WHEN, ROME RULED IN ENG
LAND.
Traces Of Racial Descent From the
Early Conquerors Still Apparent.

y few miles rom the easter iiiioSe
| point of England there is field OF
about five acres bounded on three sides
by a wall In Cornwall, or i'm a north
ern county where dry" fences abound,
| there is nothing unusual about q wall
| cd field, but in East Anglia, 50 FAR as
| ] am aware, there is no other besides
| this ones which slopes down To the es-
ltuary of the Yare and rs often hldden
| by fog rising from the valley marsti-
lands. The smelt-netter spreading ms
seine in the upper waters of the estu-
larry when he looks UP the slope sees the
| longest wall, built in indurate flint,
with brick in ruddy tiers, outlined
against the sky and draned with dense
tangles of ivy, which almost hide four
solid round towers on the hight of the
wall itself In the foreground. perhaps,
he sees a plowman driving his team,
closely followed by a flcck of clamor-
| Gus seagulls. Fishermen and farm
Hands have heard the walled Enclosure
spolxen of as .the CASTLE but of its
real significance they know little or
nothing. All their lives they have been
familiar with il, but it means no more
| to them than a churchyard wall and
| less than the nearest dilapidated village
pound. Possibly the fact of horses
| teeth and bones being often turned up
| by the pillow may suggest to them that
III somes time, the Enclosure served some
such purpose as q pound.
| Their ignorance is not surprising.
Neither antiquary nor historian knows
much more about these ancient walls
| than does The laborer who shelters be-
meath them when rainstorm sweeps
lacross the marshes. The antiquary rec
ognizes Roman work in the alternat-
! ing bands of ffiints and thin. red bricks;
TIE historian, turning to the "Notitia
Imperii," Identifies the so-called castle
with Gariancnum, a military station,
| which was garrisoned by the Stable
sian horse, under the command of the
| count of the Saxon Shore. but slight
attempts at excavation have revealed
worry little upon which imagination can
| reconstruct the daily life of those Afri-
| can siayes-as we are told the Stable
sian horse were-who held this isolated
outpost of the Roman empire. At mid
day IN summer, when the smooth faced
lfint5 were often hot to the hand; in
Winter DAYS. when the shriyeled stems
OF saxifrage rooted in the Roman NOR
I tar were white with rhine frost. and at
night, wnen the bats had come out OF
a Norman church tower nearby and
were lifting waverinsly over the field,
] have been alone in the camp, and al
| ways have felt conscious of its secre-
tiveness Fragments of coarse food
vessels, an occasional shard painted
red and rudely ornamented in imita-
| ton of Samian ware. an iron ring, the
4 ~, nd n
| again a Roman coin. all of them turned
up by the pillow. have had their signifi-
canoe, land brick with a scored surface
| on one. side has suggested that villa
1 stood somewhere near the camp; but
these relics, dating from the dawn OF
history In England have been poor sub
stitutes for a knowledge OF what must
| have happened on this bleak East An
| CLAN coast when the warlike Ieeni
were being held in subsection and so
massive fortress as Garianonum was
needed to guard the Yare estuary
against the approach of Morse or Sa-
Won invaders.
| Yet the defiant secretiveness of the
willis like that of Stonehenge. or some
solitary moorIand menhir, is in itself a
| challenge to curiosity, and at sunset.
when the plowmen have left the fields
| and faint mist like the visible breath
of sleeping legion was rising in the
camp, I have waited under one of its
tivy-mantled towers and tried to con-
4 vince myself that the enduring fortress
was not so deserted as it seemed.
have told myself that walls which have
stood there since days when the native
| irha oitants of Britain were little bet
ter than barbarians must have some
mysterious guardian whose presence
| might be felt.sin the darkness; with
| whom, perhaps. in a moment of sub
liminal activity, when sensory pereep-
ton was abnormally acute, might get
into communication. and what was
hidden might be revealed 20 me. At
night the camp is a place where one
may well have visions as well as dream
dreams. In Saxon times. st. Furseus,
an Irish monk, found it so. for there.
in a cell built amid the walls, he had
Ithase visions which, some believe. sug-
gested Dante's Divine Comedy" But
only such forms as my fancy shaped
out of the slowly drifting wreaths ana
wisps of mist have appeared to me,
| and the strangest sounds have heard
have been the screech of a barn OWL
and the rustic of a restless bird in the
Ivy,
Yet once, when had left the camp
just before nightfali and was walking
along one of the old high hedged drift
ways near by. leading down to the
marshes, I had a strange experience.
| There passed me. walking slowly, and,
liz seemed, almost stealthily, woman
la farm laborer's wife. apparently
whose face attracted my attention by
| it's unusual pallor and held 1t, so long
las I could distinguish its features, by
its striking, likeness to a portrait had
seen, copied from the bust Of Agrir-
pima, the mother of Nero, 1t had the
same hard, firm-set mouth, high fore
head. delicately chisled nostrls, and
dark. brooding eyes. and for few mo-
ments I could hardly believe had not
seen the ghost of some Roman matron
who had come to Britain and died here
nearly 1000 years ago. Since thai
evening / have twice seen the same