Alfred decided that the best way to fight the Danes was not on land but on the water, and so he set to work to build boats bigger and better than those the Danes had. After a while he had something of a fleet, and the boats he built were bigger than those of the Danes, but they were so big that they could not go into shallow water without running aground. The Danes’ boats, on account of their small size, could go safely close in to shore. In deep water, however, Alfred’s fleet was very strong and powerful. This was the first navy that England ever had. England’s navy is now the largest in the world, and Alfred the Great was the one who started it more than a thousand years ago. After fighting with the Danes for many years, Alfred finally thought it best to make an agreement with them and give them a part of England to live in if they would promise to stop stealing and live peaceably. So the Danes did agree to this, and they settled down peaceably on the land that Alfred gave them--and then became Christians. After that there was no further trouble. Alfred made very strict laws and severely punished those who did wrong. Indeed, it is said that the people of England were so careful to obey the law in his reign that one might leave gold by the roadside, and no one would steal it. Alfred also brought over learned men from Europe to show his people how to make things and to teach the boys and girls and the older people how to read and write. He is also said to have started a school that is now one of the greatest places of learning in the world, a university called Oxford that is now more than a thousand years old. But Alfred not only built a navy and made wise laws and started schools and colleges which the English had not had before; he did many other useful things, besides. He invented, for instance, a way of telling time by a burning candle. You have heard how wonderful the clock, that which Haroun-al-Rashid sent to Charlemagne one hundred years before was thought to be. Although striking clocks are, of course, very common nowadays, it was an extraordinary thing then when there were no clocks nor watches at all in England. Alfred found out how fast candles burned down and marked lines around them at different heights--just the distance apart that they burned in one hour. These were called time-candles.