Romans wisely favoured the high ground in preference to the low for their roads, which to keep dry were carefully trenched on either side, but they always went straight ahead to their destination, excepting when the gradient proved too severe or they had to round a hill, but after such divergence straight ahead they went again; one cannot but admire the purposefulness of them. Watling Street has now been reopened and reconnected from Daventry to Shrewsbury, a distance of eighty-three miles; and to be a little previous, from close to Boscobel on to Daventry we followed the ancient street on our homeward run--excepting for a diversion to Uttoxeter at the Lichfield turn, rejoining it at Atherstone, missing but about fourteen miles of its length between the point above Boscobel and Daventry--and a very pleasant rural road we found it, delightful for its absence of towns and even villages; indeed it took us for miles and miles right through a thoroughly old-world sparsely peopled land. So we followed the footsteps of the Roman legions. The foundation of most of the street, in spite of years of neglect, is as firm to-day as when the ancient Romans made it, for they built for centuries. Our modern road-builders might well take a hint from those clever old engineers. There was no scamped work in those benighted ages, for scamped work meant death--not a fortune. But to return to Uriconium. To show the size of the ancient city, its walls, still traceable, are over three miles in circumference, enclosing now open fields and meadows; in these, I was told, the plough occasionally turns up portions of mosaic pavement, bits of pottery, tiles, and other relics. I entered what now remains of the city above ground by a locked gate and wandered over its grass-grown streets, or at least a very small portion of them, and amongst the fragments of its time-worn walls that are still standing. Wild roses, brambles, nettles, and docks were growing everywhere disorderly; ivy, moss, and lichen were creeping over its stones at will. Some of the foundations of the buildings have been uncovered and laid bare, but Nature is busy at work covering them up again with many a wild growing thing. Little enough remains, in truth, to reveal the former glory of Uriconium; the chief wall standing, built of squared stones, varied by courses of thin red tiles, is presumably that of the basilica; adjoining this are the baths, the plan of which can be roughly made out, the furnace chambers may be traced, and a number of small pillars constructed of thin bricks reveal the hypocausts or heating arrangements. The public baths are the best preserved parts of the city that have been unearthed, and show the extent of civilisation to which the Romans in England had attained. I was glad to have seen Uriconium; it made me respect the civilisation of our early conquerors. I was impressed with the picture that I recovered to myself of the refined life the Romans led in their British colony