The second great class of the provincial Britons consisted of those who had been later conquered, and, occupying the wilder and more secluded regions of the north and west, retained less of the impress of the Roman provincial rule. These, on the departure of the Romans, fell back more upon a British nationality; and while the former fell an easy prey to the invader, the latter, retaining their British speech in its integrity, and possessing more of the warlike habits of a people inhabiting mountainous and pastoral districts, after the first paralysing effect of the absence of their usual protectors, the Roman troops, had passed away, took part in the struggle which ensued with vigour and animation. Gildas, the British historian, alludes plainly enough to these two classes when he says that ‘the discomfited people, wandering in the woods, began to feel the effects of a severe famine, which compelled many of them without delay to yield themselves up to their cruel persecutors to obtain subsistence. Others of them, however, lying hid in mountains, caves, and woods, continually sallied out from thence to renew the war, and then it was for the first time they overthrew their enemies who had for so many years been living in their country.’[111] Such were the provincial Britons when the great contest commenced; but we are here mainly concerned with those who occupied the western districts extending from the river Derwent, which falls into the Western Sea at Workington in Cumberland, to the river Clyde on the north, forming one of four subsequent kingdoms under the name of Cumbria. [Sidenote: The Picts.]