Taking all its various features into account, its commerce, its passenger traffic by means of ocean-liners and other steamers, its fisheries, its docks and dockyards, its barracks, its factories of marine appliances, its arsenal, and lastly the vast number of ships of all sizes, belonging to the navy, to the mercantile marine, or to the fishing-fleet, that are constantly leaving or entering the Sound, Plymouth is one of the most important sea-ports in the British Empire. 18. History of Devonshire. The history of our country begins with the Roman occupation. For although we have ample and striking traces, in the shape of earthworks and stone circles, tools and weapons, pottery and ornaments, of the successive races of men who lived here before Julius Caesar set foot in Britain, those ancient and primitive people left no written records, not so much as an inscription on a single coin, and our knowledge of them is in the highest degree vague and uncertain. Of many parts of our island the Romans took complete possession, constructing fortresses, making roads, establishing towns, building baths and temples and luxuriously appointed villas, and scattering, wherever they went, the coins whose lettering and devices have revealed to us so much concerning the some time masters of the world. In Somerset, for example, to which the conquerors were attracted partly by the hot and health-restoring springs of Bath, and partly by the silver-bearing lead mines of the Mendip Hills, the relics of their occupation have been found from one end of the county to the other. In Devonshire, on the other hand, such relics are so few, and are confined to so limited an area that we are driven to the conclusion that, except as regards the city of Exeter, there was no definite Roman occupation at all. There is probably not one camp of Roman workmanship in the whole county. It is doubtful if any Roman road went farther than the river Teign. The sites of only two Roman villas are known with certainty. And although Roman coins have been found in many places, sometimes in hoards of hundreds, and in one case even of thousands, they are not absolute proof of actual occupation. The names Chester Moor, Scrobchester, and Wickchester, all near the Cornish border, may, perhaps, be of Roman origin.