Seen from a distance, Oxford is a place of great beauty, especially when the meadows round about are flooded. Then it seems to rise from the water like some English Venice. Nor does the beauty grow less as we approach closer, or when we view the city from some other point. Always we see the delicate spires of the Cathedral and the churches, the beautiful towers of the various colleges, the great dome of the Radcliffe Camera, all of them nestling among glorious gardens and fine old trees. The question at once comes into our minds, Why is it that there is a famous city here? Why should such a place as this, right out in the country, away from what might be called the main arteries of the life of England, be one of the most important seats of learning? To understand this we must go back a long way, and we must ask ourselves the question, Why was there ever anything—even a village—here at all? If we think a little we shall see that in the early days, when there were not very many good roads, and when there were still fewer bridges, the most important spots along a river were the places where people could cross: that is to say, the fords. To these spots came the merchants with their waggons and their trains of pack-horses, the generals with their armies, the drovers with their cattle, the pilgrims with their staves. All and sundry, journeying from place to place, made for the fords, while the long stretches of river bank between these places were never visited and seldom heard of. Now, what made a ford? Shallow water, you say. Yes, that is true. But shallow water was not enough. It was necessary besides that the bed of the stream should be firm and hard, so that those who wished might find a safe crossing. And places where such a bottom could be found were few and far between along the course of the Thames. Practically everywhere it was soft clay in which the feet of the men and the animals and the wheels of the waggons sank deep if they tried to get from bank to bank. But, just at the point where the Thames bends southwards, just before the Cherwell flows into it, there is a stretch of gravel which in years gone by made an excellent ford and provided a suitable spot on which some sort of a settlement might grow. How old that settlement is no one knows. Legend tells us that a Mercian saint by the name of Frideswide, together with a dozen companions, founded a nunnery here somewhere about the year 700. Certainly the village is mentioned under the name of Oxenford (that is, the ford of the oxen) in the Saxon Chronicle, a book of ancient history written about a thousand years ago; and we know that Edward the Elder took possession of it, and, building a castle and walls, made a royal residence. So that it is a place of great antiquity.