It is no joke to be caught by a mist on these fells in the evening; they come down without any warning, and sometimes last for days. Just beyond the grass-grown site of another mile-castle the platform of the fort of BORCOVICIUM comes into view, with the farm-house of Housesteads. All this time the Vallum can be seen to the left, traversing the low land between us and Wade's Road. Following the Wall up and down the steep sides of two unchristened gaps, I came to a little wood, which can only be entered and left by climbing the stone wall which surrounds it. A few steps beyond the wood, and there was the "amphitheatre" of Borcovicium lying before me, where Dr. Bruce thought that gladiatorial contests were carried on for the entertainment of the soldiers of the fort. There was also a splendid stretch of Wall, 8 feet wide and 6 feet high, with a flat grass-grown surface, {117} running along right up to the wall of the fort! This was indeed worth seeing! I went down into the "amphitheatre," a mere grassy hollow, where Dr. Bruce says nettles are usually growing. I found, not stinging-nettles--not the smallest trace of one--but bright patches of purple "heartsease," surely a far better omen for poor suffering humanity! It must have been a cynic who first started the idea that stinging-nettles were a sign of human presence. I would like to think that pansies give a truer sign; that good "thoughts," instead of evil ones, are more truly representative of man. In the way in which heartsease has (apparently) displaced stinging-nettles here, on the site of many a bloody contest, let us see a symbol and a prophecy of the displacement of human hatred and rivalry by the spirit of fellowship and love. But wait! I am forgetting. The "bloody contests" are a myth. Professor Bosanquet trenched the hollow in 1898 and proved it to be an ancient quarry. And so it is marked on the new Ordnance Survey! Now for the first time it was possible to walk along the top of the Wall, feeling that it was the very structure built by the Romans, and not a mere mound. Soon the course of the Wall was interrupted by a gateway, supposed, by Dr. Bruce, to have been made as an approach to the {118} "amphitheatre," but the probable explanation of its existence is given on page 122.