The north gate of the original fort would be about on the site of the _Principia_ of the present one. The excavations conducted by Professor Haverfield and Mr. and Mrs. T. H. Hodgson, between 1895 and 1900, prove that the fort was extended north and south at the same time, northwards over the {167} ditch of the older fort, and southwards on to the Vallum. The south-west angle tower is where the north mound of the Vallum ought to be. The Vallum curves round the original fort, and makes a straight course east. To the west it has been entirely destroyed by a landslip. [Illustration: Fig. 14.--Comparative Plans of Gateways. (After John Ward.) Scale: 30 feet to 1 inch.] It is a very steep fall to the Irthing on the south of the fort. Possibly the river has changed its course 100 yards since Roman times. Twenty years ago its course was changed 60 yards in a few hours at Underheugh (just under these cliffs to the east) by a flood. The granary, just in front of the farm-house, has air-passages underneath, to keep the corn both {168} dry and cool, as at Corstopitum. The gateways have as usual been built up in the later periods of the Roman occupation, and the floors raised. The north portal of the large eastern gateway has been blocked, and the west portal of the southern gateway. Both of these gateways are in good preservation, especially the eastern one, where one of the imposts is specially noticeable. Inscriptions found at Birdoswald confirm the _Notitia_ statement that the first cohort of the Dacians, styled the Ælian, was quartered here. The picture facing this page represents the view from Amboglanna referred to by the late Lord Carlisle, in his _Diary in Turkish and Greek Waters_. He says: "Strikingly, and to any one who has coasted the uniform shore of the Hellespont, and crossed the tame low plain of the Troad, unexpectedly lovely is this site of Troy, if Troy it was. I could give any Cumberland borderer the best notion of it, by telling him that it wonderfully resembles the view from the point just outside the Roman camp at Birdoswald: both have that series of steep conical hills, with rock enough for wildness, and verdure enough for softness; both have that bright trail of a river creeping in and out with the most continuous indentations: the Simois has, in summer at least, more silvery shades of sand." [Illustration: VIEW FROM THE FORT OF AMBOGLANNA, LOOKING SOUTH, ACROSS THE IRTHING] While busy over this book, I came across a photograph {169} of the Greek view at a friend's house, and though I recognized the resemblance, I felt that Cumberland could well hold its own with Greece.