the curious, however slender its foundation may be, if only as a hint for a future search: but it seems to me very probable, that if it was not fully executed by the Romans, they intended it, and have in part manifestly done it. I conceit it crosses the Icening street at Ikesworth near Bury, then goes to Bretenham, the Combretonium; but with that country of Suffolk I am at present perfectly unacquainted. Return we to Holland. Besides this great road, I think we need not scruple to assert that now called Ravensbank to be another, going east and west, through the heart of the country, from Tid St. Mary’s to Cowbit. I have rode some miles upon it, where it is now extremely strait and broad. We have been informed that it is actually in some old writings called Romans Bank: it is well known the Welsh pronounced Roman _Rhuffain_, and our English word _ruffian_ is from this fountain. Among the Welsh the letters _m_ and _v_ are equivalent, to which _f_ is perfectly alike: _maur_ and _vaur_ is great, and many more: so that _Roman_, _raven_, and _ruffen_, is the same word; and hence no doubt came _rambling_, _roving_, and _roming_, as an ignominious appellative of such as thought every country better than their own; for such to our ancestors seemed the Romans, that scarce left any corner of the known world impervious to their all-conquering eagles, carrying arts and arms along with them as an impetuous torrent, with a most glorious and invincible perseverance. Further, it is not unlikely that the upper road running east and west nearer the sea bank, now called Old Spalding gate, is originally Roman: in some places, as about Fleet, it retains the name of Haregate, which is equivalent to _via militaris_ when spoken by our Saxon progenitors. Thus the main road and these two lesser ones seem sufficiently to answer this purpose as to Elho: it seems to me, that when the Romans made the many forts all along the eastern shore, to guard against the Saxons, that this bay was provided for by five, two upon the edges of the high country, and three upon the rivers; Brancaster in Norfolk, Burgh on Lincolnshire side; Wisbech,[18] Spalding, and Boston, upon each river of the fenny tract. [Sidenote: _Antediluvian trees._]