Nooks and Corners of English Life, Past and PresentTimbs, John
History
Nooks and Corners of English Life, Past and Present
Timbs, John
England -- Social life and customs
All the Britons, except the Druids, were trained early to war. Their
most ancient weapons were bows, reed-arrows with flint or bone heads,
quivers of basket-work, oaken spears; and flint battle-axes, which are
now considered to have been called _celts_, though there is no connexion
between this word and the name of the nation, Celtæ. The British forces
included infantry, cavalry, and such as fought from war-chariots. The
southern foot soldiers wore a coarse woollen tunic, and over it a cloak
reaching below the middle, the legs and thighs being covered with close
garments. They had brass helmets, breastplates full of hooks, and long
swords suspended from an iron or brazen girdle. They also carried large
darts, with iron shafts eighteen inches long; and shields of wicker or
wood. The inland foot soldiers were more lightly armed, with spears and
small shields, and dressed in skins of oxen. The Caledonians and other
northerns usually fought naked, with only a light target; their weapons
pointless swords and short spears. The British cavalry were mounted upon
small but strong horses, without saddles, and their arms were mostly the
same as those of the infantry. The soldiers of the war-chariots were
mostly the chiefs of the nation, and the flower of the British youth.
Their chariots were of wicker, upon wooden wheels, with hooks and scythe
blades of bronze attached to the axles, with which the charioteer mowed
down the enemy. Other chariots contained several persons, who darted
lances; both machines broke the hostile ranks, and threw an army into
confusion. Their number must have been very great; since Cassibellaunus,
after he had disbanded his army, had still 4,000 remaining.
Primitive British vessels have occasionally been found embedded in
morasses. In 1866, there was discovered at Warningcamp, about a mile
from South Stoke, in Sussex, a canoe, in widening a ditch, or sewer,
which empties itself into the river Arun: although now narrow, it
appears to have been, until recently, of much greater extent, and at one
time must have formed an important estuary of the river, for in the soil
are now seen several thousands of shells of fresh-water fish. About four
feet beneath the surface the end of the canoe was found. It proved to be
13-1/2 feet long, and consisted of the hollowed trunk of an oak tree;
but bears evidence of design, for having insertions cut on the edge, in
which it is evident three seats had been secured for the boatmen. It is
perhaps not so interesting as the canoe discovered at Stoke about twenty
years ago, and now in the British Museum, because it is not so perfect.
Still, it would appear of the greatest antiquity, from its extremely
rude form. The canoe is the general vessel of New Zealand, the present
state and people of which country are thought to exhibit more nearly
than any other land the condition of Britain when the Romans entered it
nearly eighteen centuries since.
FOOTNOTES:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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