But the day arrived when the galley was rarely seen upon the river. When the skin-boats of the natives ceased to spread abundance along its shores; when many large and fair dwellings were deserted; and when the rolling of chariots, filled with patrician families, whose villas had been erected in some of the most beautiful parts of the country, were no longer heard on the great military road that led from the city of Corinium. Instead of these, bands of armed men spread over the land, for the Roman legions were withdrawn, to save the capital from spoliation, and nothing remained for the unhappy Britons but servitude or death. The Saxons came, for such were the strangers called: their looks were bland, and their flowing vestments, adorned with borders of many colours, betokened some degree of civilization; but war was in their hearts, and soon, where cities had stood, and peaceful homesteads met the view, all was silence and desolation. No curling smoke was seen among the trees, the watch-dog's bark had ceased, there were no flocks for him to guard, and only blackened ruins told of what had been. Gradually, however, a better state of things arose; the Saxons contrasted their past condition, their rude huts on the far off shore, their precarious mode of life, with the elegances, and the perfection in the arts and sciences which they observed in the homes which they had won. They learned to adopt the habits and the manners of the Romanized Britons, and to repair the desolations which they had wrought. Kingdoms were established, and though war occasionally prevailed among the chieftains, there were many who appreciated the blessings, and the security of peace. Next came the Danes, men of stern countenances and ruddy hair. War-chiefs, accustomed to a life of rapine--they knew no pity; and what the Saxon would have spared, when first he trod the shores of Britain, they ruthlessly overthrew. The forest and vale country around the solitary yew, was grievously infested with them. They took shelter in the hollows with which this part of England abounded, and it was difficult to dispossess them. Those hollows or little glens were so deep and narrow, that the rays of the sun frequently did not enliven them for months together; yet still some of the most accessible were brought into cultivation, and rewarded the industrious husbandman with plentiful crops of corn and grass. Others remained in their native wildness, and wild indeed they were. Shallow streams ran through them, and by means of these they could alone be visited: he who sought to explore their secret recesses must force his way beside the channel of the stream; now stepping from stone to stone amid the water's splash; now clinging to the branches of the trees which drooped on either side. But whether wild or cultivated, there the Danes settled themselves, till they were driven out in the days of Alfred.