Cæsar and his men had already landed near Deal. They had left their galleys and the infantry transports, and gone inland before this had happened. The galleys, as was the Mediterranean custom for centuries, had been hauled up above the mark for ordinary high water; the transports, because of their weight and size, had been left at anchor. Now Cæsar, in spite of what he had gathered regarding tides, had evidently omitted to bear in mind the fact that at full moon or new moon--“springs”--the rise of the tide is greater than at neaps. Neither he nor his officers knew the connection between tides and moon, and there is a difference of several feet on that coast between high-water springs and high-water neaps. It was full moon, and every seafaring man knows that when a gale does occur at that time it is worse than when the moon is not at full or change. High water was somewhere about 11 p.m. Wind and tide rose in great strength on to this lee shore, so that the galleys which had been hauled up were dashed to pieces, while transports broke from their anchors and drove on to the beach. We have no concern with any operations on land; it is enough for our purpose to add that after spending some time in making repairs to those ships which remained, Cæsar took his ships and men back to Boulogne. The expedition had proved a failure. But in the following year Cæsar again invaded Britain. This time he set forth neither from Boulogne nor Ambleteuse, but from Wissant, which is about midway between the chalk cliffs of Cape Blanc Nez and the sandstone cliffs of Cape Gris Nez, and on the charts of to-day you will still find “Cæsar’s Camp” marked. Wissant was much nearer to the British coast than either of the other two ports, and the Roman evidently was not anxious to make the cross-Channel passage any longer than need be this time. The fleet at Boulogne had been weather-bound for three weeks with a series of north-west winds. Anyone who has sailed along this portion of the French coast knows what a nasty sea a wind from that direction sets up, blowing as it does directly on shore. A north-west wind would have sent a strong swell into Boulogne harbour; but apart from that, even had the ships been at Wissant ready to start it would not have been of much avail, for the course from there to the nearest British shore was about north-west--a dead “nose-ender.” June, therefore, came and went.