The conquest of South Britain by the Saxons took a long time--considerably over one hundred and fifty years. A great many people are born, and live their lives, and die, in such a period of time as that. It was only little by little that the various tribes of Saxons got a footing in England. They were the stronger and fiercer race, and the Britons were gradually subdued or driven into the mountainous regions by them. Those early tribes of Saxons, who came to Britain, brought with them, of course, their own special manners and customs. As they settled down, the face of the country was gradually changed by them. They disliked and suspected everything Roman, and destroyed the towns and villas. They hated the idea of walled towns. These, therefore, were left in ruins, and the great highways, being neglected in most places, were, in the course of years, overgrown with brushwood and hidden in thick forests. In some parts of the country the Saxons seem to have completely swept the Britons away, and almost all traces of them vanished; but in other parts there certainly were some of them left, because we have still their marks upon our language. Although most of the place-names in use now are Saxon or Danish, there are still a good many of British, or partly British, origin. The names of many of our rivers are British or Celtic, such as Axe, Exe, Stour, Ouse, and Yare. So are many names of hills; and in some parts of the country the names of the villages are partly British and partly Saxon. Take, for instance, such a common name as Ashwell. Some learned men think that it is made up of two words "Ash" and "Well", both meaning pretty much the same thing, _ash_ being British for "water", and _well_ being Saxon for "watering-place". Now, if the Saxons had quite got rid of the Britons, they would not have known that a particular place was called "Ash"--they learned to call it "Ash" from the natives, but they did not know what it meant. They knew that there was a spring of water there, which they called a "well"; and so, to distinguish it from other wells in the neighbourhood, they got into the habit of calling it "Ashwell"--and the name has stuck to the place. In North America, in Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa there are many instances of English names being grafted on to original native names, and often you find places with well-known English names and others with picturesque and descriptive native names almost side by side. In some such way as this many other place-names, partly British and partly Saxon, were formed; and they teach us this--that Saxons and Britons must have lived near each other closely enough for the Saxons to take up and use some British names.