and secured, rewarded the industry and ingenuity of the inhabitants with abundant crops. The Roman conquerors, with amazing difficulty, had driven one of their military roads[51] through the heart of the country; but this noble causeway was an undeviating straight line, without any branches or cross roads springing from it; and it was so flanked in nearly its whole extent by meres, pools, rivers, rivulets, swamps, and willow forests, that a movement to the one side or the other was almost impracticable, unless the Romans, or those who succeeded the conquerors in the use of the causeway, embarked in boats and travelled like the natives of the country. In all times it had been a land of refuge against invaders. In the days of Rome the ancient Britons rallied here, and made a good stand after all the rest of England had been subdued. Again, when Rome was falling fast to ruin, and the legions of the empire had left the Britons to take care of themselves, that people assembled here in great numbers to resist the fierce Saxon invaders. Again, when the Saxons were assailed by the Danes and Norwegians, and the whole host of Scandinavian rovers and pirates, the indwellers of the Isle of Ely, after enjoying a long exemption from the havoc of war and invasion, defied the bloody Dane, and maintained a long contest with him; and now, as at earlier periods, and as at a later date, the isle of Ely became a place of refuge to many of the people of the upland country, and of other and more open parts of England, where it had not been found possible to resist the Danish battle-axes. The traditions of the ancient Britons had passed away with that unhappy and extinct race; but the whole fenny country was full of Saxon traditions, and stories of the days of trouble when war raged over the isle, and the fierce Danes found their way up the rivers, which opened upon the sea, into the very heart of the country. The saints and martyrs of the district were chiefly brave Saxons who had fought the Danes in many battles, and who had fallen at last under the swords of the unconverted heathen. The miracles that were wrought in the land of many waters were for the most part wrought at the tombs of these Saxon warriors. The legends of patriotism were blended with the legends and rites of religion. Every church had its patriot saint and martyr; in every religious house the monks related the prowess, and chanted daily requiems, and said frequent masses to the soul of some great Saxon warrior who had fallen in battle; or to some fair Saxon maid or matron, who had preferred torture and death to a union with a pagan; or to some Saxon queen or princess, who, long before the coming of the Danes, and at the first preaching of the Gospel among the Saxons by Saint Augustine and his blessed followers, had renounced a throne and all the grandeurs and pleasures of the world, and all her riches, (_relictis fortunis omnibus!_) to devote herself to the service of