15. As to furniture, a few stools or blocks of wood to sit upon, some wooden bowls and wicker baskets to hold their food, with a few jars and pans of coarse earthenware, were all the things they used; for they slept on the ground on skins, spread upon dried leaves, and fern, or heath. Their bows and arrows, shields, spears, and other weapons, were hung round the insides of their huts. 16. The Britons were not quite ignorant of the art of working in metals; for there was a class of men living among them who understood many useful arts, and were learned, too, for those times, although they did not communicate their learning to the rest of the people. 17. These men were the Druids, or priests, who had much more authority than the chiefs, because they were so much cleverer; therefore the people minded what they said. 18. They made all the laws, and held courts of justice in the open air, when they must have made a very venerable appearance, seated in a circle on stones, dressed in long white woollen robes, with wands in their hands, and long beards descending below their girdles. 19. The ignorant people believed they were magicians, for they knew something of astronomy, and of the medicinal qualities of plants and herbs, with which they made medicines to give the sick, who always thought they were cured by magic. 20. Some of the Druids were bards, that is poets, and musicians; others taught young men to become Druids; and some of them made a great many useful things out of the metals that were found in the mines. 21. You will perhaps wonder where the Druids gained all their knowledge. I cannot tell you; but many learned men think that the first Druids came from India or Persia, as the religion they taught was very similar to that of the Persians and Hindoos. 22. They did not believe in the true God, but told the people there were many gods, and that they were in trees and rivers, and fire, which they worshipped for that reason. 23. They had no churches, but made temples, by forming circles of large stones, of such immense size that nobody can guess how they were carried to the places where they stood, for there are some of them still remaining. 24. They used to hold several religious festivals in the course of the year, when all the people made holiday, and the bards played on their harps and sang, and there was plenty of feasting, and merry making; and they used to light bonfires, and make an illumination by running about with torches in their hands, for they believed that a display of fire was pleasing to their gods; and so you see that our custom of having fireworks, and illuminations, and bonfires, on days of public rejoicing, is as old as the time of the ancient Britons.