Even _roads_, of considerable length and width, appear to have been made by the same people in this new recovered and marshy country, constructed of gravel of no small depth and breadth, and formed in a most masterly manner: of which that leading from _Denver_ to _Peterborough_, or rather, perhaps, to _Castor_, or _Caister_ in Northamptonshire, is a most remarkable, and very striking instance. This road, according to _Dugdale_ (as has been already observed in the _Introduction_) was composed of gravel, three feet deep, and sixty wide: at present, it is said to be covered with a moorish soil, from three to five feet thick. The constructing of such a road, and carrying it for so many miles, through a country almost totally destitute of gravel, stone, or any other materials proper for road-making, which must therefore have been procured from a vast distance, and with immense labour and difficulty, must have been a very extraordinary and stupendous achievement. In comparison with which, how puny are the efforts and performances of our modern adventurers, or commissioners of roads, in this flat country! A proof of this we have in the great Turnpike Road that leads from _St. German’s_ to _Wisbeach_, where attempts have been making now for some years to cover it with gravel, but hitherto with no very great effect. At any rate, it must appear, that those ancient Colonists, introduced by the Romans, for the purpose of recovering and improving this great fen-country, were eminently qualified for the work in which they were employed, and ought to be still held in grateful remembrance by the good people of England, especially those of Marshland and the Fens, and esteemed among their very best benefactors.—The merit of those works and improvements, however, should not be _all_ ascribed to them: the _Romans_, who introduced, employed, and maintained them, and who projected the undertaking, should be allowed some share of it. Nor are the _natives_, or Britons, who laboriously, powerfully, and effectually assisted in carrying on those works and improvements, to be entirely overlooked or forgotten on this occasion. The latter are said to have borne so large a share in those laborious undertakings, as to occasion very serious complaints and remonstrances from some of their countrymen to, and against the Romans, as having cruelly exhausted their strength, by the excessive hardships and fatigues they had been obliged to undergo in that service. Nor is this at all incredible; for the Romans are known to have been often very unfeeling, severe, and cruel task-masters to the nations they had subdued. If the country was improved it was always at the expense of the sweat and treasure, and not unfrequently of the groans and lives of its inhabitants.