of the Welsh people, who as a matter of fact, style themselves “Cymru.” A curious point to be noted is that this is by no means the only “Watling Street.” The name is found repeatedly in this country, applied locally to ancient Roman roads; but _the_ Watling Street prominent above all others is this great way, which traversed Britain from its extreme south-eastern verge, over against Gaul, diagonally in a north-westerly direction for 340 miles, until it touched the sea at Carnarvon and Chester. From the three great fortified starting-points at _Dubris_, _Portus Lemanis_, and _Portus Rutupis_—severally identified with Dover, Lympne, and Richborough—it ran in triplicate to Canterbury, and thence, chiefly along the existing Dover Road, to London. By way of that thoroughfare still known as Watling Street, it traversed the City and emerged at Newgate through the city wall, and so into what were then swampy wildernesses on the line of the present Holborn and Oxford Street. At the Marble Arch it turned abruptly to the right, and thence went in a straight line along the course of the Edgware Road to the great city of _Verulamium_, adjoining the St. Albans of our own day. From this point the Watling Street and the Holyhead Road are practically identical so far as Weedon Beck. Dunstable marks the site of the Roman market-town of _Forum Dianæ_, or _Durocobrivæ_, as it was also named; and Stony Stratford by its name proclaims its situation on the old route. It was the Roman “_Magiovintum_.” Towcester was the “_Lactodorum_” of the Itinerary. At Weedon the ancient road and the modern part company for 71½ miles, to meet again at Ketley railway-station, between Oakengates and Wellington. XXX It is this stretch of 75¼ miles that will now be explored. Bid farewell, traveller who would trace the Roman way, to the company of your fellow-men, for this is no frequented route, and towns and villages are few along its course. It begins by climbing out of Weedon and up to a gate, where those who will may trace it across a field. For those others who will not, an ancient divergence, forming a kind of elbow, preserves the continuity of roadway and brings the route over the Grand Junction Canal to Welford Station and Watford Gap, where the old route of the London and Coventry coach from Northampton to Hillmorton and Coventry, travelled by Dugdale in the seventeenth century, crosses this Roman way. The “New Inn” mentioned by him still stands here, but is now a farmhouse. The name of “Gap,” as applied to cross-roads, is very ancient. Curiously enough, a “Watford Gap” is to be found in Staffordshire, on the Birmingham and Lichfield Road.