interruption due to the clay made itself felt again, and only the railway and great increase of population have been able between them to restore direct and frequent communication between the Thames valley and this part of the southern coast. FOOTNOTE: [1] Our shires were _probably_ originally British, and later Roman, divisions. CHAPTER XI THE MAKING OF THE ROMAN ROAD _The Great Initiative: The Mark of the Roman Military Engineer: The Theory and Practice of the Straight Line: Modifications of the Straight Line: How it was Carried Out: The Method of Odds and Evens._ i The making of the great Roman roads was the one great initiative in the story of English communications: it originated all that followed, and there was no new real development, no essentially new departure between the planning of that military scheme and the coming of the railway. It can only be compared to what the future may have to show if we find ourselves able to reform our roads as they should be reformed for the new conditions of modern travel, and even this change would not be anything like as great as the change made by the throwing of those great highways to stand for ever across a country which had hitherto been half barbarous. The Roman Road had a structure and character of its own which it has retained to the present day, so that even where it was only the straightening and the strengthening of an old trackway upon which it was founded it would follow the mark of the Roman engineers throughout all that remained of its course. It was essentially a piece of _building_, and in this the Roman Road differed from every other form of communication before the modern railways. It had to be of this kind on account of two things which the Roman military engineers particularly desired to serve, both of them connected with the military character of the west. First, they wanted a platform, raised, as a rule, above the surrounding country, so that troops passing along it should be the less liable to attack: so that a view could be had from it over the immediate surroundings, which were cleared: and so that any sudden stroke against a marching column could be checked. The raising of the way had other objects, of course--it kept the surface dry, for instance--but the main object was that of security upon the march, and the same object was one of the reasons for making the roads as a rule in straight lengths or limbs, sometimes two, three, or even four days’ march in extent. A road was planned without windings, so as to be safer from ambush and surprise, and where it had coupled to its straightness its elevation above the surrounding country the chance of ambush or surprise was almost eliminated. [Illustration: _Part II_, Sketch IV, _The_ ROMAN ROAD SCHEME]