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Läsebok. N:o 94—95.
87
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
•
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for an v fate;
1/ ’
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labour and to wait.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
Stories of the Earlier History of England.
a) 88. The Invasion of Britain by Julius Cæsar.
The first inhabitants of Britain were a race of savage
barbarians, who had neither king, laws, nor government of
any kind. They dwelt in huts, and were clothed with the
skins of wild beasts, with which the country abounded. Their
chief occupations were hunting and fishing; or, in the
southern parts of the island, cultivating the ground and tending
their cattle. About fifty years before the birth of Christ,
Julius Cæsar, after having conquered all France, then called
Gaul, came over the narrow sea that separates England from
that country, and landed, it is supposed, at Deal. The
inhabitants, who had received notice of his intention, were quite
ready to meet him, and several battles were fought without
much advantage to either side, until, as winter was
approaching, Cæsar was obliged to take his army back to France;
the next summer he came over again with a much greater
force, and the poor Britons were conquered in two or three
battles. As Cæsar advanced farther into the country, he
found more resistance, and so little to feed his numerous
army with, that, at last, he abandoned the enterprise and left
the kingdom. About a hundred years after this retreat, the
Romans again invaded Britain, and defeated the inhabitants
in several battles. One must not be surprised at this, for
the Roman soldiers were trained to fighting from their
childhood; and few nations ever withstood the progress of their
arms! A numerous army of Britons, under the command of
Caractacus, still opposed them, and a very severe battle was
fought, when the British chief was defeated, and, with his
wife and children, sent captive to Rome, where they were all
made to walk through the streets, loaded with chains, while
the emperor and the people were assembled to look at them,
as if they had been so many wild beasts. Caractacus behaved
very nobly, even in this condition, and made such a moving
speech to the emperor, that he immediately ordered his
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