a people rather timidly learning from their Phoenician visitors. The
great citadel at Maiden Castle belonged to a still earlier time, when
men lived in a way which rendered trade a very superfluous thing.

Modern Dorchester is a delightful, one might almost say a lovable,
town, so bright and cheery are its streets, so countrified its air.
But it is probably true that nearly every one is disappointed with it
at their first visit. Historical towns are written of, and written up,
until the stranger's mind pictures a sort of Nuremburg. Dorchester is
a placid Georgian agricultural centre. In fact there is very little
that antedates the seventeenth century and yet, for all that, it is
one of the most interesting towns in the south. Its loss of the
antique is due to more than one disastrous fire that swept nearly
everything away. It is when the foundations of a new house are being
dug that the past of Dorchester comes to light and another addition is
made to the rich store in the museum. Describing "Casterbridge" Hardy
says: "It is impossible to dig more than a foot or two deep about the
town fields or gardens without coming upon some tall soldier or other
of the Empire who had lain there in his silent unobtrusive rest for a
space of fifteen hundred years." It is needless to say that
"Casterbridge" and the town here briefly described are identical. To
the limits laid down by the Roman, Dorchester has kept true through
the ages, and until quite lately the town terminated with a pleasant
abruptness at the famous "Walks" that mark the positions of the Roman
Walls. The so-called Roman road, the "Via Iceniana," Roman only in the
improvement and straightening of a far older track, passed through the
town. This was once the highway between that mysterious and wonderful
district in Wiltshire, of which Stonehenge is the most outstanding
monument, and the largest prehistoric stronghold in England--the Mai
dun--"the strong hill," south of Dorchester.