Such is the external appearance of this camp, which, seen from the sea,
or on the approach either by the west or south, cannot fail to strike
from the boldness of its position; but the effect of the interior is
still more striking; for here, while on one side the horizon is lost in
the immensity of the ocean, on the other two the view is narrowly
circumscribed by the lofty bulwark, at whose feet are almost every where
discernible the remains of the trenches I have already noticed, more
than thirty feet in width. Nor is this the only remarkable circumstance;
for it is still more unaccountable to observe, extending nearly across
the encampment, the traces of an ancient fosse not less than one hundred
and fifty feet wide, and, though in most places shallow, terminating
towards the sea in a deep ravine. Internally the camp appears to have
been also divided into three parts, in one of which it has been
supposed, from a heap of stones which till lately remained, that there
was originally a place of greater strength; while in another,
distinguished by some irregular elevations, it is conjectured that there
was a wall, the defence probably to the keep.

[Illustration: Plan of Cæsar's Camp, near Dieppe]

But I must tell you that these conjectures are none of my own, nor could
I have had any opportunity of making them; the stones and the hillocks
having disappeared before the operations of the plough. Such as they
are, I have borrowed them from a dissertation by the Abbé de
Fontenu[15], a copy of whose engraving of the place I insert. Indebted
as I am to him for his hints, I can, however, by no means subscribe to
his reasoning, by which he labors with great erudition to prove that,
neither the popular tradition which ascribes this camp to Cæsar, nor
its name, evidently Roman, nor some coins and medals of the same nation