were far from being mere savages. They were corn-growers (wheat,
barley, and millet being amongst their crops), and also cultivated
"roots," fruit trees, and other vegetables. What specially struck him
was that, "for lack of clear sunshine[22]," they threshed out their
corn, not in open threshing-floors, as in Mediterranean lands, but in
barns.

E. 2.--From other sources we know that these old British farmers were
sufficiently scientific agriculturalists to have invented _wheeled_
ploughs,[23] and to use a variety of manures; various kinds of
mast, loam, and chalk in particular. This treatment of the soil was,
according to Pliny, a British invention[24] (though the Greeks of
Megara had also tried it), and he thinks it worth his while to give
a long description of the different clays in use and the methods of
their application. That most generally employed was chalk dug out from
pits some hundred feet in depth, narrow at the mouth, but widening
towards the bottom. [_Petitur ex alto, in centenos pedes actis
plerumque puteis, ore angustatis; intus spatiante vena_.]

E. 3.--Here we have an exact picture of those mysterious excavations
some of which still survive to puzzle antiquaries under the name of
_Dene Holes_. They are found in various localities; Kent, Surrey, and
Essex being the richest. In Hangman's Wood, near Grays, in Essex,
a small copse some four acres in extent, there are no fewer than
seventy-two Dene Holes, as close together as possible, their entrance
shafts being not above twenty yards apart. These shafts run vertically
downwards, till the floor of the pit is from eighty to a hundred feet
below the surface of the ground. At the bottom the shaft widens out
into a vaulted chamber some thirty feet across, from which radiate
four, five, or even six lateral crypts, whose dimensions are usually