been Derventione, and Whitby, or some spot in Dunsley Bay, would have been
Prætorio, but at the present time there is not sufficient data for fixing
these names with any certainty. It has also been supposed by General
Roy[2] that Cawthorne was occupied by the famous 9th legion after they had
left Scotland, owing to the similarity of construction between the most
westerly camp at Cawthorne and the one at Dealgin Ross in Strathern, where
the 9th legion were supposed to have had their narrow escape from defeat
by the Caledonians during Agricola's sixth campaign. But this also is
somewhat a matter of speculation.

[Footnote 1: Tacitus, the Oxford Translation, revised 1854, vol. 1, book
xii. pp. 288-90.]

[Footnote 2: Roy, Major Gen. William: "The Military Antiquities of the
Romans in Britain," 1793, Plate xi.]

[Illustration: A Sketch Map of the Roman Road from Malton to the Coast,
and a Plan of the Camps on the Road at Cawthorne. (_From the Ordnance
Survey_.)]

Coming to the firmer ground of the actual remains of the Roman roads and
camps, we find that traces of a well-constructed road, locally known as
Wade's Causeway, have been discovered at various points on a line drawn
from Malton to Cawthorne and Whitby. Some of these sections of the road
have disappeared since Francis Drake described them in 1736,[2] and at the
present time the work of destruction continues at intervals when a farmer,
converting a few more acres of heather into potatoes, has the ill-luck to
strike the roadway.

[Footnote 2: Drake, Francis: "Eboracum," p. 36.]