power to construct and to do--underneath all that is the foundation on
which Europe is built, the stem from which Europe springs; and that stem
is far, far older than any recorded history, and far, far more vital
than any of the phenomena which recorded history presents.

Recorded history for this island and for Northern France and for the
Rhine Valley is a matter of two thousand years; for the Western
Mediterranean of three; but the things of which I speak are to be
reckoned in tens of thousands of years. Their interest does not lie only
nor even chiefly in things that have disappeared. It is indeed a great
pleasure to rummage in the earth and find polished stones wrought by men
who came so many centuries before us, and of whose blood we certainly
are; and it is a great pleasure to find, or to guess that we find, under
Canterbury the piles of a lake or marsh dwelling, proving that
Canterbury has been there from all time; and that the apparently
defenceless Valley City was once chosen as an impregnable site, when the
water-meadows of the Stour were impassable as marsh, or with difficulty
passable as a shallow lagoon. And it is delightful to stand on the
earthwork a few miles west and to say to oneself (as one can say with a
fair certitude), "Here was the British camp defending the south-east;
here the tenth legion charged." All these are pleasant, but more
pleasant, I think, to follow the thing where it actually survives.

Consider the track-ways, for instance. How rich is England in these! No
other part of Europe will afford the traveller so permanent and so
fascinating a problem. Elsewhere Rome hardened and straightened every
barbaric trail until the original line and level disappeared; but in
this distant province of Britain she could only afford just so much
energy as made them a foothold for her soldiery; and all over England
you can go, if you choose, foot by foot, along the ancient roads that