by the recovery of them after a gap; by the discoveries which local
archaeology has made.

Different men have different pastimes, and I dare say that most of those
who read this will wonder that such a search should be a pastime for any
man, but I confess it is a pastime for me. To discover these things, to
recreate them, to dig out on foot the base upon which two thousand years
of history repose, is the most fascinating kind of travel.

And then, the number of them! You may take an oblong of country with
Maubeuge at one corner, Pontoise at another, Yvetot and some frontier
town such as Fumes for the other two corners, and in that stretch of
country a hundred and fifty miles by perhaps two hundred, you can build
up a scheme of Roman ways almost as complete as the scheme of the great
roads to-day.

That one which most immediately strikes the eye is the great line which
darts upon Rouen from Paris.

Twice broken at the crossing of the river valleys, and lost altogether
in the last twelve miles before the capital of Normandy, it still stands
on the modern map a great modern road with every aspect of purpose and
of intention in its going.

From Amiens again they radiate out, these roads, some, like the way to
Cambray, in use every mile; some, like the old marching road to the sea,
to the Portus Itius, to Boulogne, a mere lane often wholly lost and
never used as a great modern road. This was the way along which the
French feudal cavalry trailed to the disaster of Crecy, and just beyond
Crecy it goes and loses itself in that exasperating but fascinating