45 
To the Romans, however, we owe the introduction of the 
sheep, and of the edible snail ; of the vine and the cherry-tree ; in 
fact, of nearly all our fruit trees, except the gooseberry, the currant, 
and the raspberry, which were introduced later. To the Romans 
we, in the north, probably owe the establishment of the three great 
cattle fairs of Stagshaw-bank, of Brough Hill, and of Rosley ; but 
no vestige of the Roman tongue can be found in the English 
language, but what is known to come through other channels. 
The Roman Wall itself is a monument of ages which have 
utterly passed away: a monument which might almost be said to 
have been already an antiquity when the first Englishman gazed 
on it in wonder. Whatever part the great Wall played in history 
in days when strife within this island was still a strife between Celt 
and Roman, it has played no part since English history began ; 
it has not even, like many meaner works, served as a political 
boundary. The wall is the monument of a past which has utterly 
vanished ; a monument of the fortunes of those who came before 
us in the possession of the land which is now ours. 
But if the Roman Wall was so early played out, and made a 
mere piece of antiquity for Englishmen to wonder at, it has been 
quite otherwise with that great network of roads which the Romans 
made in this island ; for I believe that until the four-in-hand mail 
and the yellow post chaise were superseded by the iron horse, the 
main arteries of traffic followed by those mails and post chaises 
were identical with those routes along which the Roman armies 
marched, as for instance—the posting road from York to Carlisle. 
I believe that a great number of our local cross country roads 
are laid on Roman bottoms, and follow Roman lines. Until 1750, 
the packhorse traffic between Carlisle and Newcastle followed the 
old Roman road known as the Carelgate, or Stonegate. The 
packhorse traffic from Kendal to the north went over High Street, 
an undoubted Roman road. 
Naturally, from their proximity to a district bitterly hostile to 
Roman rule, the Roman garrisons on the Wall were maintained to 
the latest period of the Roman dominion: it is doubtful if they 
were then withdrawn. The legions themselves were withdrawn, 
