THE HUMAN SPECIES. 63 



Farther west is the Roompot estuary, where another 

 Roman fastness is supposed to have existed on the 

 sand bank facing Ter Veer, in the East Scheldt ; and 

 Romerswal, another fortress of the same people, was 

 also a small town, on a bank in the West Scheldt, op- 

 posite Bergen-op-Zoom, where we have seen remains 

 of brick walls, covered with sea-weed and muscles. So 

 late as 1606, the Hock of Holland, Goeree, and other 

 parts of the coast, were invaded and swept away ; and, 

 at this day, West Capelle, in Walcheren, after similar 

 devastations, is defended by rows of piles, which occur 

 again at Blankenberg, and even at Ostend. 



It was here, amidst the multitude of low woody 

 islands, formed by the confluence of the Scheldt, 

 Dender, Lys, Nethe, and Meuse, called the Paludes 

 Morinorum, that places of safety existed, whither the 

 inhabitants retreated out of the reach of Caesar's legions. 

 In the middle ages, all this region was still encumbered 

 with swamps and water channels, which extended up to 

 St. Omers or Sethon, * communicated with the sea at 

 Calais and Dunkirk, until the emperor Otho, about the 

 year 980, caused a canal to be dug from the Scheldt to 

 the Hondt, which gradually drained the upland, and 

 now constitutes the Western Scheldt. Persevering 

 cultivation, sustained by manufacturing riches, alone 



* Sethon, Portus St. Aumeri, now St. Omers, was still a 

 sea port ; that is, had a channel opening to the sea, in 1156, 

 as appears by a charter of Louis VII. Compare Caesar de 

 B. G. lib. iv., with St. Paulin Epist. ad Victru, who wrote 

 in the fourth century. 



