DISTRIBUTION OF THE PEOPLE. 221 



In studying British urns we soon perceive two varieties of this 

 bascaudal style, if we may so term it. In the coarser ware there 

 is one broad encircling band, in the upper part, which is made 

 so as to be prominent over the lower part of the vessel perhaps 

 for the facility of handling. The ornamental strokes on these 

 urns are very rudely arranged, often vertical in the band, and in 

 herring-bone fashion elsewhere ; the upper edge is flattened so 

 as to bear a wreath of short oblique lines. The substance is 

 coarsely tempered. The other variety is exemplified in smaller 

 and handsomer vessels of thinner substance, better tempered, 

 more reddened by fire, with more numerous belts and lines of 

 strokes, and a greater freedom and undulation of contour. These 

 do not appear to have had the benefit of the wheel, but it would 

 seem as if some better models had been before the workman. 

 Were they of later date ? Were they Romano-British ? They 

 are least rare in the district near Malton, being found both on 

 the Wolds and the Pickering hills*, a district where good brick- 

 earth is to be had in many places. These vessels have been 

 found in the tumuli empty. Were they frumentaria ? 



A rare shape of this pottery is a low, smooth spheroidal cup, 

 like a saltcellar, made very thick of a coarse clay. 



Neither jet nor amber-ornaments are common in our north- 

 ern tumuli, except they be of Anglo-Saxon date, a circumstance 

 which agrees with the ornament assigned to Hengist in the 

 ' Gododin ' the huge amber beads round the neck of the 

 ' freckled chief ' t- 



DISTRIBUTION OF THE PEOPLE. 



Cities, properly so called, are first mentioned in Britain by 

 Tacitus ; and he notices only three, all in the south of the 

 island, perhaps all founded by the Romans, viz. Camalodunum, 

 Londinium, and Verulamium. Ptolemy recounts no less than 



* The tumuli of this vicinity have been successfully explored by Mr. 

 Kendall. 

 f Davies's Mythology of the British Druids. 



