CHAPTER XYIII. 



THE ANGLESEA CATTLE. 



By MOEGAK EVANS. 



SLANDS always had a peculiar fascination to aggres- 

 sive people bent on conquest ; islands also generally 

 breed heroic men, and possess a distinct fauna. The 

 Isle of Anglesea is famous as the scene of frequent 

 invasions, and as the home of an ancient breed of cattle. Soon 

 after the Eoman general Suetonius Paulinus had supreme 

 authority in Britain, a.d. 58, he pushed his forces on to sub- 

 jugate this little island spot of but 173,000 acres, or about 

 270 square miles. His troops, it is said, swam across the 

 straits to Mona, as the black cattle imported therefrom 

 periodically swam hitherward during nearly eighteen centuries 

 after. The island was again attacked in the same century 

 under the direction of Julius Agricola, who was sent by the 

 Emperor Vespasian to command the forces in Britain in 78. 

 Besides the numerous affrays between Welsh princes, who 

 appear to have had a faculty for fighting with their kith and 

 kin, and amongst other, incursions of its enemies, the Danes in 

 900, and again in 969, landed there and made great havoc ; 

 and in 913 and 966 the Irish, with their peculiar instinct of 

 practising home rule by entering into quarrels with their neigh- 

 bours, laid the place waste with great cruelty. In 1096 it fell 

 a prey to English troops under the Earl of Chester and the 

 Earl of Shrewsbury. Henry III. invaded Wales in 1245, and 

 made a tool of his judiciary in Ireland to attack Anglesea, but, 

 not coming quickly to the support of his minion, the Irish 

 forces were assailed and driven back to their ships. Edward I., 



