194 AN ENGLISH SHIRE. 



Here, again, we see the natural result of the isolation of 

 Sussex. The Eomans ruled directly in the open plains 

 of the Yorkshire Ouse and the Thames, as we ourselves 

 rule in the Bengal Delta, the Doab, and the Punjab ; but 

 they left a measure of independence to the native princes 

 of south Wales, of Sussex, and of Cornwall, as we our- 

 selves do to the native rulers in the deserts of Rajputana, 

 the inaccessible mountains of Nipal, and the aboriginal 

 hill districts of Central India. 



When the Roman power began to decay, the outlying 

 possessions were the first to be given up. The Romans 

 had enslaved and demoralised the provincial population ; 

 and when they were gone, the great farms tilled by slave 

 labour under the direction of Roman mortgagee-proprie- 

 tors lay open to the attacks of fresh and warlike barbarians 

 from beyond the sea. How early the fertile east coasts 

 of Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, and East Anglia may have 

 fallen a prey to the Teutonic pirates we cannot say. 

 The wretched legends, indeed, retailed to us by Gildas, 

 Baeda, and the English Chronicle, would have us believe 

 that they were colonised at a later period ; but as they 

 lay directly in the path of the marauders from Sleswick, 

 as they were certainly Teutonised very thoroughly, and 

 as no real records survive, we may well take it for granted 

 that the long-boats of the English, sailing down with the 

 prevalent north-east winds from the wicks of Demmark, 

 came first to shore on these fertile coasts. After they 

 had been conquered and colonised, the Saxon and Jutish 

 freebooters began to look for settlements, on their part, 

 farther south. One horde, led, as the legend veraciously 

 assures us, by Hengest and Horsa, landed in Thanet ; 



