226 THE BRONZE AXE. 



any large quantities can be procured namely, Cornwall 

 and the Malay Archipelago. The very existence of 

 bronze, therefore, necessarily implies the existence of a 

 sea-going trade in tin, for which some corresponding 

 benefits must of course have been offered by the early 

 purchaser. As a matter of fact, we know with some 

 probability that it was Cornish tin which first tempted 

 the Phoenicians out of the inland sea, past the Pillars of 

 Hercules, to brave the terrors of the open Atlantic. 

 Long before the days of such advanced navigation, how- 

 ever, the Cornish tin was transported by land across the 

 whole breadth of Southern Britain and shipped for the 

 Continent from the Isle of Thanet. A very old track- 

 way runs along the crest of the Downs from the West 

 Country to Kent, known now as the Pilgrim's Way, 

 because it was followed in far later times by mediaeval 

 wayfarers from Somerset and Dorset to the shrine of St. 

 Thomas a Becket at Canterbury. But Mr. Charles 

 Elton has shown conclusively that the Pilgrim's Way is 

 many centuries more ancient than the martyr of King 

 Henry's epoch, and that it was used in the Bronze Age 

 for the transport of tin from the mines in Cornwall to 

 the port of Sandwich. To this day antique ingots of 

 the valuable metal are often dug up in hoards or finds 

 along the line of the ancient track. They were evidently 

 buried there in fear and trembling, long ages since, in 

 what Indian voyageurs still call a cache, by caravans 

 hurriedly surprised by the enemy ; and owing to the 

 unfortunate accident of the possessors all getting killed 

 off in the ensuing fray, the ingots have been left undis- 

 turbed for centuries for the benefit of antiquaries at the 



